“Oh My God, You’d Never Say That To A Man!”: Hannah Waddingham Just Called Out A Photographer’s Seriously Misogynistic Comment To Her At The Oliviers

The 49-year-old actor specifically mentioned “misogynistic male photographers” in her piece for Glamour magazine, where she credited her dad for teaching her to stand up to misogyny “from a young age.”

“When it comes to dealing with sexism, especially in my industry, I was on the receiving end of it mostly when I was modeling back in my 20s, with some of the nonsense that misogynistic male photographers would throw at me to put me in my place,” she said at the time.

“I called them out straight away — and they would then try to fight their corner, but I never let it go; I always called it out — but back then, it was at a time when people didn’t back you up. But I know that I’ve always given off an air of: ‘I will literally kill you if you treat me like that!’” Hannah continued.

“He has always told me to speak my mind, even when one of his friends made a slightly inappropriate comment to me when I was 12 years old. I called him out on it, and my dad heard it, and he said to his friend: ‘Well, that’s made you look stupid, hasn’t it?’ To his own friend! I could see my dad giving him a steely glare. I thought: ‘My dad’s got my back,’” Hannah recalled.

“I think it’s important that when you see someone behaving badly, you call them out and batter them over the head with it,” Hannah added. “I had an incident fairly recently where I heard a sound guy on set say something that I didn’t like to someone, so I said, down my microphone in front of everyone: ‘Do you want to repeat that?’” 

“And then I repeated what he had said to the person,” she continued. “He started trying to fluff the situation, so I said: ‘No, if you are going to be the big man, come and say it on this microphone.’ They marched him out of the place before he’d even started the gig, and the producers bought the person that he’d been rude to a bottle of champagne with his wages for the night.”

While the actor is best known for the work that she has done on the small screen, including her Emmy-winning performance in Ted Lasso and her standout role in Game of Thrones, Hannah actually got her acting start in theatre.

She made her debut in London’s prestigious West End in 1998 and has earned three Olivier Award nominations for her work — arguably making her an obvious choice to host the Oliviers, which is the UK equivalent of America’s Tony Awards.

True to form, Hannah immediately called it out — repeating the misogynistic remark back to the photographer, as well as everybody else in the area.

The iconic moment was caught on camera by a fan who was excited to watch Hannah in action as she posed on some steps in a custom Marchesa gown.

For context, the sheer dress had a thigh-high slit, and within seconds of her arriving for the photo op, somebody seemingly told the actor to show her legs off for the camera.

“Don’t be a dick; otherwise, I’ll move on,” Hannah calmly added. “Don’t say: ‘Show them your legs,’ no.”

At this point, Hannah shook her head and walked away, wagging her finger to reiterate her disapproval. She then appeared to relay what had happened to somebody further along the entry route. 

Quote tweeting the original video, one person wrote: “absolute queen behavior and a great example for younger girls in the industry about knowing their worth.”

Somebody else added: “queen behaviour, so many people just think they can say stupid shit and get away with it without any consequences for them being absolute arses.”

While one more tweeted: “I could not love her more! I absolutely LOVE that she stands her ground and will not let people treat her like crap."