How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S5, Ep2 How To Fail: FLEABAG IS BACK

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

Yes. That's right. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is back.One year on from her debut appearance on How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, my first ever guest returns to talk about the craziness of her last 12 months, during which she has written and starred in Fleabag 2 (described as a televisual masterpiece by...well...almost everyone), made Killing Eve (described as a televisual masterpiece by...well...almost everyone) and been brought in by the James Bond producers to work her magic on the franchise.It's a year that, from the outside, has seemed to many of us to be the epitome of success. But what failures lie underneath the surface? What about those private moments of vulnerability and self-doubt we are so rarely privy to?Phoebe joins me to talk about three failures from the past year, including her failure to connect with her family, her failure to speak up for herself and her failure to Marie Kondo her bedroom. Along the way, we discuss what makes the perfect water bottle, filming THAT final scene in Fleabag (apparently the foxes were total divas), sexuality, exhaustion and why female creators are often unfairly assumed to be writing autobiography. And yes, the Meryl Streep apple crumble anecdote makes an appearance.Thank you, Phoebe, for coming back onto the podcast and being such a generous and wonderful friend.If you haven't already listened to her first episode, you can do so here ***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT KLAXON***I am thrilled to be taking How To Fail on tour around the UK in October, sharing my failure manifesto with the help of some very special guests. These events are *not* recorded as podcasts so the only way to be there is to book tickets via www.faneproductions.com/howtofail How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin and sponsored by Teatulia. To contact us, email [e-mail] The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day, is out now and is available here. Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayChris Sharp @chrissharpaudioNaomi Mantin @naomimantinTeatulia @TeatuliaUK  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 yamx. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This series of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day is sponsored by Tea Tulia, my favorite new bar in London's Covent Garden. It's actually a tea bar where you can also buy great organic teas.

As something of a green tea snob myself, I have to say their jasmine has become a cupboard staple in my house this year. More importantly, they sell tea cocktails made with infusions from their tea, which are very delicious and I might add very, very strong. There are books for sale too with selections by Tilda Swinton, Jon Hamm, Lionel Shriver and well me. I picked 10 books that have been important to me and the whole list is for sale now. They also have an excellent online shop and are giving 20% off everything to you lovely listeners. Just go to titulia.com, that's T-E-A-T-U-L-I-A-B-A-R.com and enter howtofail, all one word, at checkout. Thank you very much to Titulia. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. 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. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. So this is a very special episode. Just over a year ago, I launched a podcast. The idea was to have vulnerable and honest conversations with people about the things that hadn't gone right. I DM'd a hummus company on Twitter for sponsorship, I sold my wedding dress on eBay to get the funds to hire a producer, and then I asked people I knew to be my interviewees. My first ever guest on the podcast that would become How to Fail with Elizabeth Day was none other than my dear and generous friend

Phoebe Waller-Bridge. At the time we spoke, she had just wrapped filming on a Star Wars movie. The first series of Fleabag had aired and she was hard at work on the second, and a TV drama she had written and exec produced called Killing Eve was about to air. Since then, Phoebe has become one of the most phenomenally successful women on the planet. Killing Eve won three BAFTAs and was praised in Rolling Stone for undermining every rule of TV and for being hilarious, bloody, unclassifiable. Fleabag season two was universally acclaimed as a masterpiece and single-handedly made the entire Catholic church question its commitment to priestly celibacy. Her off-Broadway one-woman show ran to rave reviews and was watched by everyone from

Hillary Clinton to Nicole Kidman. Now she's writing on the new James Bond film, bringing her caustic feminist wit to 007's historically retrograde attitude to women. But what has life been like for her behind these extraordinary successes? After all, this is a podcast about what happens when you scratch the surface of achievement. It's about the moments of vulnerability, of sadness, and yes, of failure that don't always get the airplay. What has she learned from those moments when things didn't go according to plan, when success didn't always feel like it should? And that's why I'm barely coherent with excitement to welcome back my most downloaded podcast, podcast, excitement to welcome back my most downloaded podcast podcast almost got there and that's why I'm barely coherent with excitement to welcome back my most downloaded podcast guest of all time

the one the only the dazzling Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Phoebe! You're back! I'm back! Thank you. How has it been? What have you been up to? Haven't heard much from you lately. It sounds quite exhausting when you read it out on the page like that. Yeah, it's been pretty great. Pretty intense and great since we last spoke. Have you been getting enough sleep?

No. No? No, not really. Although last night I slept for like 13 hours I say night yeah yeah it just happened you know sometimes when it happens when your body like puts you to sleep to get some other shit done that that you don't know about so that's what happened last night and what is it like genuinely when you hear me read out an introduction like that and you look back on what the last 12 months have contained because it is literally almost exactly a year ago since we met last to

do this podcast yeah I suppose when you read it out it does and also because I've heard your podcast so many times and every time you're reading out people's achievements I'm always like oh my god like that's extraordinary everything yeah mine it's like it just sounds silly I don't know like there'll always be a surreal element that somebody reading out your past 12 months and I guess leaving out the bits in between that we're going to talk about which is that like Killing Eve came out and that was such a huge and exciting thing and had had such an impact on on my life but then the process of making that thing was a whole other experience in its own so it's always like when it's always compressed into just this happened then this happened then this happened it's actually very rare that I see

the year like that because I suppose from everyone else's point of view it's when it comes out but from my point of view it's all the work it takes to get it there and then that's the end of the job and other people see it as the beginning when it comes out does this make any sense? It makes total sense and actually as you're, I'm remembering that when we first met in 2014, you were writing scripts and you're like, oh, I'm sort of adapting these spy novels. And it was a very long process of lots of, there was rejection along the way before it became Killing Eve. Oh yeah, yeah. It was turned down sort of by everybody, actually. All the channels in this country, I thought it was a goner and we thought it was a goner the production company and then they sent it to BBC America who just very simply just went and with all the complicated notes you get back and the reasons

that people don't want it or it might not fit on their channel that kind of stuff they just came back to us and just said great and like that was it they were like we love it and just said like go for it so also sometimes you think something is gone. And I really did with that. And then suddenly it just, obviously the producers were working hard behind the scenes to get it away. But then suddenly something that I thought I would never return to becomes the biggest thing in my life. One of the many, many things that I love about Killing Eve and actually about Fleabag as well, is that you never explain a character's sexuality. It is there and it is what it is and I think that that's

particularly revolutionary when it comes to women and female characters is that something that you set out to do or it just comes to you naturally I think it comes to me naturally and then once it's there it's really important to me to protect that and not to wave a flag or have any kind of smuggery around any choices around that sort of thing or allow it to be an event I just want the characters to feel completely truthful and surprising and they're not thinking about it Villanelle's not thinking day in day out about the fact that she's bisexual she's just shagging who she wants I think I think that feels more natural and also for me it's just trying to represent a relationship between those two particular women that I do recognize

in in real life that women do interact romantically erotically like professionally and sexually in ways that every day all the time in ways that we just so rarely see on tv and I like that we play it as a non-event in the TV show, which then makes it a bigger thing, rather than there's the bisexual character. And I suppose Eve's fascination with Villanelle as well was just not having to explain what that was, just letting us discover it with Eve,

that she's discovering her sexuality and her obsession. It's not being pointed at. Yeah. Now you've casually walked into my flat with a water bottle that I've just noticed has the 007 logo on it and a little name sticker saying Phoebe Waller-Bridge above 125 okay this sounds like I'm walking around with my 007 badge on I'm not this actual physical water bottle is the best water bottle i have ever had why water bottles always like leak i'm not especially when you're giving them on production you can ask jenny robbins who's been my story producer on them on fleabag and

killing he was also working on bond we both were given this water bottle and we both had a total freak out about how amazing it is it not only just has a push down lid but then it screws as well like just on the little um knobble bit at the top got it yes but it never leaks the screw bit is just really satisfying it's got this little clip that you can put on your belt and it's just very sturdy the color's cool it's like a light kind of great i cannot get over the actual design of the water bottle and the annoying thing is there's no branding on the actual bottle honestly jenny and i have been looking so we don't know where to get it. It's just one of these mysterious things. It's just the 007 water bottle is the best water bottle.

But is that just for cast and crew? You can't, I don't think you can buy that. No, you can't buy that, no, yeah. It's not like the Love Island water bottle, which is my other favourite model. Yes, you can buy this. I mean, that's the thing. Actually, do you have that here?

No. We'll look at that afterwards. But yeah, of all the excitement and everything suddenly we went into our office and there was just a water bottle there

and that's when we really lost our minds you're like forget Daniel Craig I've met this water bottle it's just the best water bottle it's just so satisfying the shape of it

and it just it's just I've never carried a water bottle from set around with me in real life ever in my life other than this one

and it looks like it's because it says 007 on it but it's not it's because it's an7 on it, but it's not. It's because it's an excellent, excellently shaped bottle. I promise I'm going to get on to your failures in a minute. But I've got one more question, which is, it has been extraordinary, the overwhelming acclaim. I can't remember something in my lifetime that has got the acclaim that Fleabag specifically got for the second season. And I wonder what it's like to carry that weight, because you're now

almost universally heralded as the voice of your generation. And people come up to you on the street and say, I am Fleabag, and this meant so much to me. How do you cope with the weight of that? Maybe you try not to think about it it and I've ruined that for you now um it doesn't feel like that heavy actually doesn't feel like weight I think there was something about this season of Fleabag that I feel slightly disconnected from in a lovely way it feels like it had another thing like it took on another energy we could slightly feel it on set we were all just sort of like what is this there was something a bit mystical about the energy between all the actors and a director and just everybody there was just operating on

such a emotional level everybody cared so much about the story that it felt like it was all of ours and it really really does still feel like that. Honestly, and it sounds really corny, but I feel like every single person on that set gave a little tiny part of their heart to that show. And I think you can really feel that. So when I was watching it and when the reviews were coming in and when people were talking about it, we were all talking like, oh my gosh,

we all felt that there was something special. So it's actually a light feeling. You're just sort of like, oh, it was special what we all did. And do you feel understood in a way because something that I keep coming back to on this podcast is the idea that when we are open about our vulnerabilities and what we perceive as our weirdness actually that's the biggest source of connection with other people and did you feel that with Fleabag? I did massively with the play and the first series particularly

because that was such a specific type of humour and such a specific type of insight into a cynicism and a kind of brokenness that I'd felt in my 20s and that a lot of my friends did. And that feeling of not being so alone because what was written felt it was raw. I could recognise it was raw and truthful to me and to our team and Vicky you know directed the play and and so when that went out and people responded that was like oh oh we're all going through that we're all going

through that or have gone through that or can touch on that but this series I think again because it was love the thing that felt so heartwarming about it was how much people wanted to see a story about love. Because that's what I really felt like I wanted to see. A romantic love story, but also not about families breaking up or breaking down anymore. It's like the attempt to connect, the attempt to love. Whereas in the last series, I think she couldn't love. And she'd been so burnt by loving a friend and then fucking it up. And I think love was just so held, which a friend and then fucking it up and I think love

was just so held which is in this one it was putting it out there and I felt like that was really moving about the response is that people do want to love each other and they want to watch shows about love that's so beautiful I do remember watching the final episode of Fleabag ever and being in floods of tears and sending you a video message just of me crying just of me like I dare you make me cry this much

the fox the saying goodbye it was amazing oh I know and there's actually takes of Andrew and I when we first did that scene we were both in floods

and also not in a way that we were like building up to the scene and it was none of that bullshit because it was so last minute the road was so noisy we didn't have any time to shoot that scene and I knew it was the most important scene we all knew it was the most important thing we were like oh god and it was like we'd be talking and suddenly a bus would be like and they'd be like stop go

again so we just sort of got there and I'm like okay sit down and they just went go and so I hadn't felt like I was emotionally prepared for the scene anyway I was like oh damn this is not going to go as well as I thought. I sat down and just did that scene with Andrew. We both just literally in floods. And there were about two takes that we can't really use because we were just like... And also, I mean, any scene with Andrew,

you just end up sort of crying in any way because he's so truthful. Even like the lighthearted ones, you're just like, oh, my God, this man. Yeah, it's honestly that sense of something other happening in it oh i'd love there to be a dvd of outtakes a dvd like i'm from sorry 1995 you specifically want a dvd yes just for me yeah it's really funny though stuff like that because that was the hardest scene to edit because it felt there was potential for it to be really amazing but if we lost the rhythm or the beat or the emotional journey for one second then we'd lose the I don't know the power of it and also Andrew came to set that day determined to say I love you too because it was a it was an option

I wasn't sure if the character said I love you too at the end and so it's just meant to be I love you it'll pass and then and then go and I sort of wasn't sure if he should say I love you too and Andrew came in he should say I love you too and Andrew came in he was like I'm saying it and he's basically like I'm not giving you another option because I have to say it and you know when an actor feels that strongly about something they'll be right especially for someone like Andrew you know and he had huge input to the whole thing but and I think actually that's the clincher of the whole thing is that he says it he was so right and uh I have him to thank for that was it a real fox

did you have a real trained fox we tried with a real fox this was the funniest thing there was like two foxes turned up and they were called like buttercup and tinkerwinker or something and they turned up and it was so funny because again middle of the night a really loud street and everyone was like we've got to be really careful with these foxes we can't spook them and what we'd realized is that like urban foxes are like that because they've been fucking living in London they've been on the streets for ages and they've got that swag these two little foxes have been brought up in you know Henley like by the river and I saw them so then they came out and they were like what the fuck is this and there

were two of them tiny and they were in there and you're not going to believe this they lay down and then the handler came up to me and she was like so tinkerbell doesn't like people and buttercup doesn't like any kind of loud environment so either way we're fucked like okay and they're like the only way we can make this happen is if we play Coldplay very very uh very loudly into the street and if nobody else can move so there's a really surreal moment when everyone had to step back the whole crew had to step back the director everybody had to step back and then me sat alone because that's when the fox comes and then they open this thing and then they put on a little radio and Coldplay starts playing and then they open the thing and this tiny

terrified little fox just going what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck comes out and then just skids around for ages we did that for about 20 minutes and then we went back to look at the footage and it was I mean it was just too funny there was literally it went everywhere except for in front of the camera and so then we got the CGI fox in the end oh my god was it like Coldplay fix you or something it was god i wish i could remember what it was i think it might have been fix you and it was like they just love coldplay and it calms them down but obviously i mean it must have been a terrifying experience for those foxes but they didn't really have the cool swag that we needed oh my gosh okay so failure to find a fox that would walk in front of you is not actually

one of your three failures and these are failures that you have very kindly chosen from your last year. Because I do think that that's a really interesting thing to examine. Because for so many people listening to this podcast right now, you are the epitome of success and fame and brilliance. And I think it's really important that everyone realises that there is a journey to get there. And if you're not there right now, that's fine, because sometimes there are weird things that happen and you learn from them. So the first one is really interesting. It's about how you were actually in New York when Fleabag season two aired over here, and you felt disconnected

from the people that you most loved so tell us about that yeah so I um so the show was coming out and also like I said before you you're working so hard and then you you finish the job and then it's done well for me it was done the show was ready to go out and then it was just going to go out whereas for everybody else it begins when the show goes out and so we finished editing it was all in the can then went to New York to do the play which was also an amazing experience but then the show came out and I'd underestimated as we all had what impact the show was going to have and that people were going to want to talk about it so much and like it so much and I was essentially just so far away from everybody and on different time zone and doing the play but working really hard I was like writing during the day and doing

the play during the night it wasn't like a kind of like new york baby Broadway thing it was more like just work at work and I hadn't really connected with my family and my friends my close friends and family but particularly my family when it went out so then they had this kind of strange explosion of this show happening that had so much to do with me and the work that I've been doing and Izzo my sister who'd written all the music for it she was connected to it professionally as well so she had a bit more ownership over it but because it's about family and everything this show I think there was suddenly this really intense my families have experienced a kind of intense focus from people in their lives and people asking about the show and asking about me and I think one of my regrets is that I wish I'd seen that coming so that we

could have just been a bit like, this might be weird. You never want to overestimate the success of something you've done. So you don't want to say, this is going to be huge, guys. So let's hold hands. And I honestly didn't have that feeling either. It was just like, done this and off we go. And also it changed my family's lives a tiny bit when Fleabag One first came out

because suddenly there was a Waller Bridge profile. And it's a distinctive surname. It's a distinctive surname. And everyone weathered that really brilliantly. And also people assume that it's based on my family and all that kind of stuff because it's about a family, which also is a whole other conversation because that's about, you know, how women can't write.

Oh, don't worry, we'll get on to that. Yeah, go, go, go. Women can make things up too. It's not all, you you know our diaries also because the show is called Fleabag which is your family nickname yeah so there's also this sense that the people who love you and know you are watching you on screen but you physically Phoebe are thousands of miles away so they can't see you as the real person they see you on screen and that must have been so weird and by the way no one I don't think could have anticipated the enormity of what was about to happen because it

has been astonishing deservedly so but I don't think you should beat yourself up about that because you couldn't have known and you would have sounded like the worst kind of hybrid of Mariah Carey and Donald Trump. Like, guys, I'm a huge deal. But was that it? Was there a slight disconnect between your family seeing you on screen but not seeing you in person? Yeah, so I think all this buzz was sort of happening back in London. I was kind of in this apartment in New York and not around anyone who'd made the show, not around my family, all that kind of stuff. And I think they were actually taking the brunt of the profile of the show suddenly getting bigger.

Also, I wasn't there. So they were being asked all the questions about the show and they had no answers. The time difference and everything just made it weird. Basically, it was just communication breakdown with my family. Nothing really happened, but I just suddenly felt like I could have been braver with...

I know what you're saying because I think women specifically, just to generalise horribly over gender, not all women, but some women struggle with claiming their own power. So we struggle with the idea that we can say, I think what I've done is a really good piece of work and it might garner some acclaim. And I want you to be prepared for that because it seems self-aggrandizing and we don't like that because we've been raised a certain way to like be modest and self-deprecating and always

to slightly undermine ourselves and maybe it was that that you were feeling yeah definitely definitely some of that you just don't know do you and you don't attempt fate don't attempt fate exactly but also I think when you're writing fiction and you're making art just trying to train myself to use that word I know and even when you used it you had to giggle yeah but you've made art but I feel like I feel like the difference in my head is now I'm that's what I'm trying to do yeah and so I feel like that's instead of just like I'm writing a sitcom it's like no I think the ambition must always be to write something with artistic integrity. So I'm trying to train myself to use the word.

Although whenever anyone else uses that word, I'm like. But yeah, when you're trying to make something artistic. When you're trying to make something artistic. I certainly felt like a lot of what was personal to me had gone into that show. So I'd sort of like emotionally vomited so much of my insides and my life and my relationships in a kind of abstract way into that show and it's incredibly personal for me so I had been fortifying myself in the process of making it as well like I was aware that what I was doing was inviting people to see me in a very personal way I was inviting people to watch this character and relate to her, whether they do or not,

but that's the beckoning from her. But that's something I've controlled and I've created. And then so the people closest to me, like my family, they didn't necessarily invite that. And there's so much over-familiarity that comes with that. And so I think people assuming that Izzo is like Claire or is Claire and that people would ask her, are you Claire?

And she'd have to explain a million times no I'm not they were like oh did you shit in a sink was a lot was what she got a lot of time in the first series and also people just assuming that so much of it is true and so that actually that bleeds into my family's life when the show's going out because then they're they weirdly are having to defend our family and to defend their own individuality yes yeah and I think I'd underestimated that because what I know I'm writing is it's really personal to me and of course I'm drawing on on real life experiences and things and things that echo in real life through the things do echo through the show but you know I write about my biggest fears I write about losing my best friend

or losing my mum or not communicating with my dad or not getting on with his new partner and all those things are my worst fears when actually you know my mum's alive and well my best friend is alive and well we have an unbelievable relationship my my relationship with both my siblings is incredible I get on really well with my stepmother and with my dad but it's the what if yeah and I think what people see when they watch it is the um oh that must be it and I just wish I'd had the foresight to sit my family down and gone what I've done is really personal it's not about you guys there's a few degree of separation in other people's minds because it's so personal about family and because there are strange links like I did have an ex-boyfriend with a motorbike

or like my stepmother is actually an artist and all those sort of things. I just wish I had more responsibility and said to them, just managed to fortify them a bit more. I think that is so beautifully expressed, what you've just done there. Because I think, again, that this is something that is very gendered in art creation. Is that the most pretentious sentence I've ever uttered? Possibly. No, that's what we're talking about. No, it's not. It's very factual, the creation of love. I, as a female novelist, have often felt that when women write about families, it is always assumed that it is their family and that they don't have the intellectual imagination to make that cognitive leap into real fiction. the intellectual imagination to make that cognitive leap into real fiction. Whereas when Jonathan Franzen does it, and don't get me wrong, I love Jonathan Franzen, but when he writes a

family novel like The Corrections, it's seen as the state of the nation. Oh, I just love how you speak. When we were talking about this briefly before, when you said that, it was like, that's exactly the point. And actually, probably, that's why I assumed that it wouldn't it was like that's exactly the point and actually probably that's why I assumed that it wouldn't be seen like that and people wouldn't assume that of my family and maybe it is a gendered thing maybe they do like I say it's a strange thing because nothing actually happened it was just this underlying sense of oh gosh I wish I'd taken better care because they're actually fielding things that I was completely unaware of like people coming up to my siblings and my parents all the time being like,

is this true? What's this about? Is this, you know, is this you guys? And I just really felt for them. Do you think that that would have happened were you a man? I don't know. I really, really don't know. There's just no way of knowing. It might be to do with the fact that I'm a woman, but it also might not be. I feel like in terms of how the show has that kind of autobiographical assumption is something that I'm asked about a lot and I'm also asked if I think that happens a lot because I'm a woman but sorry it's a really boring question no but it's not because it's a

really interesting question and it's you know it's one I wanted to talk about with you as well because either it's the show feels so raw and real that that's why people think it's real or it's because people assume that there's a limit to a woman's imagination I think I'd always rather believe the former yeah you have a suspicion but I don't know to be fair I think that the former is true of you because Fleabag and Killing Eve as that critic from Rolling Stone so brilliantly put it like they defy all conventional genre not only in terms of the tv that you're writing, but the characters that you're writing and the way that they are. But I think what's interesting about that is that

you don't define yourself in a particularly female or a particularly male way, I don't think, as a writer. No, not at all. I don't think of myself in that way at all. I'm aware of it, because of where I'm positioned in the industry but I know that my work will never pander to that in fact the opposite and I think that's part of the fun it's part of the game because once you know what box you're gonna people do you understand why people want to put people in boxes because it's that's how we understand people and that's how we can immediately feel like we know who they are and what's safe about them. It's interesting what you were saying about how there are certain things that come from your insides, as it were, but you warp them to an nth degree. So actually, it feels like a lot of the

characters in Fleabag are aspects of you, rather than based on real people. And I have had the great good fortune of meeting and getting to know your sister, and she is nothing like Claire. But the bit that I think a lot of people related to and thought was so beautiful was the bit where Claire saying that she would run through an airport for Fleabag because it's this peon actually what you're doing there is this peon to love and to family connection yeah and actually summing up the whole feeling that you have which is whatever happens you're the person that I will always love you to a degree that no one else will ever understand and and actually just forgetting to say that it's kind of actually remembering to say that it's a big part of families and

siblinghood I think we take for granted that you're there for each other if you're lucky enough to have family that is there for you and that you sometimes just need to say it and the power of that but then again I'm writing that and it just came out like I didn't but I'm writing that episode and I'm very very last minute writer in like in a kind of panic last minute way so I'm writing that stuff and I'm not feeling like that the fact that that line had such an impact and it makes me go back and look at it again and go oh my god yes of course that's a big moment but I wasn't there writing going and then Claire says I love you in her own words to Fleabag like it doesn't feel as structurally sort of like contrived as that but then and I love that and love seeing that people were saying that they were texting their sisters that and stuff afterwards but there's so much that I mean

Izzo and I when we were watching the episodes together and Izzo wrote the music for the show and so there's a lot of her insights in this show as well. The music is utterly fantastic. It's just insane. And again, I get a lot of the heat around the success of the show. Of course I do because, you know,

I'm writing and I'm in it, but the process of there being an episode and it's not working and it's not working and everyone knows it's not working. And I've got these genius editor, Gary Dolan, I've got Harry and Jenny Robbins, story producer and Harry Brabant, the director, and we're all in the room. We can't make it work. working and everyone knows it's not working and i've got this genius editor gary doll and i've got harry and jenny robbins story producer and harry brabber the director and we're all in the room we can't make it work we can't make it work we don't know what's happening there were so many dark moments in the edit we're like it's not working and then is it

will deliver some music and we'll put the music over these two scenes and suddenly it will make sense and that happened so many times with this show and iso you know i knew that i wanted something really massive and choral and it to feel epic because it's a small story it's about a couple of people in the world but to them it's epic and i love that feeling of making something feel big for the characters even though we're acknowledging that the characters are just a bunch of middle class people in london somewhere but for, they're in their own Greek tragedy. And so when we first, I was talking to Izzo about it and said, can you write some music?

And then like big choral stuff. And the references I was giving her were like an orchestra of like 120, and she has the budget for like six people. So I was like, can it be like that? And she's like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then she went away and she did it. And she was using these six incredible singers but then when she brought the music back and this was an amazing thing and ties

into the whole there's something other about it she brought the music back and we were putting it over the first episode and we were thinking something's not working something's not working it's just not clicking so we put that in the bin which is actually a storage place on our editor's computer rather than an actual bin he puts it in like iso's bin and then she started writing more music for the first episode and then as we got later down the series and we were editing it and this scene wasn't working and it was episode four and five things weren't working and gary just took out what iso had written for the first episode and put it on the final episodes and it worked her compositions fit

perfectly to the cut that he'd done before any work had been done either to her composition or his edit and it was this really spooky moment of she'd written the end at the beginning and then she didn't need to write any more because she'd already written the entire show but just backwards wow and then we realized that so it was already there and the age of the singers gets older through the series and they're actually using young boys at the beginning and then adult singers by the end and then we weirdly it's only after we realized that that's it's a show of you know it's about maturing it's a coming of age story and she did that with the music which was which is amazing but yeah but there's like loads of

dynamics between me and iso in it and actually there was one night when we were talking about the music and we were back we lived together and we were staying up late and I mean Sian Clifford's performance is so amazing and we just love watching it so much but then we did have to watch through one episode together and we were just pissing each other going that's us that's us that's us that's us that's us am I right in thinking so the episode where Claire gets a terrible haircut didn't that happen to you yes yes and I remember you didn't you call your your mum and Izzo and Izzo was like it's really this is really bad it's really like she was talking to your mum being like we really need to take this

very seriously because it is a massive issue tell us what happened I can't really remember i uh got a haircut before the first series of fleabag and it ends up becoming like the fleabag haircut yeah because in crashing which by the way if you haven't watched crashing you must watch crashing the second episode of crashing is one of the funniest things i've ever seen on tv but you had really long hair i've just remembered that was hair extensions oh okay it's i've done but I'm very observant you are but I've made the pilot flea bag just before I made crashing and so I was gonna make the pilot flea bag then make crashing and then go back to the rest of the series so I wanted to have a different look between the two shows and I also just wanted to have locks for a time in my

life although it's basically like carrying around a pony on your head like you have to like and you can't run your hands through it no it's really itchy and heavy and um but then when when someone does it all nice for you then it's your Beyonce if you probably noticed in the crashing that's the person that came to mind when you saw my my look but yeah I so then I got a new haircut for Fleabag and I thought it was too short and also I think I was just having my period and I was just like in the middle and that's the stress of the show about to start filming and I hadn't finished the scripts and all that kind of stuff and then I got a haircut on top of everything else and I was like I remember being in like floods like absolute floods of tears and I called Izzo and I was like literally like the phone call thing I was like

well my fucking life is over and I'm about to go do this show and I'm gonna tell and she was so amazing she just went and she was like she took me so seriously and I'll never forget it this is one of those airport moments because she took me so serious she was like okay listen where are you and I was like I'm at my flat I'm never leaving my flat again it's so short and then she was like I'm coming over and she came over because of my bad haircut and she's in the doorbell ring she's there and then she looks at me she's like oh darling I was like don't say it looks nice and it's just one of those moments and then she sat with me and we worked it out and we kind of it was just one of those moments of cicely and loyalty and love that I've never forgotten and it's just so funny because then the next day I'm like totally fine and then I see like and I see friends they're like I got your haircut I'm

like yeah yeah do you like it it's just like the madness but does show I think that it shows the stakes around hair and stuff I think that's where the idea came from for hair is everything because the stakes around that stuff are stupid high and it's like why do we care why do we care that much and it just feels like it's so deep in we care why do we care that much and it just feels like it's so deep in us that you know all that image stuff and everything but but it is also just great material your second failure is i think something that people will find surprising if they only know you through the incredibly strong and complicated characters that you create which is your tendency to people please in specific instances related to work so tell us about that

yeah I feel like it's the part of myself that drives me most crazy and we've talked about it a lot and actually I don't know I feel like I've spoken to a lot of women about it but just what would happen if I'm not just the nicest person in the room all the time? It seems like cataclysmic. And I know that's insane. Or maybe it's not, actually. But the characters, you know, I've said in another interview that I write characters that don't care about that because I'm teaching myself how to be one. And it's not really not giving, like not caring what you think.

myself how to be one and it's not really not giving like not caring what you think it's not caring about the consequences of speaking their mind or doing the thing that they believe is the right thing or just following their own instinct if that's met with people disagreeing with them that they don't mind and when it comes to my actual on the ground work like the actual writing and making of a thing I can fight and fight and fight for something because it's very specific. I'm fighting for the art, shall we say. But it's all the politics in between it. I still feel completely handcuffed by a politeness. And not that politeness isn't a good thing, but I think it can be a yoke around your neck when it's the thing that gets in between you and saying what you really want to say. I don't ever want to be a genuine nightmare to people,

and I don't think I would ever be. But I think knowing the difference between not caring about people saying that you're difficult when you know you haven't been. Actually, during Killing Eve, I actually had a sort of physical reaction to the pressure that I was under. I was sort of shaking, and I basically almost passed out in one of the offices one day and had to get picked up and go to a doctor. It sounds to me as if the Killing Ethan, you were also very grateful that BBC America was taking this chance and other people had rejected it. And suddenly you're going from Fleabag, which was very much a one woman thing to something where you're heading up a writer's room

and there are lots of different opinions all at once. And that must have been incredibly stressful. Do you think you've got better at it because of that salutary experience where what you were doing in your mind had such a massive knock-on effect to your physical self? I do. I felt like I hit the edges of something during Killing Eve. And also because I was filming Star Wars at the same time. And you feel so lucky, so you do push yourself.

I also probably should have said, I need to take a week because I can't think straight because I'm so tired. But unless you really demand that, no one's really going to say that for you because everyone's just like, it'll be fine, get on with it. And even if they did, which they did, you know, a little bit, I'd say, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine. Because the tankard's moving forward. So I felt like you just had to, I had to keep going. I got better on it with Fleabag, I think. But then I was still having like, I was still so tired. I was still having like shakes and stuff.

The final take of that, I was so, so, so tired. I do work myself to the ground as well. And I'm really, really hard on myself when I'm doing it. And I feel like that's because I care so, so, so tired. I do work myself to the ground as well. And I'm really, really hard on myself when I'm doing it. And I feel like that's because I care so, so much about getting it right and getting it really, really good. But I also think sometimes you need to give yourself permission to stop. And I didn't stop because I didn't want to let people down. Got to. You also need to give yourself permission to stop because being creative can't come when you're frazzled and adrenalized and not thinking straight.

You need to have a period of rest. Although sometimes I get scared that my most creative stuff comes when I'm that frazzled. That's so interesting, really. But I don't know if that's true. I don't know if it's true. But I do feel I'm so self-critical when I'm writing. So if I'm like, woke up at 10, a cup of coffee, went for a jog, sat down, I'll write three sentences and I'll be like, this is a part of shit. Whereas if my deadline was two days ago and I've got a whole load of ideas I've already chucked out and then I have to do something really quickly, I can't judge it so much. Then I'll send that off easier.

It's a very strange process because I get so much energy from it and yet I have no structure to my creative process at all do you still write in bed yeah yeah yeah yeah a lot of the time particularly with Fleabag 2 I was rewriting on the set so much and that I mean it's so crazy for the actors because I was so lucky to have those actors who already knew their characters so well and have such great instincts. Like Brett Gelman, I wrote his final speech in episode six in the car between the unit base and the set. I just was like, I'm really sorry I've got to rewrite it because it doesn't, weirdly it felt more like,

the original speech felt more like a Fleabag speech than a Martin speech. So I quickly rewrote it in the car and he had loads of input into it and it was brilliant. But when I say I'm last minute, I mean, it did get to extremes with that but then sometimes the good stuff does just come out there and I think I need to work out so the next process I'm going to go through is not have any deadlines not take any other jobs on I'm going to write on spec now and see if I actually get anything written or if I need a deadline that's exciting yeah how do you cope now with knowing when you need help I mean what's

your relationship like with anxiety and nervous exhaustion and handling that and do you have therapy do you have strategies that are going for a run what how do you um I don't really like taking things. I don't go to therapy. I have Jenny Robbins, I think is my way out of the madness, who was a story producer on Killing Eve, who was brought on by the producers. And I mean, such a brilliant move because, you know, there was so much to do and we were already a team of sort of six or seven people that the scripts had to go through

so I'd write something and then I'd be speaking to like four or five people but they all had these other jobs as well so they were like we're going to bring one more person on and I was like you're not bringing another person on I cannot deal with one more person and they were like no no I remember Sally who's the exec on it just saying like just speak to Jenny she's a miracle worker so I got on the phone and it was, honestly, it was love at first voice. I've never experienced it before in my life. I called her up and I was like, I've got to speak to this person who's going to come on and be like another voice in the room. And from that moment on, in 10 minutes on the phone, she'd already sorted out two of the major

plot problems. And this is when we were introducing each other to each other. And she came on board and she has got such a rigorous story mind and also such a brilliant sense of humour. And that is always the way out. And, you know, I had the same thing with Vicky, who's now writing her own show, HBO, you know, with Jenny as well. Jenny's story producing on that as well. And Jenny's just become the heart of Dry Write and all the work that we do. Because the more stressful things get, the more Jenny laughs. And not a really at a situation, but with it.

And I think actually that's so rare. You know, there was one brilliant producer at Sid Gentle called Henrietta Colvin, and she just would every now and again just text me and say, it's only telly, it's only telly, it's only telly. And Jenny has that. So really it's calling Jenny. It's calling Jenny, it's laughter and keeping things in perspective. Yeah, completely. Yeah. Completely. And knowing that it's in you. There's something laughter and keeping things in perspective yeah completely yeah

completely and knowing that it's in you there's something quite comforting about knowing that there is a deadline and it will happen this thing is going to happen and you've just got to keep pouring whatever you can into it and just know that you've got a good team around you and i always need my like my partner in crime that i can bounce things off and actually when vicky's career as a writer started taking off all the euphoria of that around both of us but it meant that neither of us could be there for each other to be each other's sounding board as much because we were both working on our own independent things and we honestly never thought we'd ever find anybody

that could do what we would do for each other and we're still in each other's processes but it's people like Jenny that just people just don't know about Jenny's and I suppose there's only really one Jenny they do now they do now they know about Jenny and but and also whenever anyone else meets Jenny they're always like can I have Jenny I love I love Jenny because I've never met her but she said some nice things about some interviews that I've written so I'm like massively pro her she loves you you, yeah. But she, yeah, she's just got the clearest mind and such a strong instinct and really keeps everything grounded and moving while keeping it really fun. And that's the most important thing. God, honestly, that's the most important thing. It's keeping it fun. I said that Fleabag was universally acclaimed and it absolutely was

because the one time anyone tried to say one thing against it, which was that it was a bit middle class there was just this outpouring on social media saying how dare you how dare you say that about fleabag but I'd really like to address that the question of privilege what is your reaction when people say oh you're just so privileged I understand that it comes from a point of view of opportunity. It feels like lack of opportunity is the thing that drives that, when people feel like I would never have had the opportunity to make my fleabag if I hadn't been in the position that Phoebe Waller-Bridge is in,

which is absolutely probably true, that loads of people don't. And I think if that's where it comes from, then I'm really sympathetic to that feeling but when it's about the actual work and about the actual words on the page and the writing and stuff and it's a criticism of that then I take umbrage because that's about a craft and a story that's being told and to criticize a story on the basis of where the author had come from or how privileged the author is undermines the story. I've never pretended that I'm not from a privileged position. I really know that I am. I mean, my God, I've had not only from the point of view that, you know, I got to go to nice schools and

live in London, but I've also had the love and support of my family. I mean, I was perfectly set up to have success in the world. But then I also then from that point had to really, really work for it. And it's not like my privilege created Fleabag. I created Fleabag, but from a point of place in my life where I was able to sit and write and I was able to take the time,

I was around people who could support that. And the work itself is not a product of that I think it's a product of whoever I and I like to think that whatever life I'd lived wherever I'd been born or brought up I would still have written if I'd been given the encouragement and actually that's the thing that I care about is encouraging people to do it I suppose some of the criticism is that it was just for posh girls, right? That it's just for posh girls. And what I loved is that people were sending me photos of tweets,

friends of mine saying, like there was one guy who was like, I'm a disabled 42-year-old man living in Hull and I am Fleabag. And it was like, yes, mate! Because that's always what I'm striving for, is just so that people feel like it's a human story, blah, blah, blah. But it was told through the prism of a very middle-class family. And I was very aware of that when I was writing it. I was using them to tell a story that was emotional.

And I think you were also using them to tell stories that were by their nature universal, and sometimes given a lack of attention. And one of the things I'd love to talk to you about is the miscarriage scene well yeah I mean yeah that opens the first episode of season two of Fleabag and the reason I felt particularly personally connected to it is because I had a phone call from you a few months before the screening saying I'm really sorry if I've done this, but I think I've taken a story of your miscarriage and put it in Fleabag. And the story of my miscarriage is that I started miscarrying at three months in a restaurant toilet, although

it was over brunch and not over dinner. And I was actually incredibly honoured and so happy that you were taking that and using it and giving it a platform that was necessary and when I watched that scene and it was this screening at the BFI and I felt really emotional but in all of the best ways because that is a story that doesn't get told enough. And I want to thank you for doing it. Well, it wouldn't be there if you hadn't told me that story. I'm getting emotional. It wouldn't be there if you hadn't told me that story.

And also I felt when it came out in the writing process, and then suddenly realising, because, you know, we absorb so much stuff as a writer, you know. When you told me that story, I think it was a couple of years previously, it had had such an impact on me because of what you'd done afterwards, which was sit back down. Yeah. And the fact that you'd gone, oh, this is, I don't want my miscarriage to inconvenience somebody else. Yeah. Talk about people pleasing. Yeah, exactly. In fact, that is the purest form of it I'd ever heard and it was so female as well a miscarriage a story of a

miscarriage getting in the way of somebody else's brunch your miscarriage getting someone else's brunch or meeting I absorbed that story on like a cellular level I think and was so moved by the way you told it and then when we were writing you know when I was with the Fleabag people and just talking about all these ideas and and I remember thinking about that story and thinking what if this happens and then realizing that it had and it was you and then calling you and feeling like I was taking something from you I was scared that it was taking something from your life and calling you and saying it's come out of this story and it was you it's totally you it's totally been inspired by you and oh my God. And I'll never forget you just saying, brilliant, take it, tell the story. And that kind of generosity of spirit there as well,

and it not being, people being so obsessively private about their own experiences, which I understand why, but I am as well, everybody is, but the bravery you have, and not only by doing this podcast podcast but in everything that you write and every column that you write in and in your book and when you said that the moment you started talking honestly people started responding in a louder hungrier way for your work and so just the fact that you'd said yes please please please use it and it made me feel even more empowered by it because I think I felt a little bit of shame and guilt when I realized that it was your story

and so when I phoned you it was just just like, oh God, I'm sorry. And you're like, why are you apologising? It was so lovely of you even to call me. And I just sort of think your role is as this sort of truth teller through your stories. And so much of what you did, specifically in the second series of Fleabag, was about a woman's reclamation of the shit they have to go through yeah yes and what we don't see you know what we don't see and I just want to just show it oh you know god it gives me so much energy writing that stuff like you know when you've got something

truthful and it's unusual to that you see and again it's that thing of not waving a flag around it because I honestly think watching people fight is the most compelling thing in the world and we watched claire fight that miscarriage every single second and sean's performance is so extraordinary because it's at the same time really funny as well as being really heartbreaking that moment that she does it but you see the fight you see the struggle like this will not take over my evening yeah it's the first point this will not take over this will not ruin their evening this is going to be something that i'm going to package and deal with later and then it's fleabag saying that we've got to go now now now now now and having someone force her to and then she's like okay fine and she knows she's not going to in that moment she

sits down she's because then her life will become defined or that evening will become defined by her and her inverted commas failure or drama around that night. And knowing that that was actually where the strength of those characters lay in the pain that they have and the energy that they put into fighting it. It's an incredible scene. Feel free to use anything I've ever told you. If you're going to do something that brilliant with it,

I mean, what a scene. I'm just aware that I could talk to you for days on end and we haven't got on to your third failure, but luckily it's less profound. So your third failure is your failure to tidy your room. Yeah, I mean, I said that kind of as a joke when we were first talking about it, but really it goes into like a deeper,

it's like a much deeper thing, which is I'm quite disorganised. And I think that is just a daily failure. Like on terms of like, there's all the profound failures that we've been talking about, but like you're, I mean, look at this place. This is so neat.

I mean, there was a stack of books there that I removed, but I want to know how much people tidy up before people come round. Cause I'm always, everything else in my house is tidy. So like the downstairs is tidy the bathroom's tidy but my room is just I don't know what it is I'll tidy it all time and then it just instantly gets really messy again and I can't think while I've got this like really messy room but at the same time I always have a messy room so it's just this like vicious cycle and I know about the whole

Marie Kondo Marie Kondo thing yeah and I'm scared of that book because I have a feeling it might change my life but I also know I'm going to fail at that book instantly. Basically the equivalent of your bedroom is my sock drawer so my sock drawer is just where all the chaos goes it's like my appendix

no yeah and I just like even the idea of going through each of my socks being like does this sock spark joy I'm like I just can't I can't but yeah I'm tidying my room just getting it together but also I had left you know I'd moved into this house and I'm like renting a house that had loads of stuff in it when I got there so it wasn't actually room for my stuff to go in there because it's all been done really nicely and it's kind of basically somebody else's house that we're living in with my sister and so I do have a whole house worth of stuff in my bedroom okay that yeah and also your untidiness I mean

is it gross like do you have moldy plates of food oh god no it's not dirty okay it's not dirty it's just I'm really good at like piles yeah Yeah. So they'll be like neat piles, but all the way around my room. So I've got inexplicable piles of clothes, really neatly folded and everything, but like six of them at the end of my bed. Yeah. Because there isn't any room in the cupboard at the moment. So you must get sent loads of free stuff. Yeah, not loads. And actually have basically ended up saying I don't want any because I don't know where it goes.

But also it's just like when the workload is just so big, I feel like I'm wasting time if I'm tidying my room when I should be writing three scenes I mean it sounds so teenage I'm glad you asked if it was gross because it's not gross just like to make that clear because I can't deal with gross it's because you're traveling so much as well yeah the packing and unpacking and yeah there's there's all that and not being able to throw stuff out although I threw three bags of clothes at a charity shop the other day but I

I got three massive bags what is the address of that charity shop because people will be rushing that note actually they're brilliant they're called iCollect

they just come and pick it up they are brilliant and I have used a similar service they're really good but that was like three or four and I feel like

there's been no dent in my wardrobe I don't know I think you know when I just want to start all over again there's a brilliant have you seen that play the encounter so I mean McBurney's played the encounter and he he goes to um Amazonian tribe I think it's Amazonian tribe that no one has ever heard about but they have this one ritual which is every single year everybody in the tribe has to burn everything they own and you just start again so everyone starts again every year oh my god I'd love that well I had a similar thing I mean not quite that drastic but when I got divorced and I moved out of our shared home and I did that in a way that I

was like I just wasn't thinking straight and I also didn't want to take anything that wasn't just mine and I ended up with like two cases of stuff and that was it and it was really untethering but it was because of that extremely liberating and I realized that I didn't need that much and actually moving into this flat that we're talking in now was a really good discipline for me because it's so small having said that I do have a storage unit that I pay ridiculous amount yeah that does that make you feel better also it's also so organized to get a storage unit sometimes i'm like the amount i pay for storage i should just live in the storage unit probably got some really lovely things in

there um phoebe the last time you came on this podcast you told me an anecdote about meryl streep and apple crumble that went viral and people loved it. And if you haven't heard it, do go back and listen to the first ever episode in season one. Have you seen Meryl Streep since? No. Meza? I can't wait. I hope one day I will. I hope one day. No, I haven't. Have you eaten Apple Crumble since?

Oh, yeah. And who is the most exciting famous person you've met in the last 12 months well Hillary Clinton came to see Fleabag that was pretty cool I mean the thing in New York is that all like famous people go to theatre in New York they just go in a way that I don't know if they do anywhere else in the world so so that we'd always get a little list after Fleabag of the people who are coming in I mean Nicole Kidman came to see Fleabag and then she left me a note afterwards saying I'm sorry um I couldn't hang around I had to go back to the kids and that was a massive highlight so I didn't

actually meet Nicole but the funny thing was is that they weren't no one's supposed to tell me who's in the show in the audience before the show starts because in case I get nervous that happens at the beginning of the run towards the end of the run, I need to know to get me to show off a bit and to get the adrenaline up, because it's like the end of the run. So I was doing my warm-up, and then suddenly there was this guy in the room, and I was sort of like, oh, I'm doing my warm-up, what's going on? He was like, I'm just sweeping the seats for Keith and Nicole. And I was like, I'm sorry, you're sweeping the seats for, like, bombs?

I was like, no one should bomb under Nicole. Come on. But yeah, so their security had come in to just check the theatre. And that's how I knew that they were in. And it was the night that I did give it a little bit extra. A little bit more pizzazz. You did. I totally did.

I then interviewed Nicole Kidman for the second time over the phone. I'm obsessed with her. I think she's an amazing woman. And she said that she had seen Fleabag and it blew her mind and she gave me a message to pass on to you so she's left you loads of messages full circle well done Nicole and the fact that she'd come to the play was big she was a biggie okay Phoebe Waller-Bridge I love and adore you and now so does everyone else thank you so so much for coming back on this podcast, Mark. A year since we started. Thank you for having me.

Congratulations on the podcast. Jesus Christ. Congratulations on your creation of art. And the book and your art. Fuck off. Fuck off. 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.