-All these Emmy nominations, I mean, to two separate shows?
I mean, this is unbelievable.
"Fleabag," I want to say, got 11 nominations,
and "Killing Eve" -- nine Emmy nominations.
Not too shabby at all.
You're the second person ever in the history of television
to be up for Outstanding Drama and Comedy Series.
That's amazing. -Yeah.
-How does that feel? Is it cool?
-Thank you.
-What made you come back to do Season 2?
Because you weren't going to do that, right?
-Of "Fleabag"? -Yeah.
-Yes, I wasn't and I was very smug about not coming back,
because I thought I had a lot of artistic integrity
in not coming back after the first one,
because the first season had a proper ending, in my mind.
It was based on a play and it was adapted to the same ending,
and I wasn't sure that the --
I felt like, in the first season,
it was the most interesting version
of that girl's story we were ever going to hear,
and especially because the camera in the show --
Fleabag talks to the camera a lot,
and that was the relationship that was
most important to me.
In the first season, by the end, she stops talking
to the camera for the final five minutes of the show.
And I thought, unless I can reinvent a reason for why
she talks to the camera again, I can't see how I could
justify coming back, because the whole point in the first one
is that she had this front and this persona to the camera,
until the secret was revealed, and then she's kind of shy.
And so going back to the second season with the same persona,
even though they know her dark secret,
seemed sort of dishonest to the character.
And, so, then, when I came up with the trick
of another character seeing that she looks at the camera,
that's when the whole thing cracked open again.
-And there's CGI in this season, by the way.
-Yes, I know.
-Which if you've ever seen "Fleabag,"
I go, "Wait.
How does the CGI come into 'Fleabag'?"
-That was kind of a necessary little last-minute moment.
We have a fox in the final episode of the second season,
and I had written this kind of, like, sexy urban fox character,
you know, not thinking that I've got to cast this guy.
And, so, I was thinking -- You know, and foxes --
You know, they're everywhere in London.
They come out at night and they've got a swagger.
And, I mean, they kind of --
They own the city at night.
And, so, I had written this fox that comes in,
looks at Fleabag with this kind of wise look in his eye,
then looks down.
And then Fleabag gives him a line and says,
"He went that way."
And then he trots off.
And sort of naively, I was like, "Yeah, we'll, just, you know,
get a couple of real foxes and just give them the notes.
And we've got a really good director,
and the script is strong.
You know, they'll be fine. -Fox director, yeah.
-Yeah, and these two terrified little country foxes
turned up with their handler,
called Buttercup and Primrose, who'd --
-That was the name of the handler or the name of the fox?
-The handlers.
Yeah, Brian and Terry were the foxes.
No, so, Primrose and Buttercup were the foxes.
And turned up and they had never been in a city before,
'cause they'd been brought up and trained
in a sort of, you know,
countryside drama school for foxes.
And it was a really busy road, and there was, like, massive --
I mean, it was in the middle of the night,
and there were massive buses going past.
And, so, all the crew had to kind of huddle in the corner
not to upset the foxes.
And they literally came out and they were like,
"What the hell is this place?"
-Yeah.
-And then the only way to calm them down was to play Coldplay.
And so the handlers -- I know. It was so bad.
The handlers took out little Discmen,
like, a CD player.
And they were like, "Everyone needs to be quiet now,
because Buttercup particularly likes this track,
so she might come out."
You know, fingers crossed.
And then we played -- I think it was "Fix You" or "Yellow."
I can't remember which one it was.
And the whole crew is standing there like this...
And I'm at the bus stop, going, "Don't move."
And then a bus would be like, "Mrrr!"
But then, eventually, they would come out
and they'd scrabble around, and we got, like,
a snout in one shot and a bit of a tail in the other
as they were running around.
But then their handler did come up to me
halfway through and say, "Probably should have told you
that Buttercup hates new environments,
and Primrose is very nervous around people,
so, either way, we're [bleep]
And -- I'm sorry.
And so we ended up having to get the CGI fox.
And there he was.
-So when you see that,
know that it's a CGI fox in "Fleabag" Season 2.
-Yeah.