Phoebe Waller-Bridge is sticking to plans to retire her Fleabag character, despite the show’s four Primetime Emmy Awards wins on Sunday (September 22, 2019).
Fleabag started life as Phoebe’s one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland in 2013, which the star then adapted into a BBC TV comedy.
The show’s critically acclaimed second series triumphed at this year’s Emmys, winning the Outstanding Comedy Series prize, with Phoebe also bagging an Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series and the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series trophies. Filmmaker Tony Miller also won a directing prize.
However, she told Entertainment Tonight backstage at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater, that, despite the successful evening, she won’t bring back the show, saying: “I mean, to be honest, this just feels like the most beautiful, beautiful way to say goodbye to it, actually.
“It does feel like the story is complete… It’s so nice to hear that so many people loved it. I’m a bit like, ‘Aw, damn it, maybe she shouldn’t have waved goodbye at the end.’ But it does feel right. It feels right to go out on a high, and you can’t get higher than this.”
Co-star Andrew Scott, who played Fleabag’s ‘Hot Priest’ and her love interest in its second season, also said there would be no more Fleabag – but hinted he and Phoebe are planning a new project together.
“I think when something is beautiful and perfectly formed, there’s no point… You’d be doing it for the wrong reasons, you know?” he said. “But Phoebe and I have plans to work together again. When we decide exactly what that is, you’ll be the first to know.”
