Failure Throwback: Phoebe Waller Bridge

0:00Hello and welcome to a special episode because we're celebrating the release of 500, yes count them, that's 500 episodes of How to Fail. I never could have believed when I started out in 2018 on my own in my little rented flat in North London in this brave new world of podcasting that I would still be releasing episodes with the likes of Kristen Scott Thomas, Amelia Clarke, Malala, Rosamund Pike and actual Baz Luhrmann. just a few of my favourites from 2026. Who could have imagined it a whole eight years later and here we still are. I am so grateful to all of you for making it possible. To mark this milestone, I wanted to revisit the very first episode of How to Fail with my wonderful friend, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

0:49Let's get into it then. This is the very first episode ever of How to Fail, originally released in July 2018.

1:03Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today. Hey friends, Olivia from OLLI. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where OLLI comes in. Start your mornings off right with Maltese made to support nutrition and immune health.

1:45Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics, and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fam chase their big dreams. Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand. Stock up on OLLI.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

2:06My guest this week is the actress, writer, producer, and generally acknowledged feminist superhero, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She's best known for her starring role in Fleabag, a brilliant foul-mouthed six-part sitcom which she adapted from her one-woman Edinburgh show. Fleabag was aired to universal critical acclaim in 2016, and since then, Wallerbridge has written and produced the psychopathic assassin drama Killing Eve, been invited to the Met Gala, Shewalt Christopher Kane, and played a droid in a Star Wars spin-off, despite not knowing what a droid was when she auditioned. She's currently busy writing Fleabag 2.

2:43In the past, Wallerbridge has described herself as having a provocative sensibility, and although her life so far seems to be one of great professional success, she tells me she's confident there have been enough failures along the way for us to talk about. Hello Phoebe! Hi Elizabeth! So you're not only all of these things but you're also a very loyal and generous and kind friend and we've known each other since 2014 and in that time you've become globally famous and your face has been projected onto massive billboards on Sunset Boulevard and I just wondered what was that like? It was pretty surreal I think it was actually the photographs because it was all in America that kind of thing so it was the photos from American friends sending them to me was my first experience of it and then I did actually go and I didn't actually I did see a billboard but I was go I went past a bus stop and uh I was actually I think I might have actually been standing at it and then turned around when I saw my massive face watching me wait for a bus and that was the most surreal bit especially as I'm just in floods of tears in the poster.

3:50Do you mind seeing your face? I know that's a weird question but. I mean yeah I had to really get over it when I was editing Fleabag because there's a lot of face in that it's pretty much every frame and that was difficult. It's everything you try and ignore the rest of your life you then see relentlessly on screen day in day out when you're editing. I think you sort of get used to it I see her as a slightly different person I think do you think you're good at being a famous person I don't know I think I felt at the beginning when people first started recognizing me after Fleabag it was different from when people recognized me off like just a tv show because it was so mine Fleabag because I'd written it and that gave me a different feeling whereas before when I was doing Broadchurch and people would just be like oh you're the bitch lawyer off of Broadchurch and I'm like yes I am thank you so much but I've got karma about it since it's my own work and my own writing because I think people come up and say I like what you created rather than I recognize you I own you in some way because you've been in my living room in some way and you're I suppose I'm yeah I'm quite good at the parties do you ever get that thing where you're sitting in a cafe with a friend and you out of the corner of your eye see someone trying to take a photo of you on their smartphone that happens on the tube quite a lot and actually vicky my best friend is really good at spotting when that happens so she's always like fan fan fan and i'm always like i mean like nine times out of ten they're not a fan they're just somebody who's like on their phone but occasionally you see it hover up and that's the creepiest feeling actually.

5:30So Fleabag sort of rose out of a failure, not your own failure, but it arose out of the failure for interesting parts to be offered to you as a young woman. Is that right? Well, I'd say it felt like my failure because I'd left drama school and nobody was interested. So I felt like all that energy that goes into the graduation and then suddenly you're propelled out into the world as this new young actress and no one cares and you sort of think what am I doing wrong but there's so much literature and gossip and chat about what why you won't be successful in this industry I have felt sort of fortified to a certain extent like I know it's not going to be easy but it still hurts when you leave and there's there's not much going on.

6:17Talk to me a bit about your experience at RADA I mean you said there that there was a lot of chat about why you weren't going to succeed was that something because Rwanda's sort of known for breaking you down and then building you back up isn't it? Yeah I think they probably encourage failure actually in terms of your experience it was difficult I did find it difficult because I went in with the imagination to cast myself as a very old lady or a kind of rude girl or a something that isn't my natural casting and those are two roles that I ended up casting myself in for the showcase at the end which also proved glorious failures you was a rude girl yes I can't even believe I'm saying rude girl I mean it just feels like so 90s is that was that ever really a thing that anyone outside the middle class has said yeah so I cast myself as those sort of roles because I wanted to be a character actress I wanted to play the stranger quirkier roles that's why I loved acting that's why I love stories and then I did feel like in the machine of drama school and being a 19 year old going in it was very much like you should aim for the Shakespearean lead young female parts and there's huge huge competition for those sorts of roles and with my instinct which was always to I don't know like undercut things or be funny didn't wash so well with those roles that they do with the quirkier side roles um so I did find it quite hard and actually towards the end I had a kind of tete a tete with the principal when I was like you need to think outside the box a bit with these parts because I've already been bathed naked.

7:47I've already been like crying a lot. And those parts felt quite repetitive. Like all the young female parts are either, yeah, having abortions or crying. And I was like, I want something a bit different. And then he was like, okay, fine. And then he cast me as a transvestite prostitute. Like I had a beard and a penis strapped on and thigh high boots. And actually asked Che Walker, who was directing, it was Barmengilead. And this character doesn't exist in Barmengilead, the play. and Che Walker wrote it for me. He wrote this monologue for me. That was really fun because that was something different.

8:20It was like the principal took what you said and was like, fine, let's throw everything at us. It's like he'd gone, fuck you, you want to be stretched? And I was like, that's not so much of a stretch. It's more of a stretch to play the kind of earnest lead for me. I find that very, very hard. And I really, really admire actresses that can play pure emotion without any irony, relentlessly, without any humour in it at all. I find that the actors that can do that are incredible. It's just not really my strength. Because I remember you once saying to me that actually the hardest part of filming Fleabag was not the overt sexual scenes.

8:55It wasn't you having a wank at Barack Obama giving a speech. Those are fine. It was actually the more emotional, vulnerable part. So you had to expose yourself psychologically. Yeah, yeah. And that's always the bit, I mean, everything has to feel truthful. But you know, even as an audience member, that you want to be moved by believing something's real. And it's very straightforward. that contract with the audience, which is I'll make you believe me. And to be able to go to emotional places that you haven't necessarily been to in your life before, the pressure is more there. But then when you get there, when you feel it, when you touch that it's authentic in you, that's when the real rush of acting comes.

9:30And a lot of Fleabag stemmed from autobiographical experience, even if she is not an autobiographical character. Do you think you failed at relationships in your 20s oh yeah yes gloriously I mean I think even when you first said to me this is a podcast about failure I I could feel because you're such a positive person I could already feel the glory of what you meant they're like what's the glory in failure and I think fighting so hard to be so in love with someone with all that passion in your 20s and teens and then throwing everything at it and then it not working or like there being so much pain or and that is the stuff that so much creativity comes out of.

10:11So out of those painful breakups or miscommunications or just horrible sticky one night stands or whatever it is, something you grow in those moments. And so I value them all. A sticky one night stand is the best expression ever. The next day's stickiness as you get back into the knickers. Can you think of the worst date you've ever been on? Or the worst one night stand? Let me flick through my diary. Your Rolodex, your extensive Rolodex. I wish I had a date diary. And that actually would be proved very useful now. The worst date I ever had. There's just the ones where you just don't click at all.

10:53And you feel yourself just sort of falling slowly into a chasm of boring the other person to tears. I don't know. There was one when I, there was a guy I'd, we had a couple of dates. and then he'd stayed over and the next morning it was quite clear to me that like this wasn't going to go anywhere and I think for him as well but a song that I really love is Etta James's At Last I'm always singing like it's just the earworm that I always have and I remember I was walking I was living in a flat that was really on like a fifth floor or something I was walking down the stairs and I was walking in front of him as we were going to go for breakfast and I was singing at last all the way down the stairs and like my love has come along and when we got to the bottom stairs he was like ashen faced and like shaking and I was like what and he was like um I didn't realize this had meant so much to you I was like oh god no god no no um that was that was pretty dire that led on to a very uh an awkward breakfast I mean they all sort of feel gloriously muddy.

11:57Let's see if I can think of another one as we go along. Are you glad that you don't have to live your 20s again? Yes. There's a brilliant line in Girls when she goes, you couldn't pay me to be... One of the characters in the first series says, you couldn't pay me to be 20 again. And then I think Lena Dunham's character says, well, they don't pay me anything at all to be in my 20s. I love that line so much. Yeah, I feel like I did it. I committed to it. I'd really like to have the skin from my 20s, but I prefer my heart and my guts now. I mean, your skin's amazing. That sounds like such a creepy thing for me to say right now.

12:28But you're bathed in the evening sunlight of East London. Do you remember when we got quite busy one night and I was going, I used to have a porcelain forehead. Alabaster. Alabaster. Like alabaster. Alabaster boy. But then even that kind of stuff, like women can be so haunted by or hunted by as they get older, because we're taught to be hunted by it as we get older. There's so much humour in that and there's so much life in that kind of stuff. and it's the gloom of self-loathing that we're supposed to grow around us as we get older and start fearing that our value is diminishing has been the opposite experience for me actually.

13:02You know, as all that kind of stuff comes and you realise, actually no, this is just, I feel like there's a message from society and billboards and all that kind of stuff that is teaching us to sort of hate ourselves. And I've always felt like that was a kind of way of controlling us. And the moment I realised that, I was like, oh, you're just trying to control me. And then that flicked my rebellious switch even more. And now I just feel way more fierce than I ever did in my 20s. When you say it's a question of control, do you think it's control that stems from men having been in charge? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

13:34I mean, I can't imagine that women en masse operating at that level would want to peddle the same message. So I think so. But I think it's something we've become so used to. I think that's the problem. I don't think that it's every man in the world saying that this is an impossible standard that women should live up to. I think actually, I mean, it probably sinks in somewhere because it's something that we're so conscious of all the time as women. And probably on some level men are as well. But I feel like it's just a habit that we need to break. And I have faith that we will as more women climb higher up that pole.

14:07Don't swing higher up that pole as we do. We reclaim the pole. do you feel because Fleabag has been so totemic for so many women particularly young women in their 20s didn't say pole she said totem so much classier way I've been I've been swinging my body around that totem as much as I possibly can we've heard they're both phallic symbols we should rethink the whole phallocentricity of this conversation but it's patriarchy what can we do we're operating within the system um but it is totemic and I imagine you get lots of 20 something things, feeling a bit lost, coming to you for advice or wisdom.

14:45And I wonder if you feel the pressure of that. I don't feel the pressure of it because I feel like it's not about advice or wisdom. It's about people feeling seen and people feeling heard. And it's more people coming up and going, I am Fleabag or I understand that. And it's men as well. But I feel like it's the duality of that character that has spoken to women in particular, which is the front that we have, which is we're totally in control and we have our nice haircuts and our red lipstick and underneath like we have no idea what's going on we contradict ourselves relentlessly we have dark perverted thoughts and then we sanitize them even for ourselves and we have impulses that are very similar to the narrative of male impulses and yet they're not spoken about so much I felt it was cathartic for me to have so many people say oh that's like me because to be honest when I was it and with you know my theatre company Dry Write and with five of us women creating that show through the producer and the stage manager and Izzo my sister the composer and Vicky the director it felt so relevant to all of us and so funny for all of us like every time that I'd be like playing around with something if they laughed I was like okay I'm not alone and it was a conversation that we had just before it went up to Edinburgh and I was like if this fails keeping on point if this fails then it essentially means that we're alone because it feels so right for us and so the fact that it caught on and people could relate to it made us all feel less lonely and me too.

16:12I think you're so right though because I think so much of culture has been dominated by the male voice, literature, the male gaze in cinema and what Fleabag did and also what you do in a lot of your other projects is you're honest about female experience and female rage and not deliberately being salacious but the fact that you talked really openly about masturbation and that you did have that scene where Fleabag the character was wanking to a speech by Barack Obama was instantly relatable and I wonder if you've always been like that that you've always spoken openly about this like even when you were little I mean yeah when you started masturbating It wasn't a question about that.

16:53My first family masturbation chat was when I was six. Yeah, I think I have. I think I've always got a kick out of saying something that is truthful yet feels taboo. I'm not interested in sort of gratuitous chat or saying anything to shock because usually that stuff feels false and you can sense it. But to call the elephant in the room, yeah, has always been a pastime. and something that I feel energised by, I think. But it was so strange. After Fleabag came out, a woman wrote me a letter and said, I knew your grandmother. And my grandmother died when, you know, I was just about pre-teen. And I knew her and I loved her, but I didn't really know that much about her character.

17:35And for me, she was a very prim and proper lady. And when I went to go meet Mary, who was friends with her, she said the incredible thing about her memory of Jill was that she would always say the shocking truth in a situation she was always the person who was swearing when no one else was allowed to swear and she'd get and you know and that was such a huge part of her personality and I was like oh maybe there is a family trait in there somewhere and has that ever got you into trouble like what were you like at school yeah well it plays into that duality I think that I play with with uh Fleabag because I remember my mum saying to me when I first went to secondary school she said she's like just be an angel for the first three terms if you are an angel for the first three terms you'll get away with anything you want for the rest of your school career and I really took that to heart and I was and I made sure like I worked hard I got the I don't know little like badges or whatever you got but the whole time just basically saying to my mates if I nail this then I can you know take anyone down later and it was so true because then I just had the reputation of being a hard-working student and I was a massive practical joker and the cheekiness that also my mother had bread in me, was brilliantly offset by the lesson to like appear to be a good girl and then you'll get away with being a bad girl.

18:50So genius. But it just made everything way more fun because it's the plan, you know, if you don't want to be good just for a good student for the sake of being a good student, if you know that your goal is so that you can get away with being mischievous later on.

19:06If you know me, you'll know I love reality TV. I find it's great escapism and just the best way to take my mind off work and chill out. My favourite thing to do after a particularly busy period is to position myself on the sofa with my lovely cat Huxley and watch The Real Housewives. Something that makes this ritual even more enticing is a Lola's blanket. It's crafted with ultra soft luxury faux fur and a signature four-way stretch that sets it apart. What's more, it's machine washable, which is crucial with Huxley around. He does like to molt, bless him. Double hemmed for durability and stays flawless.

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20:25So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it, style it, make it yours. because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today. Hey friends, Olivia from OLLI. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where OLLI comes in. Start your mornings off right with Maltese made to support nutrition and immune health. Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics And we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fan chase their big dreams.

21:08Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand. Stuck up on Oli.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

21:23Although you now create your own material brilliantly, you did start out as an actress. And one of the things that always impresses me about actors is that they have to go through the audition process again and again and again, no matter how famous you are and how that must acquaint you with a certain degree of failure and having to leave yourself open to other people failing you as in the people who are casting or not casting you they might just say you're not right for this role how do you deal with that oh yeah oh well I mean when you first told me about this podcast I was like my god my life my life has been especially since I graduated from drama school anyway it's been a series of brutal failures and that's just become a way of life everyone tells you the rejection you have to like prepare yourself for the rejection and it's heartbreaking because you just sometimes you fall in love with the part obviously but there's something you just want to work you just so desperately want to work and get better at what you're doing and you can't do that you can't practice acting at home like you can an instrument I mean you can try but you need an audience you need somebody to riff off and that's really all I wanted to do when I first came out I just wanted to do it all the time and it was hard because it was like the industry just saying you're not allowed to do it yet you're not allowed to do it yet you're not allowed to do it yet and And so the thing I love doing more than anything else, I couldn't do on my own.

22:34And I'd like to say that I did endless monologues in my bedroom on my own, but I really didn't. But that just quickly became a way of life. And actually, it was that. It was the relentlessness of the no's and also the silences of, you know, you're up against hundreds and hundreds, it's not thousands of other actresses for a single part in a TV comedy that is essentially a part that you have to be hot for. So that's kind of what it felt like when I first came out of drama school. But it was actually in the face of the emptiness is when I first started writing and creating my own work. So the failure of that and feeling like I didn't belong in the industry in some way because I was trying to fit into all these other boxes.

23:16And then eventually I was like, I've got to practice what I preached and write the part that I'm saying I'm not reading. Was there one particularly nauseating audition that sticks in the mind? well a funny one that taught me a lot was the Downton Abbey audition because I went in for a part and I read the script and this part was like heartbreaking and sincere already I was like oh shit I can't do that I was like but you know and I felt I felt her and but there wasn't much humor in the in the role but I was like that's that's okay I'm just going to play her really straight so I went into the audition I played it incredibly straight and by the end of my reading the director was laughing and he went I had no idea this character was funny but I had done nothing to try and make it funny I was like I was just trying to be serious and uh and I left there being like that's a that was a strange experience I mean they're all mortifying all auditions just the kind of facade of them the fact that everyone's awkward and now being on the other side of it as well and auditioning other people it's so hard to just have that sense of being able to level with people going this is weird I'm going to sit in front of you with absolutely no aid other than this script which I'm not really supposed to be holding anyway and pretend at you that I'm this person that you have dreamt up in your head I just think the whole thing's excruciating but I'm not sure I'm not comfortable with not auditioning for things because I think it's so much about the chemistry in the room with the people you're about to work with so it's a kind of mixture of what we need and what we dread yeah out of a situation god it's just like life yes constantly trying to convince people that you're one thing and actually just desperate for someone to say that's all right we all know we're all the other thing but it's that game we play and again there is energy in that like you do feel like there is something adrenalizing about going into an audition that is thrilling but it's the prep it's the preparation for it that's you know and I felt for so long and this might just I'm sure it's not just me but I did feel for so long I just woke up one day and went my god I spend 70 % of my audition prep time working out what I'm going to wear what I'm going to look like what I'm going to like my my hair my makeup and stuff and it's always been the auditions that I've sort of not had time to do that or something and I've just gone in just with my raw instinct and they're the ones that often come off so it's another lesson in just drop the superficial kind of awareness yeah yeah we're speaking in a post-Weinstein world have you ever experienced the casting couch dynamic no no I always felt like I can't imagine a very British situation I was like would you pop that off I haven't I was so aware of it when I was coming out of drama school because everyone's again warning you about that kind of thing but at the professional level that I was working at or wanting to try and get in at that level it would be unusual there are too many people in the room I think it's when you got to the very incredibly high level when people have all the power and they're warping it and they're exploiting it I luckily never subjected to that have you ever sexually exploited anyone well daily yes this morning particularly no but I have had people say things to me that are definitely inappropriate but because I've been so aware of it because I've been so aware of the power of calling things in a room I mean I do feel like when I read the stories I do feel so horrified and so lucky that I didn't get wrapped up in that or that I wasn't confronted with that as an actress.

26:41But I fear it was mainly because I just wasn't getting that many jobs or auditions, you know? And I think it's the incredibly successful or the incredibly beautiful young girls that come out and can just be exploited so quickly. I just sort of wasn't one of those. Do you ever feel like an imposter? End of question. That was it. That was it. because I think that's something that afflicts many successful women this sense that they don't deserve to be there or there's just some massive fraud that's been perpetrated on the public that means that they win a BAFTA but do you feel that I have moments of it but overall no I feel like I have a right to have a shot at this industry I have a right to have a shot at writing creating and acting.

27:30I really believe in the competition of it. I know there's a lot of cynicism around why certain people get certain roles, but it's also, it's the game and you have to know what the game is. And I already know that I'm massively privileged in the sense that I had a good education. I was exposed to kind of dramary clubs. You know, I had two parents that loved me and encouraged me. I went to RADA. I had choices and I was set up to succeed in so many ways. And then the industry is a different ballgame and once you're into it it doesn't feel that straightforward anymore and that's when I really discovered my ambition because I was like I feel like I have a place here and I feel like I have stories to tell I feel like I have performances to give and if someone's not going to give them to me I'll fucking go out there and do it on my own and that sounds like a sort of war cry but it was something that I've always had I think which is I will do my best to do it anyway and just really hope that people respond and I know that there's a kind of false modesty and like I can't believe I've had this and sometimes it's not false because sometimes I do feel incredibly lucky and I think the kind of series of accidents or whatever it was that led to success that I've had even if it's been like my ambition and my writing something colliding with a zeitgeist which is what felt like happened with Fleabag I met Vicky who you know is my creative partner and in life and my best best friend and she was the real catalyst of change I can't just say I just sat down and wrote a play it was like no I met somebody who changed my life and gave me a sense of confidence and fearlessness because I was like if I've got her and I fail she'll be there with me and she'll laugh it out and she'll be like well you did what you do and if they don't like it then they don't like it let's try something else do you know what I love about that is that you have described what many people would conventionally think of as the perfect romantic relationship and it's actually the greatest friend in your life yeah and we joke about that with each other that we're the loves of each other's lives and the other loves that come in are like we're each other's wives and the men in our lives are our mistresses and um it really did feel like that it is the most romantic story we met i approached her in a bar she'd been directing my boyfriend at the time and she was at the bar downstairs and i approached her and said if you ever need an actress for anything please uh will you put me in it and unlike everyone else in the industry is instinctively suspicious of someone coming up to you and saying I'm an actor of course you are I mean we're like rats we're like everywhere but she just had her response was how exciting you want to be an actress that's amazing I'm like yes and she was like my god of course and then she did cast me in something six months later which ended up being like the most disastrous experience of all time but which she got fired and I quit from that because she was basically being a genius and saving the play and the woman who was running it was sort of not thank you and uh and so Vicky ended up being fired then I quit and then that night we um we went for a drink which I suppose is our first official date and we discussed what we love about theatre and stories and what we love about being an audience mainly what we love about being an audience and how we want to create that kind of work for ourselves yeah we've just never doubted each other and never doubted each other's presence in each other's lives and she's been a huge huge part of anything good that's come out of my career.

30:46And that is why I probably don't feel like an imposter as well, because I feel like it can be quite a lonely industry. And I feel very, very lucky that I found my partner in crime. And, you know, we hadn't seen each other recently in quite a few weeks because we've been working on our separate things. And we met up just for a drink. And in that drink, it was like we spent three hours with each other. We ended up having to, like, ask the waiter for a notepad and a pen and everything because just out of hanging out with each other, we just wanted to draw each other. Yes, but we just wanted to start writing again and start coming up with ideas again.

31:20That's when we realised that it's even grosser than being each other's lovers of our lives. We are actually each other's muses. We need to do this more for our own creative life. So that's the reason that I probably don't feel like an imposter. Do you think that you need a romantic relationship beyond that? Do you think if, in an alternative universe, you were never going to have a romantic relationship again, but you had your friendship with Vicky and friendship with other women. I mean, yes, because it's such a huge other part of my life. And obviously, like, we just don't sort of want to snog each other.

31:58That was going to be my next question. No, I mean, it's a purer thing. It's of the heart and of the brain. Yeah, I mean, and also because that's our friendship, that's our life, we need something to bloody talk about with each other outside of work but I do feel incredibly secure I feel like with her and so love in any other shape or form is a wonderful bonus and fills another part of me so to speak but yeah yeah of course I want you know you want the whole spectrum of love in your life I think um I want to do that really annoying journalist thing where I read a quote to you that you gave oh Jesus to an interviewer who happens to be me.

32:40But it was about, it was at the time, it was just before Fleabag aired, and you were talking about female rage, which you've sort of become the poster girl for. And he said, I know a lot of my female peers feel really angry. I think that a woman's response at first is to feel guilty and apologetic about it without knowing why. The idea of the angry young man is so deeply embedded in culture, but the angry young woman seems never to be addressed. and I suppose I wanted to ask you a broader question off the back of that do you think women fail anger I don't know if they fail it I think they compartmentalize it and it can manifest in different ways I think it can be bottled and then turned into something else whereas it's not just released or celebrated in its release I think a man who shows rage or like when you even see it on the street just like guys fighting in the street sometimes everyone's sort of like we understand why they're doing that you know we'll like we'll let it go to a certain extent because there's so much of it on display and so much in movies and tv and stuff i feel like women have i mean it's hard to talk for all women you know but i feel like the narrative of female anger has been manipulated so it's like hysteria or like calm down love you know it's like you're getting you lose your mind when you get angry whereas with men it's like they connect to something deeper with them when they get angry they connect to the the real man the animal whereas with women it's like they lose themselves and they lose their focus or whatever it is and I think that feels true but then I've been writing about it with Killing Eve which is the psychopath show about that it doesn't have to necessarily be people lashing out or anger and rage can be a really positive emotion I mean god it got me writing and creating but there's something really extraordinary still about seeing like there's this character villanelle that we're writing seeing her kill people all the time and not feeling the instant remorse in fact she's curious about it and she knows it's what she's good at and she's unempathetic to people's pain but she's still curious about the impact she's having and it's shocked people so much seeing her brutalize people and then be able to walk away from it in a way that we haven't we're so desensitized with the male character and people are so fascinated by female killers And when I started reading into them, I know anger and violence don't go hand in hand, but it's like the extreme example of it, isn't it?

35:00But when I started researching female killers, there was something so electrifying about them because they really have shaken off any sense of consequence or vanity or anything. Because it's not kind of a strong woman who's being powerful. It's like someone who's gone, I don't care anymore about being called hysterical or anything. I'm just going to kill you. I'm getting too extreme with the killing. But it's the polar opposite as well of that sort of cultural stereotype that a woman must be nurturing and motherly. Yeah. Yeah. That would make me angry. Because it happens in phases. You know, we're all individuals.

35:39And I think that some people do feel way more nurturing than others, men and women. And it happens in moments. There are just times when you feel... It's not being able to feel like you can have a window when you don't feel like that. oh you can have windows when you do and I feel like women have to put it somewhere else put that impulse somewhere else then I've got a friend of mine who said that she had this massive screaming row with her husband in a restaurant and I couldn't believe the story because I was like you're actually shouting at him in a restaurant she was like yeah he was being a dick and I shouted at him I was like and the whole restaurant was watching you shout she's like yeah I didn't care and there was something about that I just loved it so much because I don't think I could ever do that and I think I think that's about my pride and needing to appear sort of controlled and so I will bury that and then my rage comes out in a kind of slower more creative way but the fact that she just explodes like that and you know it's a very like not very British thing to do anyway but I sort of love seeing it and hearing about it I mean following also that thing about kind of the cliche notion of a maternal being and like female nurturing I'm intrigued as to how often you get asked in interviews about wanting babies or settling down because that is something that I as a journalist really struggle with because every single time I interview a female star it's probably about 95 % of the time but my editor will say can you ask about this and I feel very conflicted then as someone who you know I have a job and I need to please my editor and my readership but I also think it's completely outrageous to ask a woman something that you wouldn't ask a man do you get asked that a lot?