Andrew Scott’s performance in the second season of Fleabag is still being celebrated by fans five years later – but if certain execs had their way, he’d apparently have been dropped from the show altogether.
In a new interview with Radio Times magazine, the BBC’s Director of Comedy Shane Allen recalled how Amazon came on board during Fleabag’s second season to help with funding.
According to Shane, this led to “a whole raft of US male execs turned up to the read-through”.
“Bear in mind this was a piece exploring self-destructive feminism,” he continued. “[They proceeded to tear the show apart and demand Andrew Scott was recast with only four days until the shoot started.”
While he didn’t specify exactly what the US executives’ issue with Andrew was, he did say that Fleabag creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge stood her ground, which is how the Spectre star ended up remaining with the show.
“Anyone less effervescently charming and smart than Phoebe would have buckled,” Allen claimed.
Phoebe seemingly always had Andrew in mind for Fleabag season two, with his character coming to be known as “Hot Priest” by fans after it aired.
He told HuffPost UK in 2019: “Phoebe and I were pals already, we did a play together about 10 years ago at the Soho Theatre in London,” Andrew explains. “And so she gave me a call out of the blue last summer. I knew it was about Fleabag, and we went and had a big catch-up and a three-and-a-half-hour walk around Soho.
“She talked about the character and we talked about where we were in our lives, and what we thought about religion and love and all that kind of stuff, and the character that was forming in her mind. It was a very special, memorable day.”
Andrew continued: “And at the end, I was like, ‘yep, I’m going to get myself involved in that, I’d be delighted to’. I hadn’t seen the script but I love Phoebe so much and I obviously loved the first series enormously, along with everybody else. So I was delighted to sort of jump in.”
His performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination, as well as recognition in the TV Baftas’ “Moment Of The Year” category and a win at the 2020 Critics’ Choice Awards.
More recently, Andrew had some choice words for any Fleabag fans who still feel hung up on his holy character.