Serenades & Sisterhood: Hannah Waddingham & Octavia Spencer Reveal the Heart of Ride or Die

To my dying breath, I will never forget the experience of interviewing Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer for their upcoming Prime Video series, Ride or Die.

And not only because they are gorgeous, eloquent, and intelligent women who kick ass all over the screen as two besties on the run from deadly killers.

Speaking with them will live forever in my heart because they flippin’ SANG me into the virtual interview room. Seriously. Wow.

I could’ve died happy in that moment. Check out the video below in the article for the proof.

Prime Video’s Ride or Die

Speaking of dying, Waddingham and Spencer’s buddy action-adventure Ride or Die hits Prime Video on July 15, and it’s WILD.

Before we got to the stars, TV Fanatic had the opportunity to pick the brains of the show’s creator, Tessa Coates, and showrunner, Matthew Miller, about the inspiration for and mechanics involved in bringing Ride or Die to life.

What inspired this John Wick meets Thelma & Louise adventure?

Tessa Coates: Both the work of John Wick and Thelma and Louise and a smorgasbord of all the amazing movies and shows in this genre that have come before. All the things I love.

I was trying to make a show I wanted to watch. It felt like things were either incredibly dark and gritty and sad or that comedy… it feels over the last few years is being handled with this lack of care. Like, “Oh, who cares?”

I wanted to have a real, grounded, proper story, and it be fun. I wanted it to be an adventure.

It’s inspired by my own personal passion and love for spies and assassins and all things of that nature.

The casting for the show is phenomenal. Who was attached to begin with, and who was your best get?

TC: Attached to begin with… Well, we know who our best get is!

Attached to begin with. It was Octavia first. They called me one day and said, “Octavia Spencer wants to hear about this role,” and I was like, “I think your… sorry, the line’s crackly. Sorry, are you saying OCTAVIA SPENCER?”

I could not believe she wanted to talk to me.

Then she said, “Yes, please. I’d like to play this role.” A couple of months later, me and Octavia pitched it to Hannah. And Hannah said, “Yes, please.” And then we three pitched it to Amazon, and Amazon said, “Yes, please.”

Now, here we are. So, they came about by the wizards at Paramount throwing magic spells into a soup and saying, “These are who we think can be these two best friends.”

It’s a really surprising duo until you see them on screen. Then you think, “Oh, it’s the most obvious duo ever.” They just work.

Our best get is Bill Nighy, whose picture was on our wall in our writers’ room from Day 1 to play The Director. We were always writing to him, to his tone, and to how he moves.

We couldn’t believe it when he said yes. I wrote him a letter and told him I loved him in Love, Actually, and would he like to do our show, and he said yes, he would!

I love the show for leaning in on the fact that bad things happen to good people.

Your body count is impressive. Can you speak to the grittiness that you’ve managed to weave into what is really a heart-warming story of friendship?

Matthew Miller: “Body count” meaning dead bodies along the way, with these characters and still maintaining the tone?

That’s the trick, to preserve the tone of the show. Even through the action, or the body count, or the drama. All of it. Being able to preserve what these two women would actually be thinking and feeling in all of these moments.

Hopefully, if there’s a truth in that, then some of the more heightened stuff — the body count, or cars going off cliffs, things like that — feels more grounded because you’re seeing through the eyes of these two women.

TC: [Speaking to] the grittiness of the body count: No civilians, no kids, no women. No one’s getting caught up in the melee.

We’re very careful in an action scene, [asking,] ideally, could everyone make it out of this alive? And if they can’t, we do we have to kill?

[We tried] to keep that grittiness never in a [convulses for effect] “Oh, it’s too much, there’s violence!”

MM: It’s not gratuitous.

TC: Not gratuitous. We’re trying to keep it fun. That’s always our North Star.

MM: But it does need to have the grit. Cause if it doesn’t have the grit, and you don’t believe that these two women are caught in these really deadly circumstances, it gets quite broad quickly. It sort of floats away.

You needed to feel like what they were up against was quite threatening and dangerous.

Hannah Waddingham & Octavia Spencer as Badass Besties

As mentioned above, interviewing stars Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer was a special kind of magical.

Ride or Die showcases them in a glorious combination of pulse-pounding peril and emotionally wrought moments of human fallibility.

While evading certain death, can Judith (Waddingham) and Debbie (Spencer) also preserve their friendship?

Perhaps the best thing about speaking with them about Ride or Die was recognizing the genuine bond and affection they share with each other. Forget being on the same page. These women wrote the book together.

Both of you are known for beautifully entertaining, but also meaningful shows. What is the heart of Ride or Die for you?

Octavia Spencer: The heart is the friendship and the ups and downs of that because we go through that in real life.

No matter what the circumstances, we do have those moments in real life, and we wanted to portray that friendship as a real friendship, fraught with problems and love.

Hannah Waddingham: Yeah, not leaning away from any of it, and honoring the tricky moments as much as the unbelievable, joyful moments.

I think that’s the key, isn’t it? Right? You’ve got all the action. You’ve got all the comedy. But you have to tether it down with every single side of you.

Both of your characters have moments of tension between your sense of honesty and identity. How do you feel you accessed that dissonance?

OS: The only time I do that type of reflection, in all honesty, is on my birthday when I’m supposed to have grown a year. It’s not something you are cognizant of at the time.

You deal with the emotion at the time and however you process — pain, growth, love — at the end of that, it’s how you come out of that.

I don’t think I was aware. [to Hannah] You know what I mean?

HW: Yeah, me too. That’s why I kind of paused for a second. I feel like most aspects of this whole shoot — the twists and turns of all of it — I’m really glad that we are similar actors in that way.

There was no vast amounts of going away and thinking about it. We were so visceral together. I think that’s why we both paused because we’re both like, “I don’t remember thinking that far through.”

It was just knee-jerk reaction to every single moment as it came, and using wherever we were at the time to feed into it.

OS: Definitely living in the moment.

HW: Yeah, 100%.

Well, Fanatics, are you ready to buckle up and strap in with Ride or Die?

Hit our comments with your love for action, adventure, espionage, comedy, and #FriendshipGoals!

Ride or Die drops its eight-episode season on July 15. Check it out on Prime Video!

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