Directing a big blockbuster isn’t on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s agenda just yet.
The “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” star is on the new cover of Vanity Fair, and in it she shuts down rumours that she’s in the running to helm the next James Bond movie.
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“My mum sent me that rumour too,” she says of the tabloid reports, pointing out that so far in her career, the only thing she’s directed is a music video. “So the obvious leap is James Bond.“
Waller-Bridge has, of course, been involved in the Bond franchise, having co-written the script for Daniel Craig’s final outing as the iconic spy in “No Time to Die”.
The “Fleabag” creator and star may not be directing a Bond movie, but she still has plenty on her plate, including developing a “Tomb Raider” TV series for Prime Video, as well as a series adaptation of Claudia Lux’s novel Sign Here.
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One project she no longer has in the works is a TV series adaptation of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” co-starring Donald Glover. In September 2021, Waller-Bridge exited the series amid reports of “creative differences.”
“I worked on that show for six months fully in heart and mind and really cared about it—still care about it,” she says. “And I know it’s gonna be brilliant. But sometimes it’s about knowing when to leave the party. You don’t want to get in the way of a vision.”
Comparing creative collaboration to a marriage, she adds, “And some marriages don’t work out.”
Waller-Bridge also pushes back on the idea that she is a perfectionist when it comes to her creative projects.
“Happy to be called creatively controlling,” she said. “What I look for in something is that little bit of electricity, of danger or saying something, doing something that hasn’t been done before. If I don’t feel that, I can plow and plow and plow, I just won’t make it.”
