Phoebe Waller-Bridge
The joy and the pain for me is about tightroping between being a cynic and being a romantic - the tug between barely believing in anything and hoping for everything.Collection: Romantic
There's nothing that makes me cry and laugh more than stories about friendship.Collection: Friendship
As women, we get the message about how to be a good girl - 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.Collection: Age
It will always be relevant and always be inspiring to see somebody turning themselves into a warrior.
When an audience is laughing with a character, they make themselves so vulnerable, and they open up. They expose their heart the moment they're laughing, because they're relaxed and they're disarmed.
I always knew that saying the unsayable was going to be a powerful thing.
I'd go so far as to say I was bullied into writing, but sometimes you need that.
You're allowed to bore your friends and family, but to bore your audience is unforgivable.
I don't think the challenge is asking an audience to like a character; it's inviting them to try and understand them... then making that journey entertaining and worth their while. It's a classic trick, but it's human, and it allows characters to have more depth.
The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.
'Transparent' was huge for me when I first saw it. I felt that, from an authorial point of view, no one was trying to sell characters to us, you know? It's the idea of not having to adore these characters and want to cuddle them; you just have to be into them and their psychology and be compelled by them.
I think if you've got people on your side, if you've got people really laughing, you are able to make them cry.
Women know what they're doing all the time, and they're pretending that they don't.
Nothing brings me more joy than when people love what I do.
Whenever I get stuck on something, I'm like, 'What would I do if I wasn't afraid? What would I write if I wasn't afraid? What would I say in this situation if I wasn't afraid?'
Throughout a lot of my 20s, my sexual allure and power was one of the most important things about me, my currency.
I feel liberated being around women who are liberated.
I think it's part of human nature, that we want to achieve. It's definitely a kind of cosmopolitan nature, wanting to achieve in the fast lane.
No one would touch me with a barge pole as an actress. It hit hard. I thought, 'What am I doing? This is a stupid idea!' It's like throwing yourself into a massive pond, and you feel like you're going to drown so quickly.
Fleabag knows men and women are equal and should be treated as such, but what she's confused about - and what I was confused about - was the idea that wanting bigger boobs doesn't mean you don't want equal rights.
What's so useful about the British culture of politeness is the level of passive aggression is really fun to write.
I'd like to think Fleabag's honesty makes her heroic in spite of her actions.
I think there's something funny about people who laugh in the face of convention or surprise us morally.
The main relationship in the whole series was the one between the camera and Fleabag. I had to convince myself that whoever was watching on the other side of the camera was instantly complicit with Fleabag and instantly a friend of hers.
To me, most comedy is dark comedy.
People are always trying to be on top. And not always with a macabre agenda, but I think that people are desperately trying to remain in control, rather than being honest.
I'm just constantly on the verge of bursting into tears with joy.
We're just so self-conscious. However much we try not to be, on some level, especially as a woman and an actress, you have so much pressure when it comes your hair and the bags under your eyes and your skin.
The idea of losing your best friend, basically, is the worst thing in world.
I wanted to give people that feeling of wanting to hug the TV and just admit that you're unhappy.
People generally are just really nice to each other. You know, the good people.
Sausages are just funny. I don't know why. I can't explain it.
Having full faith that you can write something completely insane, and your actress will ground it and make it feel real, is a very liberating feeling.
You don't often see a cross section of female characters interacting with each other at the top of a chain.
I think audiences can feel when they're being served a filler episode.
So much TV is drawn out.
The #MeToo and Time's Up movements have been a roar on behalf of women, and the voices are genuinely empowered now. I really feel that.
I just find all that stuff incredibly funny. I love a fart. I'd do anything for a good poo story.
Our family dinner table was my first platform - every dinner was all about sharing stories and jokes and points of view.
I change my mind every five minutes. I'm very brutal with my own process. I throw everything away very quickly, and then I have to go out and rummage through the rubbish in the middle of the night to try to find a bit I'd written a week ago.
I really desperately want to write and direct my own movie.
I don't think there's an actor in the world who ever expects to get a call from the 'Star Wars' casting director - least of all me.
I think it helped that 'Fleabag' had such a dramatic arc to it, even though it was disguised as a comedy.
I'm a massive control freak.
If you hear somebody say something absolutely horrendous about their own life, in quite a flippant, offbeat kind of way, when you meet people clearly trying to be strong and brave, the ones who are really good at it are the ones who break my heart the most.
I'd been waiting to turn thirty my whole life. For some reason, when I was eleven, I was like, 'I know thirty's going to be good. Get through those twenties!'
I'm obsessed with audiences and obsessed with the journey that an audience goes on.
I really, really wanted to write about just female relationships with other females and things.
After the play of 'Fleabag,' we had conversations with different channels and with film companies about whether 'Fleabag' should be a half-hour sitcom, an hourlong, serialized drama, or a film. And I knew that it couldn't be a drama because I wanted to hide the drama - that had to be the surprise. I knew it had to be comedy.
If you go into the mainstream with a female perspective that seems to resonate with a lot of people, you have a political agenda imposed on you: you are told that you are a feminist.