Transcript of Conversation Between
Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Phoebe Waller-Bridge
November 24, 2019 | The Town Hall, New York City

Taffy: Were you Catholic? 

PWB: No — and remain not. The second secondary school I went to was Catholic, but I was always really fascinated by the religion and I remember walking through the corridors and there being these enormous crucifixes everywhere and being like “That is intense” between maths and French. Just like, eughhhhh. It had an impact on me from an early age.

Taffy: Did you ever ask why you were sent to a Catholic school if you were not Catholic?

PWB: It was the nearest school to my house. And there were like one or two nuns clinging on there as well. I did quite like the really repressive energy. Like you had to be slightly miserable and apologetic all the time. Which just bred these really rebellious students, which was actually quite healthy in the end.

Taffy: Did you have any religion at home?

PWB: My grandmother was Christian and she became more religious towards the end of her life, but my parents not so much. But we were taken to the church every Sunday because my mom worked in the vicarage for a while as an administrator and also just because like, community and social stuff. I played the drums in the church band. Kumbaya is actually very complicated. I was aware of [religion] and around it but I didn’t feel like it owned me so I could see it from a different perspective.

Taffy: Were you a good student?

PWB: Um, certain subjects. I did really like elements of school and subjects that I loved so I sort of was but was always very last-minute. I really liked social elements more. My mum always said real education happens in the lunch breaks, and she told that to me too early, and so I really... that’s where stories got told and people make connections. But I was a good student.

Taffy: Were you someone who always was trying to express yourself as a child? Were you kind of tortured before everyone started listening to you? That’s the story I’ve always heard from people who have hit the big time that they had a sort of misery going on and they were only trying to express themselves and it was only a large-scale expression that really worked?

PWB: Yes… and… yes. Felt certainly in my 20s. Actually, to go back to if I was a good student — this will tap into what I say next — I remember knowing that in order to be able to be mischievous, you have to look like you’re playing the rules. Again, my mum told me that. I was going to boarding school and she said, “The most important thing to do is be an angel for the first term, and then you can do whatever the fuck you want,” and it was a genius piece of advice. Because I was, I got my little sash and my little badge and I was just a terror behind the scenes and it was like, “It couldn’t possibly be Phoebe.”

That actually is what I ended up taking forward, if you look like you’re playing by the rules, you can secretly fuck up behind the scenes.

And so when I was in my 20s and getting quite sort of frustrated by my position in the industry and just wanting a job — and that was pretty much it — but also in life as well, just feeling my place in the world as a woman, and as a woman who wanted to write and act, and how I felt about myself physically, and what my power was and all that kind of stuff was going on at the same time and I did feel this real rage underneath it all. But I didn’t want to just express pure rage to people, so I think it came out as jokes. 

And then when “Fleabag” finally… when I got to write, it was sort of the expression of all the kind of “Raaagghh” that came out. I thought if I look like I’m playing by the rules, it will just look like a one-woman show, which is like a funny girl being funny. And then the realization that that could be the way into a real kind of portal way to express my rage in a subtler way. Thought that was better than beating people up — make a play.

Taffy: Describe the period of time when you were trying to get a job and you felt frustration at what you were being offered, the things that led you to write a one-woman play in the first place.

PWB: I left drama school and everyone’s like, “You’re gonna be fine. You’ve got long brown hair, sound kind of posh, and there’s the Royal Shakespeare Company, you’re going to be fine,” and then I was like “Helloooo?” and no one wanted to hire me.

And also I wanted to play those characters, like in our showcase, you get to choose your own roles and agents come to cover it, and I chose this, like, granny that was wearing a gray wig and my teachers were like, “You won’t get an agent,” and I was like, “But they’ll see what I can do!” And then I was playing this unruly teenager as well, and they were like, “That’s not gonna help you.” I was so defiant, and they were right, it didn’t, but sometimes it’s easier taking the risk and being like, “Well, they didn’t like that kind of work” versus doing a little Shakespeare and them being like, “We don’t want you now either.”

Then I left and I couldn’t get any work and I had an agent but they also couldn’t get me any work. And then the best thing ever happened, which is I realized that you’ve gotta hustle and just finding where the hustle is. I remember thinking at the time, “I literally have no idea, without an active agent or someone to get you through the door, how you get anywhere in this industry.”

And so then I was just trying to find out where there were shorts nights happening, nights of short plays, and even those were really hard to get. You’re not getting paid and you’re doing something at 11:30 on top of a pub and there’s like so many actors who wanted to do that and directors and stuff. And my boyfriend at the time had one of those gigs, the bastard, he had an 11:30 slot in a pub with an audience of like nine people. I was so jealous!

I went and the director of the play, a woman called Vicky Jones who ended up directing “Fleabag,” she was in the bar afterwards and I went up to her and I said, like totally nicking my boyfriend’s director, I was like, “I’m an actress and I would literally do anything.” And she said, and people all say there’s so much rejection and everyone’s horrible and all this kind of stuff in the industry, and she turned around and just went, “You want to be an actress, that’s amazing!” 

She was the most beautiful-hearted and encouraging, gorgeous person and she was like, “Of course I’ll take your details and I’ll call you when something comes up.” And meeting her was the real game changer because then we did meet and she brought me onto her next job like she promised, which was a total disaster. She got fired! It wasn’t her fault. And then I quit when she got fired.

Taffy: Was it your fault?

PWB: No, it was quite complicated. That would take another half-hour.

Then we went for a drink afterwards and we were like, “What do we want to do?” We wanted to keep doing stuff together, so we created DryWrite, which is our theater company. We created a shorts night that wasn’t just about actors trying to get on stage or writers just trying to get their work done. It was about making work that made audiences excited but in a shorts night format.  

So we’d give the writers a brief, and this is still when I’m trying to audition and Vicky’s trying to get her work off the ground as a director and everything, on the side we found our own stinky little pub and we found our own room in a pub and we just said to them, “If we clear out this room, can we put on theater shows?” And they were like, “Yeah, whatever.” 

So we started inviting playwrights. Vicky had worked at the Royal Court so she knew loads of writers and I knew an abundance of actors and so we were like, “Why don’t we put on a night where writers write to get a certain reaction from the audience?” So, how do you make an audience fall in love with a character in under 5 minutes? And like the audience’s tickets on that one would be helium heart-shaped balloons, and when they fell in love with a character, they just had to let go of the balloon, so we could see the physical moment when the writing was working or the acting was working. 

We did that or we did ones like, “How do you get the audience to heckle without knowing that’s what they’re meant to do?” And then all these, every different month, all these different writers, and it was all anonymous, so no one had to put their name to their writing, so we got really famous writers all the way down to someone who’s never written before, every single month. 

So we started doing that and then nothing else, I wasn’t acting or anything but acting didn’t matter as much because it was all about these monthly nights. No one was getting paid and it was so scrappy but we were accidentally giving ourselves this amazing training in writing, even though we weren’t writing at that point or I wasn’t even acting in it because I didn’t want it to look like a vanity project and Vicky was directing but nobody knew and she was like “I’m really sorry, I’m really sorry.” We just wanted to make stuff. So in some ways, the Saharan Desert of work, was the best thing that ever happened, because it led to me and Vicky doing DryWrite.

Taffy: Do we have anything interesting here? So boring, I’m embarrassed. You were auditioning at the same time, were there any roles where you were just like I can’t do this, I have to create my own thing, now? 

PWB: Oh god, no. I would do anything, I’d be anyone. I did this one great amazing part. There was a director called Jay Walker who I worked with at the end of RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art], and again in the final year, I said to the principal who was casting everybody, “I don’t want to play another princess part. I don’t want to have an abortion or cry. I don’t want to do any of this. [I] just want to do something, someone who has agency in the story.” And he was like, “Argh, shut up.” 

And then I go up to the board and they say who the roles are and it was a play called “Balm in Gilead.” And scrawled on the bottom in pen, on like a printed cast list, I can’t even remember the name of the character, like “‘Bob’ played by Phoebe.” And I was like, “Oh, what’s this?” And they asked Jay Walker, who’s a writer as well as a director, to write me this part of this like transvestite prostitute with a beard and a strap-on. He wrote me this monologue where I sat at the bar and I was a badass, complaining about not getting laid or something, and I was like “Finally!” 

Jay wrote that for me and when I left drama school, he said, “I’ve written another part for you that I want you do,” and he’s the one that said to me, “You have the gift of rage.” And when someone says something like that to you, number one, that feels true, and secondly, that sounds cool, so I’m just gonna take that. 

And so I was in his play and he wrote this angry monologue about this girl about to get married But no, the jobs didn’t come around that often. Actually, it was the people I started doing those shorts night with, not DryWrite, but they had started casting me in things for their shorts nights, and Jack Thorne, I don’t know if you know a writer called Jack Thorne, absolutely extraordinary screenwriter, he wrote the Harry Potter musical, but he then wrote a part for me to play. There were like two in a year or something. 

Taffy: And then there was “Fleabag.”

PWB: And then there was “Fleabag,” yeah.

Taffy: I’m going to skip talking about “Fleabag,” because we’re going to talk about “Fleabag.” But I want to say first, so things really changed for you. You are no longer in a pub, you’re in a theater, you’re in a Broadway theater, with people who just wanted to hear you talk. Now that you are so in demand, how do you protect your work from how famous you are? How do you make sure that you are still you? Or do you change and that’s fine? I’ll just answer them. I can’t stand any silence.

PWB: I don’t know the answer to that. Because I subbose...subbose? I just make up my own language! I feel like as long as I know what I’m writing next then nothing else actually affects it, nothing matters. And actually the noise around it is so exciting to know that people are reading or watching it, that’s really wonderful. But the pressure, I guess the pressure to make more stuff, make a certain type of stuff, it has the same impact on me as the Catholic school, which is to say that I love it but I also know that you’re telling me to do this thing, so I’m going to go and do that thing.

I think knowing that, like, I have an idea for my next project and that is such a massive relief, because it’s the unknown, like, “Will I ever write anything as good again or as personal again?” And then I have the idea and it’s like, “Ah,” and then everything else just actually doesn’t matter and that feeling goes away. I’ve got my team who are incredible and the people I develop with and collaborate with are incredible and I’m so gut-driven that I actually feel protected at the moment.

Taffy: So your projects, when you’re working on it, you’re never worried that it will or will not be as good or set people on fire the same way the previous thing did?

PWB: No, I really care. That’s all I care about. I really, really care. I really want it to have an impact every single time, and I think it drives me insane because the constant voice of “It’s not funny enough” or it’s not… what’s the point? All that kind of stuff, I mean I feel like each time I’m writing something it has to be the best thing I’ve ever written. Which isn’t fun to be around for me. 

There’s something that happens when you write something you’re so proud of and you’re like, “That was that thing, and I can afford a couple of fuck-ups.” And that’s something quite freeing as well, you can be more experimental. But I think before then, I felt, I guess before the second season of “Fleabag,” that kind of resonated so much in a way that I really felt that story as well, I really cared about it. And so now it’s like, “OK, OK” I think before then I was like, “I need to write something that means that much to me.” And then I did, so… If the next things are complete fuck-ups, will you still watch it?

Taffy: You did an interview with British GQ. Tina Fey interviewed you, and you said that making a joke is one of the most dangerous things you could do, which I think is so interesting, and I’m going to misinterpret it, and ask you a follow-up question to that. I was recently rewatching “30 Rock” and I couldn’t believe how not OK it would be right now in this kind of landscape that we’re in. Is there anything about your work… like, do you think there’s going to be a time when we won’t be able to make jokes? Or that we’ll have this sort of expiration date on humor because we just keep evolving toward an understanding of all the suffering in the world and blah blah blah. 

PWB: I think if you’re anticipating a future audience or obsessing about stuff that’s gone before, I think with stuff that’s gone before, it’s really interesting to see how the world’s changed, going back and watching things that feel dated or things aren’t OK. I mean, from a critical point of view. From an artistic point of view, the hardest thing ever is to be really present in what you’re writing. Because if you’re anticipating you’ve already screwed yourself over. So as long as you’re writing truthfully at that time, then it still has value even if the value is that it feels inappropriate over time, because it’ll tell us something about the time in which it was written. So I think… I’ll leave it there, actually.

Taffy: You write Fleabag, you are finished with the second season, and you have all the opportunity in the world. You read the Villanelle novels, and you decide to write the TV version of “Killing Eve.” I just read them over the weekend. How did you reading those ever figure into becoming what we end up seeing on TV? Because it’s kind of different.

PWB: I think, the first time I read the novels — novellas — it was the essence of it.

Taffy: Yeah, yeah, they’re novellas. Fine. [Laughter]

PWB: “I didn’t read four massive books!” I think it was the essence of what Luke was writing. And his first descriptions of the characters were just so exciting and Villanelle was in a Parisian cafe and she was like a cat — she’s described as a cat — and all sexy and all she could think about was this threesome she was about to have. And then the next chapter is Eve, who’s in a stained T-shirt having a cigarette, bummed out because she fucked up a meeting. And I just instantly was like, “I love both of these women.” I was going to say, “I am both of these women,” but I can’t quite claim Villanelle. But in some way it’s aspirational and relatable all at the same time. But the fact that they were interested in each other was the thing that was really exciting.

And Luke came to see “Fleabag,” because the executive producer on “Killing Eve,” Sally Woodward Gentle, read the novellas first and then she just read “Fleabag” the play and they’d gone out to a bunch of writers or had given a bunch of writers to Luke to read. And then she said, “Go and see Phoebe at the stage play of ‘Fleabag.’” And all the other writers were like these big sweeping drama writers. And then I was in SoHo going, “Euuugh.” And so he came to see the play and afterwards at the bar, he said, “Can we go and get falafel and talk about the novellas?”

It’s his passion as well. He said, “What do you think of the novellas? And I said, “I love them so much.” I instantly loved them. The story is really exciting, it’s a world I don’t know, the fact that it’s a genre I never thought about playing with was really exciting. But it was also when he said, “I saw some of both of those characters in ‘Fleabag,’” that just made me excited to work with him. And he was so free with it. I was coming up with new stuff, like the opening for the whole thing in that ice cream parlor isn’t in the books. I didn’t even know what I was writing, and it was just, well normally, I’d be trying to write the proper thing and then I’d get angry and be like, “I’m gonna write what I want to write.” And no one was telling me not to do that! And I was like, “She’s in the cafe and doesn’t say anything for seven minutes, and then the little girl was pissing her off…” I get angry and I go into my producers and I go [forcefully], “There it is!” And they’re like, “OK, it’s great!”

But when I sent them that opening, I was worried that he’d say, “Oh, that’s not how I envisioned it.” But he was like, “Oh, we’re off and running because it’s about finding together the essence of her.” So it changed. Also for other things. I wanted there to be more women in it, like Carolyn Martin originally, the Fiona Shaw part, was originally a man. And calling up Luke and saying, “Do you mind if I change Richard to Carolyn?” And he was like, “No! I love it, do it.” Once you’ve got that kind of permission from the author… and then we went like way off-piece. 

But the brilliant thing is, then we’d have a day where we’d go right off and I’d be coming up with stories and we’d find a difficult plot hole and we’d have to go away and think about it for a while. And I’d come back and I’d be like, “I’ve got it. I’ve solved the whole thing.” I’d tell them the whole storyline of like, episode four, and everyone would be like, “That is so good. Phoebe, that’s brilliant. You’ve solved everything.” And I’d go, “Great.” And we’d leave and Luke wouldn’t say anything. And then later, someone would go, [whispers] “That’s what happens in the book.” And then I’d call Luke and be like, “Luke, that’s so embarrassing, I’m so sorry!” 

Taffy: It’s time to talk about “Fleabag.” I have my answer but I want to hear yours. Why did this set us on fire the way it did? People stop you on the street now, people fill up these things for you, people are rabid for you. You’re on the cover of everything. Why did people go so crazy for “Fleabag”? What hole did they have that “Fleabag” filled? 

PWB: I don’t… can I ask you what your answer is first?

Taffy: I think it’s as simple as the fact that every female character we see has to be some kind of activist or caregiver, and it’s so rare to see someone who is so messed up that even by the end of season 2 she’s not really less messed up. There’s no, like, healing that happens. She just is done with us, which is THE most messed up thing. 

I watched it and I couldn’t look away from it. Nobody could. People were wearing the outfits that you wore. Don’t worry, I have plenty of jumpsuit questions. So that’s what I think, but you’ve heard from so many more people than I’ve heard from, because people come up to you. The amount of people on Twitter who heard that I was doing this and asked if I could ask you if they could be your friend or assistant or intern. I’m gonna do that. Why do you think it means so much to people?

PWB: I always find it hard to answer that question because in some ways I don’t feel like anything I could say now is interesting or helpful because once something lands, it belongs to the audience in a way, so it’s like for me to say why I think you loved it might take something away from you.

I don’t know, I feel — going back to the same thing about writing in the moment — I needed to write that character. Actually no, more than that, I needed to see that character and I wanted to act that character and then I discovered I could write that character and that was the whirlwind in 2014 when I was writing the play. And then it’s the “What if?” thing and I feel a sort of burn when I’m writing something that feels truthful and a bit dangerous and writing the play was just a big ol’ burn.

And it was driven by that same sort of rage of just like, “What if I just said on stage what I say to my friend?” or if I just express some of the rage that we have but turn it up. What if I take someone like me and... I mean like, the only way I can describe the character to someone when they ask me is — this is actually in the book — when I was feeling at my most down, angry, and rageful, I would stand at whatever the precipice is in your mind. And I looked at the bottom of the chasm and at the very bottom was Fleabag and so I was like, “I’m going to write her, to stop me becoming her.” And then I’m going to try and see what happens when I put her in different situations.

So it was really present for me when I was writing it and she was really present to me and I care about that character so much and I would defend her and I can fight for her and in fact all of the characters in there, because they’re so flawed and maybe it’s because I felt so passionately about that, that that’s what comes through.

And then in the second season I was like, “I want to write about love,” which was the most surprising thing for me coming out of “Fleabag” season 1, which was about an emptiness and somebody trying to deflect the world and deflect people from seeing their pain using any kind of weapon nd it’s all about just like, casual sex. I was like, “What if it’s casual sex and emptiness and then her next stage is love and the power of a kiss?” because I needed to see Fleabag go through that, I think. 

I don’t really know the answer to your question but I hope it’s the same reason as me which is I needed to see somebody who’s just like “Fuck you” the first season and the second season I needed to see someone who’s like, “I will never let love in.” And then we see her let it in, because that got me.

Taffy: You ended “Fleabag” after two seasons. You ended “Crashing”…

PWB: Well I didn’t end “Crashing.” “Crashing” was ended for me.

Taffy: I thought you maybe had mastered this thing of not staying when people want more and more and you’re just like, “No!”

PWB: (joking) I did end “Crashing.” Part of my master plan.

Taffy: Then just “Fleabag,” why did you end “Fleabag”? 

PWB: I ended “Fleabag” because I was absolutely sure that it was a one-season story in the first place and you see her arc. The play was just a one-arc story and even stretching it to six episodes I found very difficult and adapting it very difficult. Then by the end I felt like there was an ending, a catharsis, and not everyone ends up happy and I sort of closed the door on it. I was like, “That’s the end.”

And then I had at the idea of her looking at the relationship with the camera changing and I was like, OK, maybe there is something there. And then Amazon and BBC asked me to do another one and again instantly I was like, “Fuck youuu! No, I’m an artist, you don’t understand.” And they were like, “We just think there might be more story,” And I was like, “You don’t know anything.”

And then they were like, “Just think about it.” And I did think about it and I was like, “Well, what is the reason…?” First of all, I said, “Can I imagine myself just turning and saying something down the barrel again as a performer?” Because instinctively there is, like, “Can I go into her again?” It’s the relationship with the camera that I was like, at the end of the first season she stops looking at the camera after she confesses her secret about Boo, and she no longer needs the camera once the camera has seen that. Well, she needs it, but she’s too shameful to look at it. That was what was in my head, whatever that means, but that was useful for me. 

So the idea of her coming back and her looking cheekily at the camera again once they know her secret… Because the whole point of her persona was, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m hilarious, I’m sexy, I’m cool, don’t look at my pain, don’t look at my pain.” And then so the start of the second one to be, “Hi, I’m that same girl and I just have, like, another friend that I’m going to tell you about.” That just felt like, really false.

So then when I realized it had to be something with the camera that changed and not necessarily Fleabag, then I was like, “There might be something there.”

And then after that, my director, Harry Bradbeer, who’s so brilliant and such a huge part of the evolution of this character, he said if she’s still got something to learn, then she has more story and does she have something to learn? And I was like, [annoyed] “Yes. Of course she does, we all do, I get your point.” 

Then when I was discussing the ending with Harry and we were shooting and stuff and I said, I was pitching him endings, and he said, “Well, you know in the end, really what you’ve written is a story about someone who learns to love themselves.” And I was like, “No, I haven’t! That’s so cheesy.” And he’s right actually, and I knew it, I knew it, I knew he was right and he knew he was right and we were both quiet about it after that. 

He was right, identifying that she’s got something more to learn, that does mean tying everything up and I feel that she can’t… when I realized that loving herself meant that she didn’t need to love us anymore or doesn’t need our love anymore, that she had to be set free. 

Taffy: The camera is us? Or is it a particular person? Is it Boo? Is it just everyone? Who is she speaking to specifically, or is it just an off-shoot of the play?

PWB: It certainly started like that. Again, it’s whoever people want it to be, or whatever they want it to be. I was going to say there isn’t a wrong answer but there is. For me, I always debate whether I should even talk about this, but I feel like...

Taffy: Do it.

PWB: I might as well since you guys came. I felt like, and I only realized this retrospectively, like I do with a lot of stuff that I write, it’s quite instinctive at the time. And at the beginning the reason I did a one-woman show is because that was all I could afford. And so the audience, so then building from the point of view of just how to affect an audience, that was the reason for it in the first place. 

Once she went on to the camera, and the camera became the audience, it did really change the relationship. And I think because I saw it as, in some ways, the presence of the camera is that societal pressure to be something all the time. And so she had the hair and the coat and the lipstick and she was sorted all the time and it follows you everywhere and you clock in and you go, “Ok, I’m fine, I’m fine, what?” Just that feeling of being watched and whoever that is for you and whatever that is for you.

I feel that’s a difficult thing for us because we need to be witnessed, but at the same time it’s a poisoned chalice because sometimes you need not to be witnessed, you need to be on your own sometimes. But then if you’re not witnessed, you feel like you’re nothing. So the camera comes into her life and witnesses her so she can put on this show, she just puts on a show like we all do in life all the time, so it’s kind of part of her inner psychology.

And then when we meet the Priest, for me God is that for him. I always felt that they are a match for each other because she has the camera all the time going like, “Tell us more stuff or don’t give us away,” and he’s got the same thing coming from God. They’re both people who’ve got this very tangible sense of people watching them, so when she needs to let hers go it feels like freedom, but also she’s needed the camera, which is why she fights with it in the first place. And at the end of the first one it’s, “I’m too embarrassed for you to look at me anymore because you know the real me.” And then also kind of the end of the last one, like, “Thank you for hanging around, even when you knew what I’ve done. And so like [mouth click] thanks, bye…”

I fully think it’s an audience, sorry, have we lost that? I think, when I’m writing I’m always thinking about the actual audience, which goes back to the DryWrite stuff, which is make stuff exciting for an audience. And Fleabag thinks the same way, what to do to keep you entertained? So it’s never anything more metaphorical or metaphysical for me.

Taffy: Only a few people get names. Claire gets a name. I always think of it as a sister love story. Martin gets a name. His son gets a name. Harry gets a name. Like, what’s the rule for who gets a name?

PWB: I think in the first season, she feels she can distill somebody very quickly. It’s easier for her to handle them that way. So Tube Rodent, she doesn’t have to see him as anything more than that. That said a lot about her psychology, as well as being a joke, and as well as making it easy for me to play with that character. Because if someone’s Tube Rodent he’s ludicrous, he’s ridiculous, we’re all laughing at him at the beginning, she’s laughing at him. He’s not a real person, he’s just a stupid guy with teeth. And that sets you up so well to have a little moment, you see a flicker of it when he’s like, “I am actually a real person. I’ve had these big teeth my whole life.”

Taffy: But the Priest is a real person and he doesn’t get a name.

PWB: Yes, but then he is, every time I tried to give him a name, every time I tried to give Fleabag a name, I felt like that just identifies that person as one human individual being who’s walking around in the world. And for me, Priest was unknowable to Fleabag from the off. And she still distills him like she did with Tube Rodent when she says “cool, sweary priest.” So to her, he is a Tube Rodent, he is an Arsehole Guy, he’s just the Priest Guy. And I think if she’d been like “This is Mark,” (his name’s not Mark) then we’d be like, “Oh.” It’s a bit instinctive but whereas, “This is Martin.” You don’t even need to sum him up, he does it on his own.

Taffy: Your family was very involved in the show as well, and your sister created the music. It was very intense music, the second season, was that a Gregorian chant? 

PWB: Yeah, yeah. Well, the first one I really wanted there to be minimal music, so she was like, “Thanks.” 

Taffy: Her name is Isobel Waller-Bridge.

PWB: Yeah, she’s a genius, and I wanted minimal music because I think a lot of the time, music can either be manipulative or let you off the hook, and also I thought that I don’t ever want that. You see that a lot in comedy. So the first season I thought, “Let’s not have any of it, but when we do, let’s make it worth something.”

And the first title sequence it kind of just goes “Wahh” and it’s also two seconds because you have a limited amount of time that you’re allowed to, like run time, so the longer your title sequence is, the less time you actually have on screen. So I was like, “I want it to be so quick so we can get the most out of the episode.” 

And we need a sound to make sense of it and so she wrote this little jazz piece and then this other little jazz piece. And we were listening to them both and going “ehh” and then we were like [merges fingers together] “Oooh.” We put them together and there was just this chaos and you can’t put your finger on the emotion of the music. And I was excited about that. 

And then when we went back I instantly thought I wanted it to be big and soaring and religious, to lean into that hard. And she had a tiny budget and I was sending her references of like 50-piece orchestras and choirs and she was just like, “(Sigh).” And she did it, she had six singers, she got a boys’ school, who were so sweet on their Twitter, they were like, “We just recorded for Fleabag!” The parents were like “What?!” 

So we wanted it to feel really rich because we wanted it to feel different from the first one anyway and also the hardest challenge for her is we wanted it to not feel emotionally manipulative again. We wanted it to feel guttural. And the really strange thing is that Iso wrote all of this music... so I gave her all the references and she came back and it sounded too heavy or Gregorian or like too heavy now, don’t know why. I can’t really talk about music much, so she’s always like, “Just tell me how you feel, just tell me how you feel” and I’ll be like “[grunts]” and she’ll be like “Ohhh!” 

And so then she went away and she wrote all these pieces of music. The strange thing is when we arranged all of the pieces she’d written, the last piece she wrote was the piece with the boys, and that ended up at the very beginning. And then everything she had done backwards fit in the show perfectly. And even the piece she thought she wrote for the first episode ended up in the 5th episode and it didn’t even have to be edited, and the edit didn't have to change for the music either. They fit perfectly. And we kept having this constant saying: “God did that.” It was an amazing thing to happen. We’d be like, “Oh my god, He’s on our side. Is He on our side?” 

And then you realize that what she’d done, it was instinctive anyway, all the singers are really young in the first part of the show and then they get much older, so the adults start singing toward the end. We didn’t realize that until after and we were like, “Iso, you are good.” And she’s like “Yeah.” Loads of magical things like that happened and I think a lot of the scenes were falling flat until we put her music on it and then we were like “(gasp).”

Taffy: Are you aware of the conspiracy theory that Fleabag is kind of a soft stealth gender sequel to Ferris Bueller? 

PWB: I’ll take that. 

Taffy: Again I’m just an emissary of the people. In one of the last episodes she repeats the line “nine times” about the orgasms the same way the principal… ok, I’m just going to finish. And also, he waves goodbye at the end, and also F.B.: “Fleabag.” What I’m saying is there’s a lot you should comment on.

PWB: I’ll have to watch that movie again.

Taffy: OK. Another question that’s very important to my book publicist. The fox: Is he God? Is he the celibacy demons of the priest? Or otherwise?

PWB: That is very much something I leave up to the audience’s point of view, that fox. I remember writing it, I write really random bits and that bit I was writing for Andrew. The first thing I ever wrote for the Priest was the scene that ends up in episode 5 [sic] in the vestry when they’re talking to each other and showing her his robes and everything, and I didn’t know what the hell was going on. What? I knew the Piglet stuff, I didn’t even know who this character was at that point. 

Then a similar thing happened with the fox when I was writing that scene, I was more surprised by the fox appearing in the scene than anybody. The best feeling is when I’m writing away and then honestly I just started laughing because this thing happened. I was writing and he was like, “Boo bah!” And I was like, “Ooh, let’s find out what this is.” And then realizing that the fox had to come back at the end just felt like the piece of the puzzle that made everything for me as a writer and emotionally, but I can't really articulate why, I think it’s up to the audience.

Taffy: Sorry, Carrie. I asked her. OK, one last question before we go to our lightning round. And the last question is where is Fleabag now and will she ever see the priest again? I bet you won’t want to answer that but I think you should. [To audience] I work for you.

PWB: Do you know I really honestly don’t know where she is now. [Audience awws.] She lives by the sea in a bungalow… the priest arrives on a donkey… “Oh, you came back for me!” I don’t know. 

This is one of the most sentimental things I’ve ever felt and I’ve ever said and I’m sorry if it makes you feel sick, but it’s true, which is on the last night of playing the role of Fleabag in the original play in the West End, and it was the exact same gang who took it to Edinburgh, to end up in the West End together in this big fancy theater, and we were all with Fleabag going, “Oh my god.” 

And I’d done it so many times, and so when the last night was coming around, I wasn’t feeling very, I was like, “I’m not going to get emotional or cry or anything because I just don’t really get like that,” and also we’ve been around this character for a very long time. And everybody was feeling the same way, we were like, “We’ll toast her and thank her for this amazing journey of the last six years that this character’s taken us on.”

It was a two-show day, it was a matinee, and in the afternoon, and I hadn’t invited any of my family because they’d seen it so many times, so I didn't sentimentalize at all. So during the matinee, I was performing toward the end of the play, and I was starting to feel very emotional, which is good because it’s better if you cry at the end of the play. And then I started to get sort of panicky because I could feel the character sort of leaving me. And I remember feeling like, “No, we’ve got one more show! Come back come back come back.”

So I was like, “Oh shit, that was weird” and I went to my stage manager and she was like, “What was that about?” and I said, “I swear I felt the character spook away, kind of leave me.” She said “We’ve got one more show.” 

So in the evening show I was a bit worried like, “What’s gonna happen?” Anyway so I was performing the end, and I did suddenly get really emotional and I was suddenly really hit by the whole journey of the character and then I did, I felt her go. And it was such a lovely feeling, because it was like you’ve done the right thing, you’ve ended the story at the right time, and I looked at my stage manager who is so hardcore, and she was like, (mimes crying) “Wahhh.”

It was a really magical feeling, feeling her go, because I don’t know where she is now and I think that’s the right thing for both of us.

Taffy: Are you ready for your lightning round? Just do some light stretching. These are all sourced from the internet. People knew this was happening and wrote to me to ask this question. Did Amazon give you a hard time about onscreen smoking?

PWB: No.

Taffy: Were you surprised by the reaction to the jumpsuit?

PWB: Yes. 

Taffy: Do you own the jumpsuit?

PWB: Now I do.

Taffy: Will you ever wear the jumpsuit again?

PWB: That’s the thing! Um, YES.

Tafty: Where is the jumpsuit now?

PWB: In my wardrobe at home.

Taffy: What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

PWB: I guess check my phone. Damn.

Taffy: It’s honest. What is your winding down routine at night? This is from the self-care group.

PWB: I’ll have a glass of wine and watch something? [Audience members cheer.] 

Taffy: People cheering for wine and cigarettes. 

PWB: Yeah, we’ll have a glass of wine and watch something.

Taffy: What are you watching lately?

PWB: What am I watching lately? [Thinking] Maybe I don’t wind down that way. I’ll come back to that one.

Taffy: Where are your Emmys?

PWB: My mum’s got all of them.

Taffy: I hope she’s got a big house. There are a lot of them.

PWB: She built like a whole cabinet around the back… No, I’m joking. She put an extension on the house. I haven’t been home since the Emmys, so they’ve gone ahead of me to get London-ready.

Taffy: Do you prefer your fans who loved Fleabag before the much-hyped second season, and would you be friends with those fans?

PWB: [Laughing] Yeah, they’re my family.

Taffy: And this is my favorite, I saved it for last. Do you have any advice for people with sexualized self-hatred? My followers can tell me what sexualized self-hatred is.

PWB: My advice is probably go to church.

Listen to our episode about this event—including Allie’s post-show encounter with Phoebe!—on Spotify , Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and most other podcast platforms.