Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge (born 14 July 1985) is an English actress, screenwriter and producer. As the creator, head writer, and star of the comedy series Fleabag (2016–2019), she won three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes and a British Academy Television Award.[1][2] She received further Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for writing and producing the spy thriller series Killing Eve (2018–2022).
Waller-Bridge has also created, written, and starred in the comedy series Crashing (2016). She has also acted in the comedy series The Café (2011–2013), in the second season of Broadchurch (2015), and in the films Albert Nobbs (2011), The Iron Lady (2011), Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). She contributed to the screenplay of the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021) and starred in the adventure film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).
== Early life[edit] ==
Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge was born in Hammersmith, London, on 14 July 1985,[3][4] the daughter of Michael Cyprian Waller-Bridge, founder of the electronic trading platform Tradepoint,[5] and Theresa Mary, daughter of Sir John Edward Longueville Clerke, 12th Baronet, employed by the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers.[6][7][8] The Bridge, later Waller-Bridge, family were soldiers and clergymen, who came to rank among the landed gentry of Cuckfield in Sussex.[9][10] Her grandfather, Cyprian Waller-Bridge (1918-1960), "a Wodehousian sort of character... 'the eccentric son of an eccentric vicar'",[11] was an actor and BBC announcer.[12][13][14] On her father's side, she is a descendant of the Revd Sir Egerton Leigh, 2nd Baronet, and a distant relative of politician and author Egerton Leigh, Conservative MP for Mid Cheshire from 1873 to his death in 1876.[15][16]
Waller-Bridge grew up in Ealing in London[17][18] and has two siblings: an older sister, Isobel Waller-Bridge, a composer, with whom she has collaborated; and a younger brother, Jasper.[19] Her parents are divorced.[20] She was educated at St Augustine's Priory, a Catholic independent school for girls,[21] followed by the independent sixth form college DLD College London in the Marylebone area of London.[22] She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.[23]
== Career[edit] ==
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fleabag_at_The_Edinburgh_Fringe_Festival_2013.jpg|thumb|210x210px|Waller-Bridge (centre) at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013
Waller-Bridge's performing credits begin in theatre in 2007. At that time, she co-founded the DryWrite Theatre Company with Vicky Jones.[7] They are co-artistic directors of the company.[24][25] The two women met and became friends while working on theatre productions.[26] Among her acting theatre credits are the 2009 productions Roaring Trade at Soho Theatre[27] and Rope at the Almeida Theatre. She performed in a production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever in 2011 and Mydidae in 2012. Waller-Bridge then wrote and starred in Fleabag, which she first performed as part of the London Storytelling Festival on 25 November 2012. The first full version of Fleabag premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013. She later wrote the short plays production Good. Clean. Fun.[28] Waller-Bridge returned to the stage for further productions of Fleabag between 2013 and 2019.
Waller-Bridge began her screen career in 2009, playing roles in short films and in individual episodes of television sitcoms and dramas. Her early television appearances include the 2011 film The Night Watch, as well as Bad Education and Coming Up in 2013 and Blandings in 2014. She had supporting roles in The Café from 2011 to 2013 and in the second season of the crime drama series Broadchurch in 2015. Her first feature length theatrical film roles were in 2011 for Albert Nobbs and The Iron Lady. Her role in Albert Nobbs had her cast alongside Emerald Fennell, to whom she would later hand off showrunner duties for Killing Eve.
Waller-Bridge has voice acted for several BBC Radio plays, such as 2013's Vincent Price and the Horror of the English Blood Beast, in which she played actress Hillary Dwyer, and a 2014 adaptation of an Agatha Christie story. She has provided narration in short films, including a 2015 television documentary on dating apps and a 2016 Christmas themed animated short film. She has also voiced ads for companies such as The Cotswold Company, Warburtons, Gordon's Gin, Trainline, Travel Republic, Kuoni Travel, and Tropicana.
In 2016, she wrote and starred in her first television project, the Channel 4 comedy Crashing about a group of twenty-somethings living in an abandoned hospital under the property guardianship scheme.[29] It began streaming on Netflix after airing in the UK, with W Magazine calling it Waller-Bridge's "twisted take on Friends."[30] GQ Magazine described the show's six episodes as: "perfect little whirlwinds of comedy building to one big maelstrom where everyone falls to pieces—some are better off for it, and some are not. No matter where the chips fall, you'll have a good time."[31]
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FleabagWyndham290819-3_(cropped).jpg|thumb|Waller-Bridge at a performance of her one-woman show at the Wyndham's Theatre in 2019
After an initial release on BBC Three, Fleabag was broadcast on BBC Two from August 2016. It was picked up by the on-demand Amazon Video service and premiered in the United States in September 2016.[32][33][34] For her performance in the series she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance and was nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. Fleabag's second and final series aired in 2019. For the second series, Waller-Bridge received Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, and Outstanding Comedy Series.[35][36] She also topped the Radio Times's TV 100 power list that year.[37]
She voiced and performed droid L3-37 in the Star Wars film Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).[38][39] Waller-Bridge wrote and produced the thriller television series Killing Eve, based on novels by Luke Jennings.[40] She was also the showrunner for series 1.[41] The BBC America series stars Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer and premiered in April 2018 to critical acclaim.[42] For her work on the series, she received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Drama Series, the latter as a producer.
In March 2019, HBO ordered the series Run, with Waller-Bridge as executive producer.[43] In the series, she also portrayed the recurring character Laurel.[44] It was cancelled after one series.[45] In 2019, Waller-Bridge co-wrote the screenplay for No Time to Die (2021), the 25th James Bond film, along with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Cary Joji Fukunaga. It was stated she was brought on to introduce "more humour and the offbeat style of writing she is best known for."[46][47] In 2020, Waller-Bridge voiced Sayan Kötör in series 2 of the television show His Dark Materials. She also directed the music video for "Saviour Complex" by Phoebe Bridgers. Waller-Bridge then appeared in the music video for "Treat People with Kindness" by Harry Styles, which premiered on 1 January 2021.
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PheobeW.jpg|thumb|Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover in 2018
She was set to co-star with Donald Glover in a television adaptation of the 2005 film Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but in September 2021, it was revealed that Waller-Bridge had exited the series over creative differences.[48] Waller-Bridge is developing a Tomb Raider TV series for Amazon Prime.[49] She appears in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, as Helena Shaw, which was released in June 2023.[50][51][52][53]
== Personal life[edit] ==
Waller-Bridge lives in the Shoreditch area of London. She married Irish presenter and documentary filmmaker Conor Woodman in 2014.[18] By 2017, they had separated and filed for divorce.[54] Since early 2018, she has been in a relationship with playwright Martin McDonagh.[7]
Waller-Bridge describes herself as an atheist, although she says she "hopped around a bit from religion to religion" while growing up.[55] She avoids social media, stating in a 2019 interview that she "would feel pressure to be funny the whole time" and that she did not feel confident enough to deal with the negative comments that come with social media use.[56]
== Filmography[edit] ==
=== Film[edit] ===
Key
†	Denotes works that have not yet been released
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
2008	Intangible 	Anna 	Short film
2009	The Reward 	Charlotte 	Short film
2011	Beautiful Enough 	Composer (voice) 	Short film
2011	Meconium 	Lorna 	Short film
2011	Albert Nobbs 	Viscountess Yarrell	
2011	The Iron Lady 	Susie 	
2015	Man Up 	Katie 	
2015	Incident on the Northern Line 	Unnamed character 	Short film
2016	The 12 Days of Christmas: A Tale of Avian Misery	Narrator 	Animated short film
2017	Goodbye Christopher Robin 	Mary Brown 	
2018	Careful How You Go 	Unnamed character 	Short film
2018	Solo: A Star Wars Story 	L3-37 (voice) 	
2021	No Time to Die 	None 	Co-screenwriter
2023	Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny 	Helena Shaw[52] 	
2024	IF 	Blossom (voice) 	
2025	A Big Bold Beautiful Journey† 	 	Filming
=== Television[edit] ===
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
2009 	Doctors 	Katie Burbridge 	Episode: "Chef's Secret"
2010 	How Not to Live Your Life	Felicity 	Episode: "Don's Posh Weekend"
2011 	The Night Watch 	Lauren 	Television film
2011–2013	The Café 	Chloe Astill 	13 episodes
2013 	Coming Up 	Karen 	Episode: "Henry"
2013 	London Irish 	Steph 	Episode: "#1.2"
2013 	Bad Education 	India 	Episode: "Drugs"
2014 	Blandings 	Felicity 	Episode: "Custody of the Pumpkin"
2014 	Glue 	Bee Warwick 	2 episodes
2014 	Drifters 	None 	Writer in 3 episodes
2015 	Broadchurch 	Abby Thompson 	8 episodes
2015 	Love at First Swipe 	Narrator 	Documentary; also called "The Secret World of Tinder"
2016 	Crashing 	Lulu 	6 episodes; also creator, writer and executive producer
2016–2019	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	12 episodes; also creator, writer and executive producer
2018–2022	Killing Eve 	None 	Writer in 4 episodes, executive producer in 24 episodes
2019 	Saturday Night Live 	Herself (host) 	Episode: "Phoebe Waller-Bridge/Taylor Swift"
2020 	Run 	Laurel Halliday 	Actress in 3 episodes; executive producer in 7 episodes
2020 	His Dark Materials 	Sayan Kötör (voice)	2 episodes
2021 	Staged 	Herself 	Episode: "The Loo Recluse"
2021 	Great British Theatre 	Fleabag 	Episode: "Fleabag"
=== Theatre[edit] ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Venue 	Ref.
2007	Is Everyone OK?	Performer 	Latitude Festival, Suffolk 	[57][58]
2007	Crazy Love 	Billie 	Paines Plough 	[59]
2008	Twelfth Night 	Viola 	Sprite Productions 	[60]
2009	Roaring Trade 	Jess 	Soho Theatre, London 	[61]
2009	2 May 1997 	Sarah 	The Bush Theatre, London 	[61]
2009	Rope 	Leila Arden	Almeida Theatre, London 	[61]
2010	Like a Fishbone	Intern 	The Bush Theatre, London 	[61]
2010	Tribes 	Ruth 	Royal Court Theatre, London	[61]
2011	Hay Fever 	Sorel Bliss	Noël Coward Theatre, London	[61][62]
2012	Mydidae 	Marian 	Soho Theatre, London 	[63]
2012	Mydidae 	Marian 	Trafalgar Studios, West End	[63]
2013	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Soho Theatre Studio, London	[64]
2014	The One 	Jo 	Soho Theatre, London 	[65][66]
2014	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	Soho Theatre Main House
Daehangno Small Theatre Festival, Seoul	[67][68][69]
2015	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	Salberg Studio 	[70][71]
2016	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	Soho Theatre Main House 	
2018	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	Australia 	[68]
2019	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	SoHo Playhouse 	[72]
2019	Fleabag 	Fleabag 	Wyndham's Theatre 	[73]
=== Music videos[edit] ===
Year	Title 	Artist 	Notes
2020	"Savior Complex" 	Phoebe Bridgers	Director only
2021	"Treat People With Kindness"	Harry Styles 	Performer only
=== Radio[edit] ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Production 	Notes 	Ref.
2010	Vincent Price and the Horror of the English Blood Beast	Hillary Dwyer 	BBC Radio 4	 	[74]
2011	Money 	Georgina Vesey	BBC Radio 3	 	[75]
2012	Burns and the Bankers 	Gemma Goodman 	BBC Radio 4	 	[76]
2012	Gulliver's Travels 	Lady Munodi 	BBC Radio 4	Episode: "The Voyage to Laputa"	[77]
2013	ElvenQuest 	Nigressa 	BBC Radio 4	Episode: "The Fat Hog" 	[78]
2014	Ordeal by Innocence 	Hester 	BBC Radio 4	3 episodes 	[79]
=== Publications[edit] ===
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Category:Actresses
Category:British actresses
Category:Film actresses