‘Fleabag’: Phoebe Waller-Bridge Reveals Her Inspiration Behind This Very Sexual Joke in Season 2
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the writer, producer, and lead actress behind Fleabag, Amazon’s Emmy-winning series. Sadly, Waller-Bridge has publicly stated that there won’t be a season 3 of Fleabag. However, we can still reminisce about the incredible two seasons that we have, right? The Fleabag creator recently revealed the inspiration behind an iconic joke in season 2.
‘Fleabag’ creator reveals the meaning behind a season 2 joke dealing with the Godmother character
In 2019, Waller-Bridge participated in a Q&A put together by The Guardian. Actors, writers, and other professionals sent in questions about her writing process and her various projects, and the Fleabag creator responded with written answers.
“I heard that when you’re blocked or in a creative rut, you read,” actor Minnie Driver wrote Waller-Bridge. “What kind of books help you to unblock?”
“It can be literally anything,” Waller-Bridge replied. “I just feel it’s good to jolt the brain a little.” However, she used a specific example in her answer. Apparently, while writing season 2, Waller-Bridge jogged her creativity with a book in order to write a particularly salacious detail about one of Fleabag’s evil stepmother’s paintings.
“One day while I was writing the second series of Fleabag I had run out of steam, so I kicked around the house and picked up my flatmate’s copy of Vagina by Naomi Wolf,” she wrote. This was a lightning bulb moment. What she found in the book inspired one of the most hilarious jokes in the series, executed by the incomparable Olivia Coleman.
“I read a paragraph on the creative power of the orgasm,” Waller-Bridge remembered. “It gave me the idea for the Godmother character having an orgasm while she painted a picture. I went back and put it in the script.”
In season 2, episode 2, Fleabag compliments one of her stepmother’s paintings.
“It was quite an adventure painting,” Colman as the Godmother replies. “I had an orgasm as I finished it.” Later in the episode, Fleabag also tells the priest, played by actor Andrew Scott, this same information. His classic Hot Priest response?
“Well, whatever gets you there.”
Phoebe Waller-Bridge also talked about the season 2 cast, including Andrew Scott as the ‘Hot Priest’
A playwright named Jack Thorne also wrote a question to Waller-Bridge in the Q&A.
“Did you ever consider an ending where the Priest – I refuse to call him Hot Priest – said yes?” he asked.
“May I clarify that I never scripted him as Hot Priest!” Waller-Bridge exclaimed in her reply about the now-famous character. She says the priest’s allure stemmed from Scott’s charming personality.
“That was the good work of the internet meeting Andrew Scott’s impossibly intense charisma,” the writer/performer responded. She also wrote that yes, the Fleabag Season 2 finale almost concluded much differently.
“There was an idea for an alternative ending, but I’ll never say what it was,” Waller-Bridge admitted.
While there won’t be a season 3, Waller-Bridge wants to work with this ‘Fleabag’ cast member again
“Who could inspire you to write right now?” singer Héloïse Letissier asked Waller-Bridge in the Guardian Q&A.
“I … want to write for Sian Clifford and Jodie Comer forever, of course,” the Fleabag creator answered. Clifford is the actor who plays Fleabag’s sister Claire on the critically-acclaimed show. She expertly portrays the anxious, stern older sister, which provides a hilarious contrast to Waller-Bridge’s chill, sarcastic lead.
The English actress Jodie Comer stars as the villain on Waller-Bridge’s BBC show Killing Eve, opposite Sandra Oh. In September, Comer won an Emmy for her acting on the series.
