How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S1, Ep1 How To Fail - Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Episode Date: July 13, 2018

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator and star of Fleabag, writer of Killing Eve, superstar feminist and human embodiment of a Star Wars droid, joins How To Fail to talk about how she failed at her 20s (but got lots of brilliant material from the terrible dates she endured), failing at drama school, terrible auditions (including one for Downton Abbey) and how her female best friend is quite possibly the love of her life. She also talks about emotional vulnerability, why women fail at anger and about finding glory in one’s mistakes. There’s a great exchange about whether women should be open about whether or not they want children and a whole segue into the desirability of alabaster foreheads. Oh, and we cover the time Phoebe met Meryl Streep and embarrassed herself horribly, in what might be one of the greatest celebrity anecdotes of all time involving apple crumble.  How To Fail is hosted by Elizabeth Day and produced by Chris Sharp  How To Fail is sponsored by Moorish  Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabdayMoorish @moorishhumousDryWrite @DryWriteFleabag @FleabagKilling Eve @KillingEve Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. Hosted by author and journalist Elizabeth Day, that's me. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. My guest this week is the actress, writer, producer, and generally acknowledged

feminist superhero, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She's best known for her starring role in Fleabag, a brilliant, foul-mouthed six-part sitcom which she adapted from her one-woman Edinburgh show. brilliant, foul-mouthed six-part sitcom which she adapted from her one-woman Edinburgh show. Fleabag was aired to universal critical acclaim in 2016, and since then, Waller-Bridge has written and produced the psychopathic assassin drama Killing Eve, been invited to the Met Gala, she wore Christopher Kane, and played a droid in a Star Wars spin-off, despite not knowing what a droid was when she auditioned. She's currently busy writing Fleabag 2. In the past, Waller-Bridge has described herself as having a provocative sensibility. And although her life so far seems to be one of great professional success, she tells me she's

confident there have been enough failures along the way for us to talk about. Hello, Phoebe. Hi, Elizabeth. So you're not only all of these things but you're also a very loyal and generous and kind friend and we've known each other since 2014 and in that time you've become globally famous and your face has been projected onto massive billboards on sunset boulevard and i just wondered what was that like it was pretty surreal I think it was actually the photographs because it was all in America that kind of thing so it was the photos from American friends sending them to me was my first experience of it and then I did actually go and I didn't actually I did see a

billboard but I was going I went past a bus stop and uh I was actually I think I might have actually been standing at it and then turned around when I saw my massive face watching me wait for a bus. And that was the most surreal bit, especially as I'm just in floods of tears in the poster. Do you mind seeing your face? I know that's a weird question, but... I mean, yeah, I had to really get over it when I was editing Fleabag because there's a lot of face in that. It's pretty much every frame and that was

difficult it's everything you try and ignore the rest of your life you then see relentlessly on screen day in day out when you're editing I think you sort of get used to it I see her as a slightly different person I think. Do you think you're good at being a famous person? I don't know I think I felt at the beginning when people first started recognizing me after Fleabag it was different from when people recognized me off like just a tv show because it was so mine Fleabag because I'd written it and that gave me a different feeling whereas before when I was doing Broadchurch and people would just be like oh you're the bitch lawyer off of uh broadchurch and I'm like yes I am thank you so much but I've got karma about it since it's my own work and my own writing because I think people come up and say I like what you created rather than I recognize

you I own you in some way because you've been in my living room in some way and you're I suppose yeah I'm quite good at the parties do you ever get that thing where you're sitting in a cafe with a friend and you out of the corner of your eye see someone trying to take a photo of you on their smartphone that happens on the tube quite a lot and actually Vicky my best friend is really good at spotting when that happens so she's always like fan fan fan and I'm always like I mean like nine times out of ten they're not a fan they're just somebody who's like on their phone but occasionally you see it hover up and that's the creepiest feeling actually so Fleabag sort of rose out of a failure not your own failure but it arose out of the failure for interesting parts to be offered to you as a young woman is that right well I'd say it felt

like my failure because I'd left drama school and nobody was interested so I felt like all that energy that goes into the graduation and then suddenly you're propelled out into the world as this new young actress and no one cares and you sort of think what what am I doing wrong but there's so much literature and gossip and chat about what why you won't be successful in this industry I felt sort of fortified to a certain extent like I know it's not going to be easy but it still hurts when you leave and there's there's not much going on talk to me a bit about your experience at RADA I mean you said there that there was a lot of chat about why you weren't going to succeed was that something because RADA is sort of known for breaking you down and

then building you back up isn't it yeah I think they probably encourage failure actually in terms of your experience it was difficult I did find it difficult because I I went in with the imagination to cast myself as a very old lady or a kind of rude girl or something that isn't my natural casting. And those are two roles that I ended up casting myself in for the showcase at the end, which also proved glorious failures. You was a rude girl? Yes, I can't even believe I'm saying rude girl. I mean, it just feels like so 90s. Is that ever really a thing that anyone outside the middle class has said has said yeah so I cast myself as those sort of roles because I wanted to be a character actress I wanted to play the stranger quirkier roles that's why I loved

acting that's why I love stories and then I did feel like in the machine of drama school and being a 19 year old going in it was very much like you should aim for the Shakespearean lead young female parts and there's huge huge competition for those sorts of roles and with my instinct which was always to I don't know like undercut things or be funny didn't wash so well with those roles that they do with the quirkier side roles um so I did find it quite hard and actually towards the end I hadn't I kind of tatted head with the principal when I was like you need to think outside the box a bit with these parts because I've already been bathed naked I've already been like crying a lot and those parts felt quite repetitive like all the young female parts are either yeah having abortions or crying and I was like I want something a bit

different and then he was like okay fine and then he cast me as a transvestite prostitute like I had a beard and a penis strapped on and thigh-high boots and actually asked Che Walker who was directing it was Barmen Gilead and this character doesn't exist in Barmen Gilead the play and Che Walker wrote it for me he wrote this monologue for me that was really fun because that was something different it's like the principal took what you said and was like fine let's throw everything out it's like he'd gone fuck you you want you want to be stretched and I was like that's not so much of a stretch it's more of a stretch to play the kind of earnest lead for me I find I found that very very hard and I really really admire actresses

that can play pure emotion without any irony relentlessly without any humor in it at all I find that the actors that can do that are incredible it's just not really my strength because I remember you once saying to me that actually the hardest part of filming Fleabag was not the overt sexual scenes it wasn't you having a wank at Barack Obama no fine easy those are fine it was actually the more emotional vulnerable part so you had to expose yourself psychologically. Yeah, yeah. And that's always the bit. I mean, everything has to feel truthful. But you know, even as an audience member that you want to be moved by believing something's real. And it's very straightforward, that contract with the audience, which is I'll make you believe me. And to be able to go to emotional places that you haven't necessarily been to in your life before the pressure is more there but then when you get there when you feel it when you touch that it's authentic in you that's when the real rush of acting comes and a lot of Fleabag stemmed from autobiographical experience

even if she is not an autobiographical character do you think you failed at relationships in your 20s oh yeah yes gloriously I mean I think even when you first said to me this is a podcast about failure I I could feel because you're such a positive person and I could already feel the glory of what you meant there like what's the glory in failure and I think fighting so hard to be so in love with someone with all that passion in your 20s and teens and then throwing everything at it and then it not working or like there being so much pain or and that is the stuff that so much creativity comes out of so out of those painful breakups or miscommunications or just horrible sticky one night stands or whatever it is something you grow in those moments and uh so I value them all

a sticky one-night stand it's the best expression ever the next day's stickiness as you get back into the knickers can you think of the worst date you've ever been on or the worst one-night stand let me flick through my diary your rolodex yourolodex. I wish I had a date diary. That actually would be proved very useful now. The worst date I ever had. There's just the ones where you just don't click at all and you feel yourself just sort of falling slowly into a chasm of boring the other person to tears. I don't know.

There was one when I, there was a guy, I'd, we had a couple of dates and then he'd stayed over and the next morning, it was quite clear to me that like, this wasn't going to go anywhere. And I think for him as well. But a song that I really love

is Etta James' At Last. I'm always singing it. Like, it's just the earworm that I always have. And I remember I was walking, I was living in a flat that was really on like a fifth floor or something I was walking down the stairs and I was walking in front of him as we were going to go for breakfast or whatever and I was singing at last all the way down the stairs and like my love has come along and when we got to the bottom stairs he was like ashen faced and like shaking and I was like what and he was

like um I didn't realize this had meant so much to you I was like oh god no god no no um that was that was pretty dire that led on to a very uh an awkward breakfast I mean they all sort of feel gloriously muddy see if I can think of another one as we go along are you glad that you don't have to live your 20s again yes like there's a brilliant line in girls when she goes you couldn't pay me to be one of the characters in the first series says you couldn't pay me to be 20 again and then I think Lena Jones character says well they don't pay me anything at all to be in my 20s I love that line so much yeah I feel like I've did it I committed to it I'd really like to have the skin from my 20s but I prefer my heart and my

guts now I mean your skin's amazing that sounds like such a creepy thing for me to say right now but you're bathed in the evening sunlight of East London do you remember when we got quite pissed off one night and I was going I used to have a porcelain forehead alabaster but then even that kind of stuff like women can be so haunted by or hunted by as they get older because we're taught to be hunted by it as we get older there's so much humor in that and there's so much life in that kind of stuff and it's the gloom of self-loathing that we're supposed to grow around us as we get older and start fearing that our value is diminishing has been the opposite experience for me actually you know as all that kind of stuff comes and you realize actually no this is just there's a I feel like there's a

message from society and billboards and all that kind of stuff that is teaching us to sort of hate ourselves and I've always felt like that was a kind of way of controlling us and the moment I realized that I was like oh you're just trying to control me and then that flicked my rebellious switch even more and now I just feel way more fierce than I ever did in my 20s. When you say it's a question of control, do you think it's control that stems from men having been in charge? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can't imagine that women en masse operating at that level

would want to peddle the same message. So I think so. But I think it's something we've become so used to. I think that's the problem, that I don't think that it's every man in the world saying that this is an impossible standard that women should live up to I think actually I mean it's probably like sinks in somewhere because it's something that we're so conscious of all the time as women and probably on some level men are as well but I feel like it's just a habit that we need to break and I have faith that we will as more women climb higher up

that pole do you dance swing higher up that pole as we do we reclaim the pole um do you do you feel because Fleabag has been so totemic for so many women particularly young women in their 20s didn't say pole she said totem so much classier way I've been I've been swinging my body around that totem as much as I possibly can we've heard they're both phallic symbols we should rethink the whole phallocentricity of this conversation but it's patriarchy what can we do we're operating within the system um but it is totemic and I imagine you get lots of 20 somethings feeling a bit lost coming to you for advice or wisdom.

And I wonder if you feel the pressure of that. I don't feel the pressure of it because I feel like it's not about advice or wisdom. It's about people feeling seen and people feeling heard. And it's more people coming up and going, I am Fleabag or I understand that. And it's men as well. But I feel like it's the duality of that character that has spoken to women in particular which is the front that we have which is we're totally in control and we have our nice haircuts and our red lipstick and underneath like we have no idea what's going on

we contradict ourselves relentlessly we have dark perverted thoughts and then we sanitize them even for ourselves and we have impulses that are very similar to the narrative of male impulses and yet they're not spoken about so much. I felt it was cathartic for me to have so many people say, oh, that's like me. Because to be honest, when I was writing it and with my theatre company, Dry Write, and with five of us women creating that show, the producer and the stage manager and Iso, my sister, the composer, and Vicky, the director, it felt so relevant to all of us women creating that show through the producer and the stage manager and iso my sister

the composer and vicky to the director it felt so relevant to all of us and so funny for all of us like every time that i'd be like playing around with something if they laughed i was like okay i'm not alone and it was a conversation that we had just before it went up to edinburgh and i was like if this fails keeping on point if this fails then it essentially means that we're alone because it feels so right for us and so the fact that it caught on and people could relate to it made us all feel less lonely and me too I think you're so right though because I think so much of culture has been dominated by the male voice literature the male gaze in cinema and what Fleabag did and also what you do in a lot of your other projects is you're honest about female experience and female rage and not deliberately being salacious

but the fact that you talked really openly about masturbation and that you did have that scene where Fleabag the character was wanking to a speech by Barack Obama was instantly relatable and I wonder if you've always been like that that you've always spoken openly about this like even when you were little I mean yeah it wasn't a question about that my first family masturbation chat was when I was six um yeah I think I have I think I've already always got a kick out of saying something that is truthful yet feels taboo. I'm not interested in sort of gratuitous chat or saying anything to shock because usually that stuff feels false and you can sense it. But to call the elephant in the room, yeah,

has always been a pastime and something that I feel energised by I think but it was so strange after Fleabag came out a woman wrote me a letter and said I knew your grandmother and my grandmother died when you know I was just about pre-teen so I and I knew her and I loved her but I didn't really know that much about her character and for me she was a very prim and proper lady and when I went to go meet Mary who was friends with her she said the incredible thing about her memory of Jill was that she would always say the shocking truth in a situation she was always the person who was swearing when no one else was allowed to swear and she'd get and you know and that was such a huge part of her personality and I was like oh maybe there is a

family trait somewhere and has that ever got you into trouble like what were you like at school yeah well it plays into that duality I think that I play with with uh Fleabag because I remember my mum saying to me when I first went to secondary school she said she's like just be an angel for the first three terms if you are an angel for the first three terms you'll get away with anything you want for the rest of your school career and I really took that to heart and I was and I made sure like I worked hard I got the I don't know like badges or whatever you got but the whole time just basically saying to my mates if I nail this then I can you know take anyone down later and it was so true because then I just had the reputation of being a hard

working student and I was a massive practical joker and the cheekiness that also my mother had bred in me was brilliantly offset by the lesson to like appear to be a good girl and then you'll get away with being a bad girl so genius but it just made everything way more fun because it's the plan you know if you you don't want to be good just for a good student for the sake of being a good student if you know that your goal is so that you can get away with being mischievous later on I think one of the things because although you now create your goal is so that you can get away with being mischievous later on. I think one of the things, because although you now create your own material brilliantly, you did start out as an actress. And one of the things that always impresses me about actors is that they have to go through the audition process again and again and again, no matter how famous

you are, and how that must acquaint you with a certain degree of failure and having to leave yourself open to other people failing you, as in the people who are casting or not casting you. They might just say you're not right for this role. How do you deal with that? Oh, yeah. Oh, well, I mean, when you first told me about this podcast, I was like, my God, my life has been, especially since I graduated from drama school anyway, it's been a series of brutal failures.

And that's just become a way of life. Everyone tells you the rejection. You have to prepare yourself for the rejection. And it is heartbreaking because you just sometimes you fall in love with the part obviously but then some of you just want to work you just so desperately want to work and get better at what you're doing and you can't do that you can't practice acting at home like you can an instrument I mean you can try but you need an audience you need somebody to riff off and that's really all I wanted to do

when I first came out I just wanted to do it all the time and it was hard because it was like the industry just saying you're not allowed to do it yet you're not allowed to do it yet you're not allowed to do it yet and so the thing I love doing more than anything else I couldn't do on my own unless I I'd like to say that I did endless monologues in my bedroom on my own but I really didn't but that just quickly became a way of life and actually it was that it was the relentlessness of the nose and also the silences of you know you're up against hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of other actresses for a single part in a tv comedy that is essentially a part that you have to be hot for so that's kind of what it felt like when I first came out of drama school but it was actually in the face of the emptiness is when I first started writing

and creating my own work so the failure of that and feeling like I didn't belong in the industry in some way because I was trying to fit into all these other boxes and then eventually I was like I've got to practice what I preached and write the part that I'm saying I'm not reading. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. wherever you get your podcasts.

Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words, supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Was there one particularly nauseating audition that sticks in the mind? Well, a funny one that taught me a lot was the Downton Abbey audition

because I went in part and I read the script and this part was like heartbreaking and sincere already I was like oh shit I can't do that I was like you know and I felt I felt her and but there wasn't much humor in the in the role but I was like that's that's okay I'm just, but there wasn't much humour in the role. But I was like, that's okay, I'm just going to play her really straight. So I went into the audition and I played it incredibly straight. And by the end of my reading, the director was laughing. And he went, I had no idea this character was funny. But I had done nothing to try and make it funny.

I was like, I was just trying to be serious. And I left there being like, that was a strange experience. I mean, they're all mortifying, all auditions, just the kind of facade of them, the fact that everyone's awkward, and now being on the other side of it as well and auditioning other people, it's so hard to just have that sense of being able to level with people, going, this is weird, I'm going to sit in front of you with absolutely no aid other than this script, which I'm not really supposed to be holding anyway and pretend at you that I'm this person that you have jumped up on your head I just think the whole

thing's excruciating but I'm not sure I'm not comfortable with not auditioning for things because I think it's so much about the chemistry in the room with the people you're about to work with so it's a kind of mixture of what we need and what we dread yeah out of a situation god it's just like life yes constantly trying to convince people that you're one thing and actually just desperate for someone to say that's all right we all know we're all the other thing but it's that game we play and again there is energy in that like you do feel like there is something adrenalizing about going into an audition that is thrilling, but it's the prep, it's the preparation for it that's, you know, and I felt for so long, and this might just, I'm sure it's not just me, but I did feel for so long, I just woke up one day and went,

my God, I spend 70% of my audition prep time working out what I'm going to wear, what I'm going to look like, what I'm going to, like, my hair and my makeup and stuff. And it's always been the auditions that I've sort of not had time to do that or something, and I've just gone in just with my raw instinct and they're the ones that often come off so it's another lesson in just drop the superficial kind of awareness yeah yeah we're speaking in a post Weinstein world have you ever experienced the casting couch dynamic no no I can't imagine a very British situation everyone's like would you pop that off I can't imagine a very British situation. Would you pop that off? I haven't. I was so aware of it when I was coming out of drama school, because everyone's, again, warning you about

that kind of thing. But at the professional level that I was working at or wanting to try and get in at that level, it would be unusual. There are too many people in the room. I think it's when you got to the very incredibly high level when people have all the power and they're warping it and they're exploiting it I luckily never subjected to that have you ever sexually exploited anyone well daily yes this morning particularly no but I have had people say things to me that are definitely inappropriate but because I've been so aware of it because I've been so aware of the power of calling things in a room I mean I do feel like when I read the stories I do feel so horrified and so lucky that I didn't get wrapped up in that or didn't that I wasn't confronted with that as an

actress but I fear it was mainly because I just wasn't getting that many jobs or auditions you know and I think it's the incredibly successful or the incredibly beautiful young girls that come out and and can just be exploited so quickly I just sort of wasn't wasn't one of those do you ever feel like an imposter end of question that was it that was it because I think that's something that afflicts many successful women, this sense that they don't deserve to be there or there's just some massive fraud that's been perpetrated on the public that means that they win a BAFTA. But do you feel that?

I have moments of it, but overall, no. I feel like I have a right to have a shot at this industry. I have a right to have a shot at writing, creating and acting. I really believe in the competition of it. I know there's a lot of cynicism around why certain people get certain roles, but it's also, it's the game and you have to know what the game is. And I already know that I'm massively privileged in the sense that I had a good education. I was exposed to kind of drama-y clubs. You know, I had two parents that loved me and encouraged me. I went to RADA.

I had choices. And I was set up to succeed in so many ways. And then the industry is a different ballgame. And once you're into it, it doesn't feel that straightforward anymore. And that's when I really discovered my ambition because I was like, I feel like I have a place here. And I feel like I have stories place here and I feel like I have

stories to tell I feel like I have performances to give and if someone's not going to give them to me I'll fucking go out there and do it on my own and that sounds like a sort of war cry but it was something that I've always had I think which is I will do my best to do it anyway and just really hope that people respond and I know that there's a kind of false modesty and like I can't believe I've had this. And sometimes it's not false because sometimes I do feel incredibly lucky. And I think the kind of series of accidents

or whatever it was that led to success that I've had, even if it's been like my ambition and my writing something colliding with a zeitgeist, which is what felt like happened with Fleabag. I met Vicky who, you know, is my creative partner in life and my best best friend and she was the real catalyst of change I can't just say I just sat down and wrote a play it was like no I met somebody who changed my life and gave me a sense of confidence and fearlessness

because I was like if I've got her and I fail she'll be there with me and she'll laugh it out. And she'll be like, well, you did what you do. And if they don't like it, then they don't like it. Let's try something else. Do you know what I love about that is that you have described what many people would conventionally think of as the perfect romantic relationship. And it's actually the greatest friend in your life. Yeah. And we joke about that with each other, that we're the loves of each other's lives.

And the other loves that come in are our, like we're each other's wives and the men in our lives are our mistresses. And it really did feel like that. It is the most romantic story we met. I approached her in a bar. She'd been directing my boyfriend at the time. And she was at the bar downstairs

and I approached her and said, if you ever need an actress for anything, please will you put me in it? And unlike everyone else in the industry who's instinctively suspicious of someone coming up to you in a bar and saying, I'm an actor. Of course you are. I mean, we're like rats. We're like everywhere. But she just had her response was, how exciting.

You want to be an actress? That's amazing. And I'm like, yes. And she was like, my God, of course. And then she did cast me in something six months later, which ended up being like the most disastrous experience of all time, but which she got fired. And I quit from that because she was basically being a genius and saving the play. And the woman who was running it was sort of not cute. And, uh, and so Vicky ended up being fired. Then I quit. And then that night we, um, we went for a drink, which I suppose

is our first official date and we discussed what we love about theatre and stories and what we love about being an audience mainly what we love about being an audience and how we want to create that kind of work for ourselves yeah we've just never doubted each other and never doubted each other's presence in each other's lives and she's been a huge huge part of anything good that's come out of my career and that is why I probably don't feel like an imposter as well, because I feel like it can be quite a lonely industry. And I feel very, very lucky that I found my partner in crime.

And, you know, we hadn't seen each other recently in quite a few weeks because we'd been working on our separate things. And we met up just for a drink. And in that drink, it was like we spent three hours with each other. We ended up having to like ask the waiter for a notepad and a pen and everything because just out of hanging out with each other we just started we just wanted to draw each other yes but we just wanted to start writing again and start coming up with ideas again that's when we realized that it's even like grosser than being

each other's loves of our lives we're like we are actually each other's muses we need to we need to do this more for our own creative life so that's the reason that I probably don't feel like an imposter do you think that you need a romantic relationship beyond that like do you think if in an alternative universe you were never going to have a romantic relationship again but you had your friendship with Vicky and friendship with other women I mean yes because it's such a huge other part of my life and obviously like we just don't sort of want to snog each other that was going to be my next question we've uh no I mean it's it's a purer thing it's of the

heart and of the brain yeah I mean and also because that's our friendship that's our like we need something to bloody talk about with each other outside of work but I do feel incredibly secure I feel like with her and so love in any other shape or form is a wonderful bonus and fills another part of me so to speak but yeah yeah of course I want you know you want the whole spectrum of love in your life I think um I want to do that really annoying journalist thing where I read a quote to you that you gave oh Jesus to an interviewer who happens to be me just but it was about it was at the time it's just before Fleabag aired and you were talking about female rage which you've sort of become the poster girl for and you said and I know a lot of my female peers feel really angry I think that a woman's response at first is to feel guilty and apologetic

about it without knowing why the idea of the angry young man is so deeply embedded in culture but the angry young woman seems never to be addressed and I suppose I wanted to ask you a broader question off the back of that do Do you think women fail at anger? I don't know if they fail it. I think they compartmentalise it and it can manifest in different ways. I think it can be bottled and then turned into something else, whereas it's not just released or celebrated in its release. I think a man who shows rage,

or like when you even see it on the street, just like guys fighting in the street sometimes, everyone's sort of like, we understand why they're doing that. You know, we'll like, we'll let it go to a certain extent because there's so much of it on display and so much in movies and TV and stuff. I feel like women have,

I mean, it's hard to talk for all women, you know, but I feel like the narrative of female anger has been manipulated so it's like hysteria or like calm down love you know it's like you're getting you lose your mind when you get angry whereas with men it's like they connect to something deeper with them when they get angry they connect to the the real man the animal whereas with women it's like they lose themselves and they lose their focus or whatever it is and I think that feels true but then I've been writing about it with Killing Eve which is the psychopath show about that it doesn't have to necessarily be people lashing out or anger and rage can be a really positive emotion I mean god it got me writing and creating but there's something

really extraordinary still about seeing like there's this character Villanelle that we're writing seeing her kill people all the time and not feeling the instant remorse in fact she's curious about it and she knows it's what she's good at and she's unempathetic to people's pain but she's still curious about the impact she's having and it's shocked people so much seeing her brutalize people and then be able to walk away from it in a way that we haven't, we're so desensitised with the male character. People are so fascinated by female killers and when I started reading into them, I know anger and violence don't go hand in hand,

but it's like the extreme example of it, isn't it? But when I started researching female killers, there was something so electrifying about them because they really have shaken off any sense of consequence or vanity or anything because it's not kind of a strong woman who's like being powerful it's like someone who's gone i don't care anymore about being called hysterical or anything i'm just gonna kill you i'm going to extreme with the killing but but it's the polar opposite as well of that sort of cultural stereotype that a woman must be nurturing and motherly and yeah yeah that would make me angry because it happens in phases

you know we're all we're all individuals and i think that some people do feel way more nurturing than others men and women and it happens in moments like there were just times when you feel it's not being able to feel like you can have a window when you don't feel like that or you can have windows when you do and I feel like women have to put it somewhere else put that impulse somewhere else then I've got a friend of mine who said that she had this massive screaming row with her husband in a restaurant and I couldn't believe the story because I was like you're actually shouting at him in a restaurant she was like yeah he was being a dick and I shouted at him I was like and the whole restaurant was watching you shout she's like yeah I didn't care and there was something about that I just loved

it so much because I don't think I could ever do that and I think I think that's about my pride and needing to appear sort of controlled and so I will bury that and then my rage comes out in a kind of slower more creative way yeah but the fact that she just explodes like that and you know it's a very like not very British thing to do anyway but I sort of love seeing it and hearing about it I mean following off that thing about kind of the cliche notion of a maternal being and like female nurturing I'm intrigued as to how often you get asked in interviews about wanting babies or settling down, because that is something that I, as a journalist, really struggle with, because every single time I interview a female star, it's probably about 95% of the time,

but my editor will say, can you ask about this? And I feel very conflicted then, as someone who, you know, I have a job and I need to please my editor and my readership but I also think it's completely outrageous to ask a woman something that you wouldn't ask a man do you get asked that a lot I don't get asked that a lot but I also in any photo shoot I ever do I'm always put in a suit so um and it's always like it's the newest idea anyone's ever had it's like she's a writer, she has opinions. That's so interesting. She should be in a suit.

And like maybe even, fuck it, let's put a tie on her and a moustache. I feel like I'm, and maybe it's because I'm not quite at the age yet. I mean, I sort of, I mean, early 30s, I guess so. But no, I don't get it that much. The thing is, I can understand why you get pressure to ask that question because it's self-perpetuating, isn't it? Because it's like, people want to know that about women because we want to hear the interesting answer so desperately yeah and we want to hear what other people are going through

because we are given one narrative which is women have babies at a certain time and so it's interesting to ask lots of different women what how they feel about babies and that is something like i'd be interested to hear what any professional woman has to say about that what then infects it is the pressure they have to give a sanitized yeah like rehearsed answer that we've all seen so many times and read so many times and so the question itself is I guess sort of interesting and could puncture the stereotype of the answer all the time but then the pressure is too big because it's such an emotional minefield, you know? And I think when any time that the professional and the personal lines blur in interviews,

it does always seem with men, the personal answers are very specific to them as individuals. And when it's women, it's very generalised. And I think that's probably when it gets annoying as well. But yeah, I mean, it's very refreshing to not read that in every single interview and I and I love that you balk against it and probably don't ask that many people that question do you want babies though I'm joking that's a joke scratch it from the record but actually one of the one of the um but it's funny that it feels like a taboo question though though, even between us, because personally, we would ask each other that and not feel anything.

Actually, would we feel something? Not as old friends. Yeah. But I still think that there is something dangerous in asking a woman. Oh, I definitely think that. As a woman, I don't have children. And that has a whole emotional tale for me personally. And so when people I've only just met at dinner parties or whatever will say do you have kids and it's a sort of unthinking thing in the same way that someone would ask what job do you do but um it carries so much weight for women I think and I

would never ask that well because beyond a certain age if it's no it can be um received as a failure exactly and that circling back i know well yeah but that's interesting because then we feel like that a failure that is can be out of our hands is instantly made public and then there are judgments put on us because of that kind of thing it's funny because i'd say i do want children but i also don't know if i'm going to and i don't know if that's going to be my path and i don't know if that's going to be my path and I don't know if that's if it's going to happen but I want to go forward going yes and if it if it doesn't you know work out then I'd probably be devastated I might not be I don't know it's

so interesting but I know that I don't definitely not want them yeah because I would say my failure to conceive which obviously isn't mine alone it means that I'm at a stage I never thought I'd be at in this particular phase of my life not having children but it's been so much more interesting because of that like life has been more interesting and has taught me more stuff because life is all about texture and all about the unexpected in a way and that's in a way in a funny sort of way being such a privilege being one of that group of women. And I think that life is opening up for lots of women of our age. And in a way, if you don't have a child,

you're sort of a pioneer for a kind of woman who cannot have a child and own it and be okay with it and not be conceived of as like half a woman. But also that fascination with but why and that's what I mean by asking the questions interesting because you want the interesting answers from people and sometimes that you know they are the usual answers and sometimes your answer is fascinating and it's such a huge part of who you are now and you are this extraordinary human being and everyone feels like that when they meet you and it's such a huge part

of that when you take the taboo out of it it's suddenly just a much more human and natural conversation but again in um killing eve sounds like i'm really pushing killing eve but um you're also pushing how great i am which i'm totally a-okay with but in killing eve the main character eve doesn't have kids and she's in her 40s and so is her husband i didn't even think about it because i suppose because i don't have kids but i was like it's not like an issue that she doesn't have kids but then you know people rightly so just as your editor was asking do we need to know why should we ask the question why should it be addressed why and then you know I thought of like certain things like oh she can

say she was uh she had early menopause or like I said then I was like why am I saying like giving reasons for it it's like isn't it cooler if she's just not and which was always the instinct in the first place and it's so funny because the feeling not to have to address it in the show and we're like there's eight episodes with this woman and no one asks the question no one cares because she's on her she's on her mission we've focused her on another mission great and so no one asks the question it's part of the reason it's called killing eve is not just because she's killing a character called eve but because you were killing the mythological woman eve so yes i've just i've just had this like revelatory moment i'm gonna leave that for your own interpretation and for the interpretation of yours but that sounds really impressive so uh i will certainly leave that in the ether

um when we were talking about female anger earlier you were talking about how it comes out with you in creative ways but is there like a straightforward way that you rid yourself of it do you do extreme exercise or is there something that you have learned works for you wow I certainly don't do extreme exercise my god like once every six months and everyone knows about it when I do I like literally I think I do actually message you every time I do it um I get like flash rage which is when I suddenly get really angry about something and it comes up it literally lasts for about four seconds and I find it very funny myself so I'll be like wow and then laugh about it I really think I found it through writing I really really have and the best parts of writing is when I can feel that muscle in me or that like whatever shadow it is in me who sort of comes alive and

she's like this is the shadow hand and typing that speech or that story and I really feel it when I feel like there's a truth about particularly female characters but also male characters when there's a truth that feels warped and weird and kind of twisted but I feel like it's true in the character and when that gets challenged I'll just write it even more I will write on a small scale sometimes I mean ridiculously sometimes I'll be told we can't swear in this script I don't mean to be rebellious but in the next script that I deliver I mean it'll be just abhorrent language all the way through and I think it's that I think it's kind of reaction to being told what to do. So luckily it comes out in the work. There's a brilliant scene in the first series of Fleabag,

which features your own real-life mother as a feminist lecturer. And she asks the audience to raise their hands if they would rather sacrifice five years of their life for the perfect body. Is that right? Yeah. Would you give up five years of your life in exchange for the perfect body? And Fleabag and her sister both put their hands up. Yes, without hesitation.

Yes, of course. And it was a very funny scene. And I wonder how much that taps into your own sense. Do you think you failed as a feminist in any way? Or did you? I mean, around that time, yeah, endlessly. I felt like I was just exploding minds all the time, every step. But also with myself.

It wasn't like anyone was telling me off. But I would just constantly be checking with myself does that make me a good feminist does that make me a good feminist and having to remind myself no being a good feminist is just like fighting for equal rights between men and women it's very simple and having to have that as a mantra but there's all that kind of gray area in between which is what Deborah Francis White's podcast is so interesting at addressing. What is it that makes a bad feminist? Because it ties into the guilt thing that women have all the time.

Like we're not achieving the ideal of a feminist or the ideal of a woman or the ideal of a girlfriend or a wife or a mother or, you know, reproductive machine or all that kind of stuff. And in my 20s, I felt so confused about all of that because I was felt like the message I was being fed and particularly probably in this industry and particularly because I was an actress and all that kind of stuff was that our image is how we should value us we value ourselves by our kind of sexual attractiveness and our youth and I remember reading a magazine article in a women's magazine that said oh we've like asked all the men in the world and they say the perfect age for a woman is 25 and they've asked absolutely everybody and they all say I think and I remember being like I think I was 25 when I read it and I was like oh shit well what am I supposed to do with this and I was like just like run out the house naked like just like how how do I use this

apparently I'm at my best and it was that stuff that would make me so angry because I knew and I was clever enough to know that that wasn't the truth. And I resented the message being rammed down my throat so much and seeing the effect it had on the other men. And men get the same thing, especially now, that youth is so fetishised and that it's not a time where you are like,

it's a time you're meant to be defining yourself, especially as, you know, a young woman, but you also have to be careful because you're so damn hot. You might, you know, send someone off, send someone into bad behaviour. It was all those contradictions that were driving me crazy and it was, you want your life and your work to be so much about your brain and your choices

and your argument. It was actually in theater that I really found that I could exercise that being able to write like nothing's clear everything's polarized everything's either like or dislike or good or bad and you feel like that as a young feminist I think that there are enough boxes you can tick to be a good one and it's just not true there's one box you can tick to be a good feminist which is fight for the rights and inspire other people to fight for the rights for women to be equal as men that is the only box you need to take is that why you're not on twitter or instagram because of that

polarizing need to have a black or white opinion yes and i'm scared and sensitive and I'd instantly feel the pressure to be funny or to say something important or witty or clever. I spend the rest of my life trying to do that in life, socially, to survive. And also, you know, my work. I go on Twitter. I follow people. People on Twitter make me laugh so much. I go to kind of gauge, it's like canvas opinion opinion about certain things and I think I'm really glad it's there to a certain extent and I really I think some people are brilliant at it but I just know I wouldn't be and there's no seamless link between that question this one who's the most exciting famous person you've met the most exciting famous person I've met well Donald

Glover who I did the Star Wars film with was I was so excited to meet him because I was obsessed with Atlanta. I loved him before in the community and have been tracking him. I do actually think he's a genius. I think that word gets bandied around quite a lot, but I think he actually is. I was really excited to meet Meryl Streep when I was doing The Iron Lady. Was she? I was weird with her, though.

I go weird around celebrities and always in a very individual way for each celebrity. I should just not be around them. What did you say to Meryl Streep that was weird? Meryl Streep was doing The Iron Lady and she was in this prosthetic, sort of whole body face scenario.

The lights were so hot. So whenever she was on set, she couldn't really speak in between because so much energy was taken up and just like acting through this, you know, mask and everything. So when the lights were so hot so whenever she was on set she didn't she couldn't really speak in between so much energy was taken up and just like acting through this you know mask and everything so when the light so she would never say anything in between cuts and we always knew and she was always like i'm really sorry but i just can't i know i just need to like power down have a glass like sip some water through the straw but there was one day when uh the lights went off they called cut and then she just turned around to this room of people and went you know in her

margaret thatcher voice and just went, so, you know, how's everybody's day? And everyone just freaked out. Everyone just, like, froze in the room because they were like, oh, my God, everyone at the same time. We were like vultures, just like, this is our moment to share words with Meryl Streep. And so everyone sort of was being very casual and the scene was like a drinks party or something,

but edging towards her with this kind of wild look in their eye and everyone was trying to have some personal bants with Meza. So she was just opening the conversation, and then it was getting, like, weirdly competitive, and we were, like, crowding around her, but everyone was trying to be very casual. And then she started up this conversation about something. Anyway, I tried a joke, and it landed.

And she laughed, and she was like, and everyone else just looked at me with steel, and an ashen face, and fury, and I was like, I've won it, she's mine, she's mine, so she was mine, but after that, I was like, she's totally mine, she's totally mine, we're gonna have a day together, we're gonna, like, like, nod to each other respectfully in the corridors, we're gonna, we may even, like, you know, graduate to a drink at some point, then um at lunchtime I was sitting at this table with everybody and I was eating this apple crumble and she came down the stairs she was feeling lively this day uh obviously outside of the prosthetic she came down the stairs and she was walking

towards me I was like oh my god oh my god like she's gonna come to the table and we're friends now because I was the one that made her laugh and she walked up to the table and she put her hand on my shoulder and she said uh oh what are you eating i have never answered why this i got so excited about the banter with mel that i flung my apple crumble! And she went, oh. And then she went back to her American accent, which she hadn't done for the whole time. And she went, I wasn't going to take it from you.

And I was just holding this awful, like, dripping pudding over my beautiful silk shirt. And I was just holding it there really tightly, not letting it go. I was just like, oh, my God, oh, my God, everyone's doing it. I'm like, what was that? That was the strang tightly not letting it go I was just like oh my god oh my god everyone's doing it and I'm like what was that that was the strangest response and then she was like oh okay

and then she moved off and then I had to go and apologise costume thing so just weird stuff like that you made her break character you made Meryl Streep break character

oh Phoebe it's been a delight thank you for talking to me we didn't even get on to your failure to learn the ukulele. Oh, well, no, that's best left as a secret, I think. That's chapter two.

Thank you so much. Thank you, my love. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.