Hannah Waddingham Jokes She ‘Mangled’ Herself Doing Ride or Die Stunts: ‘What Are You Doing? You’re 51, Woman!’

The Emmy winner tells PEOPLE she threw herself into the series’ elaborate fight choreography — even if it left her bruised and exhausted

Hannah Waddingham was determined to prove it was really her throwing punches in Ride or Die — even if it came at a cost.

While speaking with PEOPLE about Prime Video’s new action series, the Emmy-winning actress, 51, says she eagerly embraced the show’s physically demanding fight scenes, despite repeatedly questioning whether she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

“Don’t even get me started,” Waddingham says with a laugh when asked about filming the action-heavy sequences. “It was incredibly demanding on my body.”

The Ted Lasso star says she intentionally chose to get as involved as possible with the stunt work.

“I kind of shot myself in the foot because you can’t enter a role like this and not get involved. Well, you can, but I wanted people to see that it was me,” she explains.

Preparing for each fight felt surprisingly similar to another competition series she’s familiar with.

“It’s a bit like Dancing with the Stars — we call it Strictly at home,” Waddingham says, referencing the U.K.‘s Strictly Come Dancing. “I’d spend a week learning the choreography of a fight sequence, perform it, completely mangled myself, think, ‘What are you doing? You’re 51, woman!’ And then the next day I’d be back learning the next fight.”

She adds, “I was saying, ‘Guys, next time I agree to something this physical, can you just remind me how exhausting it is?’ “

Despite the bruises, Waddingham says she’s especially proud of one standout sequence.

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“But I’m really proud of it, especially the fight in the gold dress in the bathroom,” she says.

According to Waddingham, she became so immersed in the scene that even her stunt double was surprised.

“I was going at it all day, and when my stunt double went to do the wide shot, the director said, ‘Can we just raise the energy a bit? Hannah was literally biting the guy’s hand.’ “

“My stunt double laughed and said she’d never been asked to match the actor’s energy before.”

Still, Waddingham is quick to credit the professionals who helped bring the action to life.

“By then I’d really gotten into it,” she says. “I admire stunt performers so deeply. They’re extraordinary people, incredibly kind, protective and always looking out for us.”

Costar Octavia Spencer couldn’t agree more.

“Weren’t they incredible?” Spencer says, revealing that she ultimately worked with three stunt doubles throughout production.

“My stuntwoman actually turned into three stuntwomen. I couldn’t have done it without them,” she says. “There were certain things I didn’t do, but I think you’d have a hard time figuring out which ones.”

“Even I watched some of it and thought, ‘Wow, I looked really good there.’ Then I realized it wasn’t me.”

Beyond the action, Waddingham says some of her favorite moments came during the quieter scenes she shared with Spencer.

“Octavia knows this — I loved the days when we were in the car together on the VFX stage,” she says. “We’d be sitting in a car all day, talking nonsense, laughing and not running back and forth between trailers and sets. You could really concentrate on the relationship.”

Spencer says those conversations became just as important as the explosions and fight sequences.

“The emotion, the words, our physicality — all of it had to sell those scenes,” she tells PEOPLE. “Thank goodness for all the action because it made everything exciting, but when you get down to it, it was the conversations, the tears, the laughter and the memories.”

“It was demanding on every front,” she continues. “We had three units going at all times — stunt unit, first unit and second unit. I’ve never been on a show with that many units running simultaneously.”

Waddingham agrees.

“It was never not intense,” she says. “But outside the VFX work, I loved the train sequences. I loved that whole episode.”

Although the series appears to whisk its stars across Europe, Waddingham says movie magic deserves most of the credit.

“We felt like we did,” Spencer says when asked about filming abroad.

“Prague is beautiful,” Waddingham adds, “And our production designers were incredible. They made us feel like we were in France, Spain and all these other places.”

All eight episodes of the first season of Ride or Die are now streaming on Prime Video.

Via: People