“With female writers who write honestly about women and their experiences, it’s, “Oh, that’s a feminist show.””
“People approach me thinking I’ve been though all of that. They’re always really disappointed that I’m married,” Phoeobe Waller-Bridge told The Hollywood Reporter during the Comedy Showrunner Roundtable about her series Fleabag. The show creator and star plays the lead character of the same name, who has an active sex life, and a dark secret.
Waller-Bridge expressed her frustration with being pigeonholed as a “feminist writer,” saying that every time she is asked about Fleabag, it’s “through the prism of feminism.”
“It’s a very important part of that show for me,” she said. “But it was like one strand in the story of this character.”
Waller-Bridge continued, “It wasn’t so much that I was a writer, it was that I was a ‘feminist writer’ — which I am, of course I am, and I’m a feminist person — but that became a category of writing and that made me want to have three glasses of wine and rail at reporters.”
More roundtables featuring comedy and drama actresses, actors, showrunners and reality creators will continue through July in print and online. Tune in to new episodes of Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter starting May 25 on Sundance TV, and look for clips at THR.com/topic/roundtables with full episodes on THR.com after broadcast.