Spoilers for Ride or Die are ahead! You can stream the series with an Amazon Prime subscription.
While Debbie (Octavia Spencer) finds out that Judith (Hannah Waddingham) is an assassin early in Ride or Die, the fact that she kept that secret for so long looms large over the entire show. So, as I watched the project on the 2026 TV schedule, I couldn’t stop stressing about said secret. That's why I asked Hannah Waddingham about it and how long her character kept it.
Throughout Ride or Die, Waddingham’s character fights off bad guys, but she also has to deal with inner demons and secrets. This specifically applies to the state of her friendship with Debbie, as Judith didn't tell her she was an assassin for decades. Considering how long she kept her true profession under wraps, I asked the Ted Lasso actress if her character ever thought about confessing to her pal. In response, she said:
She's got so used to hiding everything from everyone, she has just reached a coping numb state, and like she says, you know, when she's injured, she says, ‘I don't know how to do anything or be anything else.’ And she can cope with going to see Debbie at book club, and that's her relief and her release. But anything else, she can't even entertain telling Debbie.
As I was watching the show, I couldn’t help but think about how natural that secret became. Judith’s life with Debbie was an escape from her professional life, and telling her about it would endanger both of them. So, she just kept on keeping this massive part of her life to herself.
To that point, Waddingham explained that she made sure her performance acknowledged the fact that keeping this information from her best friend was second nature:
Like when she says, 'Oh, you're a spy,’ I tried to not barely flicker my eyes in the kitchen, because she's got so used to not letting on for 20 years. So that part of it, she's just got used to being numb, which is something that I was constantly sitting with every day.
In the Ride or Die trailer alone, Debbie and Judith’s bond is on full display. So, you can imagine both how hard it might have been to live with that secret and how terrible it was for both of them when it was revealed.
As the show goes on, Debbie reckons with Judith’s real job, and it impacts their friendship in a big way. However, while she was utterly blindsided by her pal’s reveal, I also couldn’t help but wonder if she was ever suspicious about all this. So, I asked Spencer about it, and she said:
Well, no, I mean, if there were, I don't think that they would have been as close, you know? She had to be completely good at her job; otherwise, I mean, no, no. And which, again, also leads to Debbie's journey, you know, the dissolution of her marriage and now, perhaps her friendship, like the important relationships in her life.
Waddingham went on to say that both characters coped with their lives by hiding things, and they’ve each gotten so used to it that it was something they could do without thinking about it too much. So, there was no suspicion. However, once the cat was out of the bag, all of this became unavoidable conflict.
That became the driving force behind Season 1 too, as these women reckoned with Judith’s secret and worked through their history together (while also fighting off bad guys). Overall, this all helped make Ride or Die a complex story about female friendship, and Waddingham and Spencer played the nuances of it all very well.
Now, to see how all this plays out in detail, you can stream Ride or Die on Prime Video.
