The Big Picture

The holiday special encompasses a wide range of music, from classic and traditional to smooth and rock and roll, showcasing Hannah Waddingham’s vocal versatility. Filming at the London Coliseum was a personal and magical experience for Waddingham, as she grew up in that building and wanted to highlight the theater’s beauty. Waddingham’s duet with Leslie Odom Jr. was a special moment for her and her daughter, who is a big fan of Hamilton, and she aimed to create an emotional arc throughout the entire show with carefully chosen songs and guests.

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas.]

Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham brings her stunning voice and undeniably charming personality together in all the best ways for her Apple TV+ holiday musical special Home for Christmas, seamlessly blending song-and-dance numbers with humorous skits while pulling on emotional heartstrings throughout. Between the setting of the London Coliseum, the impressively sparkly Christmas tree on stage and a wardrobe to die for, Waddingham has chosen the perfect collection of tunes that cover everything from smooth and sexy to classic and traditional to rock and roll.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Waddingham talked about her deliberate choices in song selection, her family connection to the London Coliseum, the duet her daughter specifically chose, merging her theater world with her Ted Lasso family, and how that hot tub moment came about. She also revealed how her viral “Shallow” duet with Jason Sudeikis came about, and why she’s excited for fans to see her in The Fall Guy, alongside Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas Release Date November 22, 2023 Director Hamish Hamilton Cast Hannah Waddingham, Phil Dunster, Luke Evans, Leslie Odom Jr. Main Genre Holiday Filming Locations London Coliseum

Collider: What’s it like to have your own Festive Extravaganza?

HANNAH WADDINGHAM: God, it is the most beautiful camp gift on the planet.

Image via Apple TV+

Why Song Selection Was So Important
I love how this special encompasses every aspect of holiday music from classic and traditional to smooth and sexy to even a little bit of rock and roll. Was it important to you to really include the whole spectrum, in that way?

WADDINGHAM: Yeah because that is always what I’ve been known for vocally, not any one thing. My whole life as a musical theater performer, it got to the point where I didn’t even know what my vocal quality was because I would always be putting my voice into a different character, so I needed to make sure that every song I chose was different with a slightly different direction. So, we have “The Man with the Bag,” which is much more old school big band. Then, we have the song with Leslie Odom Jr., which like you said, is extremely smooth. And then, you have things like “Run Rudolph Run” with Sam Ryder, that’s properly rocking out. And that’s just after the song “O Holy Night,” which is one of the most beautiful traditional Christmas songs there is.

Yeah, you got me a little teary-eyed with that one.

WADDINGHAM: Good!

How was the experience of doing this special in the London Coliseum? It’s absolutely gorgeous and historic. What does that add to the atmosphere, and what is it like to also have a personal connection with all of it? The whole story was magical.

WADDINGHAM: It’s insane. Isn’t it just an insane thing that I grew up in that building? When we were putting this together and editing it, my role as executive producer, I must have been driving them mad. I was like, “Can we have another shot of the auditorium, please?” I’m in love with that theater and I’m so glad to put it on such a global scale because the London Coliseum and the English National Opera are not in a good place, and I wanted to highlight that as well. It is the most glorious theater, the Frank Matcham Theater. It is a massive space, but also beautifully intimate. The English National Opera Chorus, hearing that I was doing it, offered themselves up to come and sing with me because so many of them are still there from when my mother was there, and to have my mom at the back of the auditorium watching, were real pinch me moments.

Image via Apple TV+

Which Guest Her Daughter Wanted to Meet
Between your mother being there and your daughter being there, did either of them get to make any song suggestions?

WADDINGHAM: Yes, my daughter made a suggestion of one of my guests, and that is Leslie Odom Jr. I could barely finish my sentence saying to her, “You choose a guest for mummy.” She was like, “Mummy, please have Leslie Odom Jr., and can I meet him afterwards?” She’s obsessed. She’s nine now, and she literally knows the first 30 minutes of Hamilton verbatim. So, having him there, she just found that jaw-dropping. So did I.

How did each of you feel about that duet? What was her reaction to that duet, and what was it like for you to share that moment with him?

WADDINGHAM: Oh, I was definitely a secondary person in her eyes, just then. I love the fact that every song that we’d chosen – myself and my musical supervisor, Dave Tench – were all very carefully curated for what suited my voice and what suited the artist’s voice. I didn’t want it to be about, “Oh, look, she’s got someone famous joining her on stage because she’s been afforded this platform.” It needed to be the right person at the right moment, emotionally. There needed to be an emotional arc through the entire show. I wanted to let people know that Luke Evans and I have known each other for 20 years from theater. It’s not just, “Oh, I met you at a celebrity party.” I didn’t want there to be a whiff anywhere of people going, “Oh, she’s changed.”

Image via Apple TV+

How That Viral “Shallow” Duet Came About
Thank you also for blessing us all by doing a duet of “Shallow” with Jason Sudeikis recently. Whose idea was that duet? Did you just have that song in your back pocket, or did you actually have time to prepare for that?

WADDINGHAM: It was actually my idea, but only because, by default, we were gonna be doing a different song. And then, two days before, myself and Billy Brimblecom, who’s the actual main frontman for the Steps of Faith charity organization that we were there for, raising money for amputees who have no health insurance. He was just like, “Jason is saying that it’s probably a bit too high for him.” I was saying that the song we’d chosen was a bit too low for me. And I was just like, “Well, he’s sung ‘Shallow’ with Will Forte, hasn’t he? Maybe we just do that and get it out there in a different way. And thank God we did because honestly the money we have raised that night – myself and Jason and Brendan Hunt, Will Forte, Sam Richardson, Nathaniel Rateliff – absolutely surpassed anything they could have imagined. So, I am here for all the viralness. That’s a technical term for all the viral enjoyment of that. Since then, they’ve raised even more tens of thousands of dollars in merch because of that video.

I have to say that there is no more highly anticipated upcoming movie for me than The Fall Guy. The trailer is absolute fire. What are you most excited about with that movie? Is it everything that the trailer promises it will be, or are there some surprises?

WADDINGHAM: It is a million miles more than the trailer, and that’s saying something, isn’t it? And I can’t wait for people to see me absolutely unrecognizable. It’s gonna be a “Wait, what?!” moment. And I might have fallen a little bit in love with both Emily [Blunt] and Ryan [Gosling]. They are epic.

Whose idea was it to have Brett Goldstein hanging out in your dressing room in a hot tub? Are you going to make sure you have a hot tub now in every dressing room, with people handing you champagne?

WADDINGHAM: I feel like that’s the only way you should go. His idea was the hot tub. My idea was me getting in, fully dressed in my dress, for which my stylist, James Yardley, nearly spat out his tea. He went, “Wait, hold on a minute, do you mean your beautiful red velvet gown with the two-meter train?” I was like, “Yes, that one!” But it works, doesn’t it? So, Brett and I put together that scene, Juno [Temple] and I put together her scene, and Jason [Sudeikis] and I worked out the last bit. I had to have him in because he’s the reason that theater world and my new TV recognition has all come together.

Taking Inspiration from Carol Burnett
It was all perfection, as was the song-and-dance number with Phil Dunster. What did you most enjoy about getting to do that? I think that will be a real surprise for a lot of people.

WADDINGHAM: I think so. It was very important to me to have a new great pal, in Phil Dunster, and I wanted to showcase his beautiful voice, which is really a very beautiful voice, and a beautiful soul that he is, too. To be able to work that in with two of my great loves in my own life, Scott Baker and Patrick Davey, as the Fabulous Lounge Swingers, who are also my daughter’s godfathers, I wanted to have all of them together. Myself and my team, we all thought, “Well, is there a way to make it look like that old school Carol Burnett thing of making it look like he’s just come up from the audience, and we just hunker down and get together? And it could be a song that the cameras weren’t even on.” So, it was really lovely to bring those two worlds together.

Everything about this, from start to finish, was just absolute perfection. I loved every second of it.

WADDINGHAM: Thank you. Watch it again with your family.

It feels like a holiday special that you have to watch over and over, every year.

WADDINGHAM: Yes, you do! Tell everyone they have to.

Home for Christmas is available to stream at Apple TV+.

Watch on Apple TV+.