Who is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Hollywood’s favorite cynical screenwriter?

By Olivier Joyard.

Published on 3 May 2019. Updated on 7 July 2026.

A career rooted in self-deprecating, satirical humour

Today, not all stars dazzle with their talent. But, thank goodness, some are astounding exceptions. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is one of them. The British actress and screenwriter is the perfect example of someone who has made the world fall in love with her through the sheer strength of her art. People first talked about her in 2016, when Channel 4 began broadcasting a highly sexual, acid generational comedy, Crashing, a rude tribute to the cult show Friends. A few months after that, when Fleabag began airing on a rival channel, things started to take off slowly but surely.

Today, the 40-year-old tall brunette has become one of Britain and Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses and screenwriters. With her dizzying and disconcerting personality, she led two major projects acclaimed all over the world – Fleabag and Killing Eve. She also took part in the latest Star Wars film as a feisty android character. For Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s approach is both faithful and radically different from traditional British satire. First, because she bases her humour on the shame and panic that arise out of a particular situation. Then, because her perspective focuses on a woman who shows her demons to the world, she analyses her anxiety with raw honesty and invents a whole universe. “It’s easier to manage being single than being in a relationship,” she declared.

A disillusioned actress

As a young woman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was more inclined to believe in her unlucky star. The young actress spent her childhood acting in school plays. After graduating from RADA in London, she found herself up against a wall, unemployed for several years, broken down by an acting school that had a reputation for building strong careers. “I went to Rada thinking I was quite a good actor and came out thinking I was appalling,” she explained.

It was then that she met Vicky Jones, who would become her creative partner and help her unleash her true voice. The duo, still working together today, founded a theatre company in London, DryWrite, which showcased young authors. Finding few roles that suited her, and seeing that the sort of dramas she wanted to watch were not being written by anyone else, Phoebe Waller-Bridge began frenetically writing a series of short plays. It included a ten-page script that would eventually become the first draft of Fleabag (2016-2019).

Fleabag, the origin of a cult narrative

One evening, Jones took the bull by the horns and took Phoebe Waller-Bridge to the Soho Theatre in London. He went up to the artistic director at the time and told him about his friend’s huge talent being wasted and hidden. A few months later, the young actress showed some of her work in a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which introduced her caustic writing to the world. There, she presented the story of a young woman, whose parents have nicknamed her “fleabag.”

Addressing the audience directly, she recounted an existence founded on the renunciation of love. She dived into sexuality in a very explicit way, as well as into her ongoing fights with her sister and father. Except that, little by little, the audience discovered the psychological root of her problems, all linked to her best friend’s death for which she feels responsible. First broadcast as a series in 2016, Fleabag introduced her funny, heart-breaking creation to a wider audience, none of whom have forgotten the shock they felt when first seeing it.

“Good things can come out of rage. It’s galvanizing. A director once said to me, ‘You have the gift of rage.’ It really stayed with me.” – Phoebe Waller-Bridge

In 2019, Phoebe Waller-Bridge released the second series of her heroine’s adventures. Her fictional double dived even deeper into her relationships. What’s the point in looking for love where it’s easy to find? Why bother looking for love at all, especially since anxiety and angst will always take over? Her stimulating pessimism served her brilliant writing. For instance, she described an encounter with a young, seductive priest who confronted the main character about her desires and lack of love.

Something comes out of the images and dialogues in the series… A unique tone, a soul that expresses itself with idiosyncratic frankness. Where does her writing spring from? Which deep wells gave us Killing Eve, a series about an extraordinary feminine duo in which a confused detective inspector hunts a psychopathic hit woman? “I write from the point of view of what I’d like to watch. I’m always satisfying my own appetite. So I guess that means transgressive women, friendships, pain. I love pain,” the British screenwriter declared. One word could sum up the origin of it all, rage. “Good things can come out of rage. It’s galvanizing. A director once said to me, ‘You have the gift of rage.’ It really stayed with me. I always wanted to hit the edge of the character. Once you know what makes someone angry, you can understand a lot about that person.”

A Hollywood breakthrough into screenwriting

In some way, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is one of the free, inspired voices finding an audience today in a world where feminism is no longer a dirty word. She might make you think of Lena Dunham, Jill Soloway or Issa Rae, even if no comparison really stands up when it comes to describing her immense talent. The screenwriter has been building a fictional universe for herself. Even if that universe is sometimes hard to enjoy, she depicts an image of herself that is both fascinating and troubling. 

Her approach is anything but superficial when it comes to expressing her desires and idiosyncratic fictional universe. Moreover, nobody in Fleabag or Killing Eve bothers with being respectable, least of all women. “Being proper, sweet, nice and pleasing is a fucking nightmare. It’s exhausting. As women, we get the message about how to be a good, pretty girl from such an early age. Then, at the same time, we’re told that well-behaved girls won’t change the world or ever make a splash. So, it’s sort of like, well, what the fuck am I supposed to be? I’m supposed to be a really polite revolutionary?” 

“I write from the point of view of what I’d like to watch. I’m always satisfying my own appetite. I guess that means transgressive women, friendships, pain. I love pain.” – Phoebe Waller-Bridge

The answer, of course, is in the question. Phoebe Waller-Bridge will never be a polite young woman on screen and will boost her credentials as a revolutionary with every passing day. For some years now, she has been involved with a pressure group that aims to improve the situation of actresses in the British film and TV industry. But most of her efforts focus on creating unique characters — free, anxious and ever-evolving. Her goal? Continuing to create a form of comedy always rooted in deep emotions.

After meeting psychologists specializing in psychopaths during the writing of Killing Eve, she came to the following conclusion.“The thing that people say about them is they’re just so funny. So, you can’t help but love them. So, even though you know they have done these terrible crimes and these terrible things, if someone surprises you, makes you laugh, disarms you, they can do anything. It’s why I love comedy so much and why I think it’s such a powerful, powerful tool,” she concluded.

Season 2 of Fleabag (2019) by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, available on Amazon Prime.
Season 4 of Killing Eve by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, available on Canal+.
The Tomb Raider series directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge doesn’t have a release date yet.