THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 64 AUGUST 14, 2019
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T/GETTY^ IMAGES.^Hear Waller-Bridge explain the “hot priest” phenomenon at THR.COM/VIDEOJames Bond that always intrigued
me in a similar way that Villanelle
did,” says Waller-Bridge, referenc-
ing Comer’s Killing Eve assassin.
“They live a fantasy! But it’s a
life none of us would ever want,
if we’re honest. We don’t want to
go put a bullet in someone’s head
to sleep with people and have
martinis. It’s a kind of fantasy
nightmare.” Asked about reports
that Bond 25 actress Lashana
Lynch will be picking up the 007
mantle, she says, “The whole
thing has potential to birth new
iconic characters all the time.”
She’s cognizant and some-
what suspicious of the mild
frenzy around her contribu-
tion: “A lot has been made of me
coming on board because I’m a
woman, and that’s wonderful.
But also I can’t take credit for
the movie that was written. It’s
Cary’s movie.”
With the new value on her
name, Waller-Bridge speaks most
carefully about credit. Her role
on Killing Eve is now solely that of
executive producer. She says
she offers feedback on season
three scripts when current
showrunner Suzanne Heathcote
sends them but prefers to give
writers the freedom she’s been
afforded. She’s also not writing
on HBO’s Run, a detail she says
has been ignored in early cover-
age. Created by Vicky Jones, the
comedy stars Merritt Wever and
Domhnall Gleeson, with Waller-
Bridge attached as executive
producer and in a recurring role.
(For HBO’s part, the network does
have bragging rights in being the
next to get her on camera.)
Waller-Bridge’s real Fleabag
follow-up, she insists, is a feature
she’s writing with the intent
to direct: “The day I wrapped
Fleabag, I went to bed thinking,
‘I’m never going to have another
idea again. Oh shit.’ I woke up
with the vision of this film.” Of
three things she appears to be
certain: She won’t take the proj-
ect to market until it’s finished,she needs a meaningful theatri-
cal release (sorry, Netflix) and she
will not be cajoled into appearing
on camera — though the third
requirement could prove unre-
alistic. “I blatantly will end up
in it,” she cops after wincing her
way into a laugh.
In the age of the nine-figure
overall deal, it’s also easy to
assume any future sale for
Waller-Bridge may coincide with
the multihyphenate wedding
herself to one outlet. “You can
smell it a mile off when people
are just saying, ‘We want to pay
for your name,’ to be associated
with their company and then
have their own agenda,” she says.
“No, I wouldn’t trust that for
a second.”
That’s not to say she doesn’t
ponder the perks. Outside of the
money, she sees one big draw
to working with just a single
company: “There is certainly an
appeal in not having to meet new
people all the time.”AFTERNOON RUNNING OUT OF STEAM,
Waller-Bridge leans in a bit, beer
in hand, for a casual chat about
death. “I have to stop myself from
writing about it,” she concedes,
“but it’s all I really want to
write about.”Tear away the wrapping of sex
and cynicism, and Fleabag is
about the loss of both the charac-
ter’s mother and best friend. And
while death proves a subtler spec-
ter in the second season — with
Fleabag falling for Scott’s “hot
priest” — the debate over faith
and the afterlife becomes central
to the existential intimacy. “I
just can’t get my head around
literal unconsciousness forever,”
she says. “The whole worm-food
thing. ... That’s what gives me
panic attacks.”
She is better equipped to deal
with Fleabag reaching the end
of the line — though she also
can’t stop herself from dangling
a carrot with the suggestion
of revisiting the character two
decades down the line, “when I’m
50, maybe, when you know there’s
been a life lived and it’s a differ-
ent face looking down the barrel.”
But Waller-Bridge says expec-
tations, for more Fleabag or
anything else she does, will
pass. It’s one of the reasons she’s
taking a breather, she insists,
before she goes onto the next.
“People get over shit,” she says,
offering a shrug and crediting
her mother with some ever-
green advice. “If something
doesn’t go well, you’ll get over it,
everyone will get over it. And if
something goes brilliantly,
we’ll all get over that, too.” When
she tries to predict how she’ll
feel in a month, after Fleabag’s
final London performance
Sept. 14, all she can summon is
an “elated,” before taking things a
little deeper: “We need things
to end to remind us that we are
still alive.”FLEABAG FROM STAGE TO SCREEN AND BACK
2009
Early work for Waller-Bridge
and Vicky Jones’ theater
company, DryWrite, has bits
of both the play and series.
“I basically [first] played
Claire in a skit Phoebe wrote,”
says Sian Clifford. “It wasn’t
Fleabag, but it was two sisters
in a lecture hall — which is in
the pilot episode.”
2013
The debut of Waller-
Bridge’s one-woman stage
play at Edinburgh Festival
Fringe gets a mixed
reception — dubbed “rude”
and “filthy” but makes her a
star of the festival, earning
key awards and enough
buzz to garner a run in
London later in the year.2014
London’s Soho Theatre
brings back Fleabag for the
second of three sold-out
runs, as demand for Waller-
Bridge increases and she
books a prominent role on
the second season of the
U.K. hit series Broadchurch
— opposite past and future
collaborator Olivia Colman.2016
Fleabag, the television
series, premieres in the
U.K. in July and in the U.S.
that September. Though
Waller-Bridge initially
jokes that “smug artistic
integrity” will keep her
from revisiting the series, a
second season is ordered
the following year.2018
After another national tour
of the U.K., with actress
Maddie Rice stepping into
the title role, Waller-Bridge
agrees to take the play to
the U.S. for the first time,
where it runs at New York’s
SoHo Playhouse from
March 17 to April 14, 2019,
to sellout crowds.2019
With her Fleabag TV series
having ended in April,
Waller-Bridge is set to
retire the play for good in
September at Wyndham’s
Theatre in London’s West
End. “The capacity is 800,”
she says. “I’ve never done
it in a space like that, so
we’ll see if it translates!”“YOU CAN SMELL IT
A MILE OFF WHEN
PEOPLE WANT TO PAY
FOR YOUR NAME.”
WALLER-BRIDGE, ON THE HEAT AROUND HERLeft: Waller-
Bridge with
sister Isobel
(Fleabag’s
composer) in- Right:
with Martin
McDonagh
at the 2018
Oscars.