Everything We Know About Phoebe Waller-Bridger’s Notoriously Private Relationship With Director Martin McDonagh
On September 5, 2022, Martin McDonagh’s new movie, The Banshees Of Inisherin, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in Italy. Among the many celebrities in attendance was McDonagh’s girlfriend, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator and star of the acclaimed Amazon series Fleabag.
If there ever was a match made in artistic heaven, McDonagh and Waller-Bridge have to be it. The accomplished pair have been romantically linked for years. But they steadfastly refuse to share the details of their private romance.
However, McDonagh recently opened up to interviewers about his latest movie, sharing a bit about his life and relationship.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Martin McDonagh became a couple in late 2017
According to the Evening Standard, then-32-year-old Waller-Bridge and McDonagh, 15 years her senior, first became an item in October 2017. They were seen together at a screening of his Oscar-nominated film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. In January 2018, the couple was official. They posed for photos at the Golden Globes and exchanged a kiss when his film won Best Screenplay.
It’s interesting to note that Waller-Bridge seems to prefer older, Aries men with a creative streak. When she was first linked to McDonagh, Waller-Bridge was still married to producer and director, Conor Woodman, who is 11 years her senior. He and McDonagh were born on March 21 and 26 respectively.
In December 2017, People confirmed her split from Woodman and their upcoming divorce. “They’ve been separated for a little while now,” an anonymous source said.
According to their profiles on IMDb, McDonagh and Waller-Bridge are both from London, England. McDonagh’s father worked in construction. His mother was a cleaning lady, while Waller-Bridge is descended from landed gentry on both sides of her family.
Her father, who has extensive experience in finance, helped found the electronic equities trading company, Tradepoint. Her mother, whose father was Sir John Edward Longueville Clerke, 12th baronet, of Hitcham, Buckinghamshire, reportedly works for Worshipful Company of Ironmongers.
Waller-Bridge is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. McDonagh dropped out of school at the age of 16. Despite the differences in their ages and backgrounds, McDonagh and Waller-Bridge are brilliant, witty writers. Both of them like to shock their audiences.
McDonagh is known for his jarring stage plays that deal with disturbing subjects and blend violence with humor. Waller-Bridge is known for her irreverent humor, audacious characters, and storylines with a dark side. “I get a rush writing women who don’t care what you think,” she told the Guardian in 2018.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Martin McDonagh are still going strong
Their works may be daring. But both play it safe regarding the details of their personal lives. In 2018, Waller praised McDonagh’s work and refused to talk about her former marriage. When asked if her relationship with McDonagh was her happiest, she answered, “I’m not going to talk about that, either.”
However, in September 2022, she and her beau were pictured at his Venice premiere looking quite happy, as Just Jared reports.
In a recent interview, McDonagh indicated to Guardian writer Amanda Sawyer that things were going well for the couple. “No comment, but thumbs up on my love life, thanks for asking,” he said. A vegetarian who loves animals, McDonagh told Sawyer he excels at “pasta, punctuality and … I’m not great at cleaning … I’m going to say pasta again.” We’d love to know what the famous couple discusses over a homemade primavera and a glass of wine.
As committed as they appear, they are also very independent and often busy with their own projects. The Daily Mail reported that they even spent their COVID-19 quarantine apart. Waller-Bridge stayed in London with her sister while McDonagh was rumored to be in the United States.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge read Martin McDonagh’s ‘Banshees’ script
Long before they dated, Waller-Bridge was taken with McDonagh’s dark and devastating play, The Pillowman. It features the story of a man made out of pillows who convinces children to end it all before they live out bleak and terrible lives in a totalitarian police state. The main character, the story’s author, is arrested when his gruesome fairy tales are linked to a spree of child murders.
“It was the first play I saw that made me think theatre can be really exciting,” Waller-Bridge told The Guardian. “Sometimes you need to see something like that – a piece of work that wakes you up, that makes you go, ‘Yes, of course, that can be done,’ and gives your imagination permission to go 17 million other places. I felt like that about his work.”
McDonagh revealed to film critic Emanuel Levy that he shares his work with Waller-Bridge. He elaborated she’s “not a sounding board, but she usually reads something at the end of the process. And she definitely liked this one,” he said about his Banshees script, “so that was quite good.”
“Did she have any input on Banshees?” Levy asked. “No input, but just her saying that she really liked it was enough for me.”
