Based on her one-woman show of the same name, Fleabag is the brainchild of writer-actress
Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
"Hair is everything. We wish it wasn't, so we could actually think about something else
occasionally, but it is."
From the man behind "Hot Priest" to Waller-Bridge's real-life inspirations, here's everything
you need to know about this Emmy-winning show.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the Emmy award-winning series Fleabag. The
television show was inspired by Phoebe Waller-Bridge's one-woman show of the same name…and in its
earliest form, it was just a ten-minute comedic monologue.
Waller-Bridge told the Los Angeles Times that Fleabag originated as a favor to her friend
Deborah Frances-White, who needed to fill an empty ten-minute slot at a comedy show.
As Waller-Bridge explained,
“[Deborah] had been trying to get me to do stand-up for ages, and I was like, No no
no. And she tricked me with this one."
Of course, the monologue was far from a traditional stand-up set, and the audience was utterly
floored by her performance. At the insistence of her friends, Waller-Bridge expanded the
piece into a full-length play. As she told the Los Angeles Times:
"Before I knew it, we had a venue at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival. I didn't really have a choice.
It was the best kind of bullying from my friends ever."
As for what inspired her to write the character, Waller-Bridge told The Cut in 2017:
"The thing I really got off on was putting a female character out there that was all-knowing
about sex and one step ahead, who knew what the guys were thinking before they thought
it and yet still played slightly dumb to them. Oh God, it brought me so much pleasure."
"Hey."
"And then you get to it immediately."
In Fleabag's second season, actor Andrew Scott utterly charmed audiences with his memorable
portrayal of a priest who falls head-over-heels in love with our titular hero. And much like
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character, we never learn his proper name. Instead, he's only
known as "The Priest," or, as some fans affectionately call him, "Hot Priest."
"I believe God meant for me to love people in a different way. I mean, I'm supposed to
love people as a father."
As Waller-Bridge revealed at the Television Critics Association in January 2019, she wrote
the character specifically for Scott. The actors became close while co-starring in the
2009 play Roaring Trade. Waller-Bridge told Vanity Fair:
"It couldn't have been anyone else. He's just a magical human being. He can't do anything
other than be really complex and truthful in a character, so I knew that the moment
I gave this character to him in my imagination, he became real."
According to Scott, the onscreen chemistry came naturally. He told Vanity Fair:
"I certainly found it extremely easy to play, loving Phoebe, because I love her as a person."
The relationship between Fleabag and her tightly wound sister Claire is relentlessly entertaining
to watch. Despite their many differences, the sisters truly love each other, and the
actresses who play them, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sian Clifford, are incredibly close in
real life.
"Just don't talk too much or pretend you know anything about the company. And don't be funny
or clever or…Just don't be the center of attention, these people are very important
to me."
Clifford and Waller-Bridge met while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
As Clifford explained to Grazia Daily in 2019:
"[We made] a sort of silent commitment that we would help each other out. We’ve backed
each other all the way. I mean, I’m only here now because my friend fought a very hard
battle to get me an audition."
In a 2019 BUILD Series interview, Clifford said:
"I don't know that I'll ever have the kind of creative freedom that I have with Phoebe
just because of the way we…I mean, we just trust each other so much."
While packed with plenty of jokes, the overarching theme of Fleabag's first season is no laughing
matter. When viewers first meet the protagonist, she's in the throes of grief, having recently
lost both her beloved mother and her best friend, Boo.
"You need to be nicer to Hillary and you need to get a new hat."
"Is that better?"
"Yeah it's better."
Throughout the first season, the audience gets to know Boo through flashbacks, which
showcase the special bond between the two women…and slowly reveal the events that
ultimately led to Boo's tragic death.
As Phoebe Waller-Bridge told NPR in 2016, Boo was inspired by Vicky Jones, her real-life
best friend and collaborator. She explained that,
"When I found [Jones] and we found our friendship, I just suddenly felt so much more invincible
in the world. "
She also revealed that Fleabag's plot was inspired by her "biggest fear"…losing the
person that makes her feel strong. She claimed,
"That informed a lot of it. And just seeing things that I loved in my life and imagining
if I wasn't lucky enough to have them, kind of sadomasochistic, really."
Waller-Bridge told The Pool that Fleabag is partly a celebration of the sensibility she
shares with Jones:
"To play with the humor that we love, that we really respond to in person. Basically
it was our humor and you. I basically wrote the first ten minutes to make Vicki laugh."
Fleabag is a story told solely through the eyes of its main protagonist. Wherever she
goes, the audience follows, and she's featured in every single scene in the series. But curiously,
the character is never addressed by her name.
Waller-Bridge initially couldn't think of a name that suited the character. And eventually,
the writer-actress fell in love with the idea of keeping that name a secret. In 2017, she
told Vanity Fair:
"I liked the idea of withholding some of that mystery."
As Waller-Bridge explained to the Los Angeles Times, Fleabag was, in fact, her own nickname:
"It was my family nickname as far back as I can remember."
Waller-Bridge's nickname happened to fall perfectly in line with the character she'd
created. As she told Vanity Fair:
"That word, 'fleabag,' that felt right, because there's a messy connotation to it."
Judging by this Vogue interview, her working habits are on the messy side, too.
"What three words describe your writing process?"
"Uh, panic, panic, hope."
Here's a bombshell for you: There was one particular scene in the Fleabag stage play
that network executives simply wouldn't let her include in the television series.
As Vice reports, the original Fleabag script featured a scene in which Fleabag kills Hilary,
Boo's beloved pet guinea pig.
"I don't feel anything about guinea pigs. They're pointless."
That's because the animal is a painful reminder of her dead best friend Boo, making the very
sight of Hilary too difficult to bear. In the stage play, Fleabag tells the audience:
"I hold her to me tighter, until I feel her bones crack against me and her chattering
stop."
Well, it sounds like that didn't sit too well with television execs. Waller-Bridge told
the New Statesman:
"When they commissioned the pilot, the one thing they said was, ‘You can do anything
you want, but you can’t kill the guinea pig.’ I wanted to kill it! But they just
said, ‘We just don’t think that you strangling a guinea pig to death…'"
Of course, that darkness is at least partly by design. As Waller-Bridge explained to the
New Statesman,
"I'm obsessed with that line between crying and laughing. I'm always feeling that temptation
to twist the knife...When you’ve got a disarmed audience, I’m like, 'Get them! Get them
in the heart!' So it’s something that’s fascinated me for ages."
The story checks out.
Fleabag's first season didn't happen to receive any recognition from the Academy of Television
Arts & Sciences, though it was extremely well-received by critics. In 2016, The New York Times observed
that,
"[Fleabag] doesn't quite feel like anything else on television."
Meanwhile, a review in GQ UK read:
"It’s dirty, it’s sexy, it’s disgusting, it’s hilarious, and it’s about being a
girl. As in, a real girl. Scared? You should be."
Although the first season was a critical darling, Phoebe Waller-Bridge initially didn't plan
to bring Fleabag back for a second season. After all, the first season had closely followed
the arc of her one-woman show, and it wrapped up nicely with a somewhat happy ending for
the main character. In August 2019, she told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that,
"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."
As Waller-Bridge explained to the Los Angeles Times, she decided to start working on a second
season after Fleabag director Harry Bradbeer posed the question:
"Is there anything left for her to learn?"
For Waller-Bridge, the answer was a resounding yes. Good thing, too, Fleabag's second season
garnered a total of 11 Emmy nominations. As Waller-Bridge said while hosting SNL in 2019:
"Back in the day, horny women were to be feared, and now they're given Emmys."
If you fancy yourself a Fleabag fan, you'll be happy to know you're in some good, and
very famous, company.
According to The Irish News, several celebs checked out an August 2019 performance of
Fleabag at London's Wyndham's Theatre. As the publication reported, Waller-Bridge's
performance was met with uproarious applause:
"Oscar winner Rami Malek was standing clapping in the stalls as Waller-Bridge mouthed 'Oh
my god, thank you' to the West End audience."
In September 2019, a Fleabag audience member snapped photos of pop queen Taylor Swift at
another one of Waller-Bridge's Wyndham's Theatre performances. As it turns out, Swift is a
total Waller-Bridge fan girl, as evidenced by her excitement over appearing on the same
Saturday Night Live episode as the Fleabag creator and star. Who wouldn't want to share
a stage with her?
"I told my housemate, 'I think you might be a psychopath,' and he responded immediately
with, 'I have empathy.'"
Clearly unable to contain her excitement, Swift tweeted in August 2019:
"Ever since I saw Fleabag, I’ve been all ‘I can’t wait to see this woman host SNL’
and it’s happening now + I get to be there too = I am in shambles"
Actress Olivia Colman, who won an Oscar in 2019 for her portrayal of Queen Anne in the
2018 film The Favourite, co-stars in Fleabag as the protagonist's delightfully unnerving,
almost impossibly passive-aggressive godmother.
"I'd only need a couple of sittings."
"Right. Can't you use photos?"
"No, because the lighting is never good enough, and if you're not very photogenic, then it
does you no favors."
Adding to the drama, this formidable woman also began a romantic relationship with Fleabag's
father shortly after her mother's death.
Fans of Colman and Phoebe Waller-Bridge might already know that Fleabag isn't the first
show they've appeared in together. The two actresses also worked with one another on
the second season of the British crime drama Broadchurch. It's…an entirely different
beast.
"Your honor, sorry, um, can I just ask for the indictment to be put again?"
"Be a man, Joe, you know what happened!"
"Sit down."
Apparently, Colman is quite a fan of Waller-Bridge, telling Entertainment Weekly:
"She’s extraordinary and it’s a pleasure to say anything that she’s written."
So, when she heard Waller-Bridge was developing a television series based on her hit one-woman
show, the Oscar winner naturally wanted to be involved. Colman revealed to Entertainment
Weekly,
"I think I begged Phoebe to be in it, when she was writing the first [season]...I always
wanted to play the baddie, and she's written a really good one."
Fleabag's second season was widely praised by critics and audiences alike, but the most
talked-about episode was, without a doubt, the Season 2 premiere. In its glowing review,
the AV Club wrote:
"The premiere is an early frontrunner for best episode of the season, if not the series."
Meanwhile, IndieWire wrote that,
"The ‘Fleabag’ Awkward Family Dinner Is a Cinematic Comedy Masterpiece"
But setting aside the comedic talents of Waller-Bridge and Fleabag's ensemble cast, the real star
of the Season 2 premiere might have been...a jumpsuit?
"Sounds like a riot."
In "Episode 1," Fleabag wears a sleeveless black jumpsuit with a halter neck, keyhole
cutout, and open back. After Stylist reported that this jumpsuit could be purchased for
£38 from online retailer SilkFred, the item completely sold out in one day. Fortunately,
Love, the London label behind the jumpsuit, was eager to match supply with demand. According
to The Guardian,
"[The brand] quickly put another 500 jumpsuits into production."
Well, let's just go ahead and call the jumpsuit a bonafide pop culture phenomenon.
Despite her massive sweep at the 2019 Emmys, Phoebe Waller-Bridge has no plans of bringing
Fleabag back for a third season, and it seems like the writer-actress is pretty set in her
decision.
That said, she's careful to never say never. Asked by The Hollywood Reporter if anything
could convince her to delve back into Fleabag's life, she replied:
"I feel like it's done, but I do have a fantasy of bringing her back when I'm like, 45 or
50."
She further expanded on that idea in an interview with Seth Meyers:
"And actually seeing a character like that in her later stage of life, I think, is exciting.
But, I think that, for now, she's been through enough."
"Yeah, she has."
"You gotta let her go."
Discussing Fleabag's incredible journey through the course of the series, the star added:
"She started as someone who sort of hated herself and ended up as someone believing
that she could love again and forgive herself. I have to respect that arc and let her go
and live for a bit."
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