Few people may be more familiar with the fluidity of the new model of TV than Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The celebrated British actress and scribe is set to bring back the Amazon dark comedy Fleabag in May, three years after she released what was intended to be a one-off adaptation of a stage play.
Taking that time away from the show is what actually inspired her to come back to the project, something Waller-Bridge initially didn’t want to do. “I decided to not to do a second season,” she said during the final panel of the Television Critics Association’s two-week winter press tour, “and I had real pride in my artistic integrity.”
She feels the same about a third season. With the second run in the can, Waller-Bridge says she’s putting Fleabag to bed again. “I may be surprised again,” she added.
As for the time gap, Waller-Bridge said it was one of the reasons why the material appealed to her again. She had no interest in picking up the narrative where it left off.
“I needed to take space from Fleabag after that first series and the play,” she said. “[The titular character’s] a different person now. She’s in a different stage of her life. It’s not the immediate next chapter. You can delve into a whole new level of psychology and really depart from the first series.”
As for the events that happened between the first and second seasons, Waller-Bridge says the show handles them in true Fleabag fashion — with a quick break of the fourth wall.
“The most honest thing she’d do is just turn to you and tell you what was going on in a really quick way,” she said. “I just wanted to get rid of the exposition and get on with the story.”
