Hannah Waddingham recently revealed what she was told by one of her teachers at school and let's just say she managed to prove them wrong - big time.
The 49-year-old, best known for her role as the businesswoman Rebecca Welton in the hit comedy series Ted Lasso, opened up about her drama teacher at school making fun of her appearance in front of all of her peers.
While she has gone on to carve a hugely successful career in the arts, one of her teachers had tried to kill that dream at a very early age.
Speaking to Michelle Visage during an interview on her podcast 'Rule Breakers', she recalled the traumatic experience to the host.
"I had one drama teacher that said to the whole class: 'Oh Hannah will never work on screen because she looks like one side of her face has had a stroke,'" she said. "[And] I thought, 'I will do. Come hell or high water, I will work on screen.'"
Firstly, how do you even say something that cruel to a child, let alone anyone else?
Thankfully, the star managed to prove the teacher wrong, earning an Emmy, a Critics Choice Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her portrayal of Welton in Apple TV+'s iconic soccer series.
"This is why, in my Emmys speech, I made a point - the one thing I said to myself [was], if this weird moment comes and I get this award, and I get my foot in this door, I'm going to rip it off its hinges for music theatre people, or theatre people, to follow," she explained.
However, her journey to the big screen was not easy as the actress was left exhausted in the hopes of making it in Hollywood.
"I used to be doing a [theatre] show at night and I used to literally take anything to get myself on screen," she told Visage.
And just like that one teacher, other people didn't make it easy for her either.
"My headmistress... said: 'You're bright enough to read drama', and I said: 'I don't want to read drama, I want to do drama.'"
When she refused to give Waddingham a reference, she decided to embark on the journey without it.
"...I managed to get a scholarship for the drama school I went to and I walked back in, put it on her desk, and left the room without shutting the door.'
Waddingham added: "She was always dismissive of me because it wasn't that I wasn't academic, [but] I knew what I wanted to do so it annoyed her that I turned my back on the academia. So she would purposely put everyone else in the school plays and have me understudy."
Though she initially found it "insulting" that she only ever landed "one scene or one episode" roles, she caught her big break when she was accepted as Septa Unella for eight episodes of Game of Thrones from 2015 to 2016.
"It got to the point where I realized I was only getting one scene in this, or one ep in that," she stated. "And I went, do you know what? I think I've done enough... This isn't cool anymore. Why should I be constantly feeding into someone else's storyline?
"So I said to my agents at the time, 'I'm not doing it anymore... If it's one scene, I'm not doing it anymore, and you shouldn't be putting me up for it because it's insulting... I'd rather be in a world where I'm appreciated.'
"So I fully stepped back. And then Game of Thrones happened."
And that's all Waddingham needed to propel her into the superstar she is today.
As for that teacher that put her down when she was just a child - talk to the Emmy, honey.