Phoebe Waller-Bridge has spoken about her “really challenging” work on the upcoming James Bond film, No Time To Die.
The Fleabag and Killing Eve creator served as a co-writer on the latest 007 outing, which will be the last to star Daniel Craig in the lead role.
“It was really challenging, and my role there was to try and be helpful and to offer things,” she recalled during an appearance on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
Revealing a script had already been written when she signed on to the project, Phoebe continued: “Cary [Joji Fukunaga, the film’s director] had a really specific vision for the movie and so did Daniel, and it had been in development for a really long time and they had a script, so that process for me was about stepping back and just saying, ‘I’m going to give you these options and then you can use any of them or you can get rid of all of them’, because everybody was writing on it.
“I mean, there were just so many ideas and (it was) so clear to so many people. I was just throwing things out there and hoping that anything sticks. I was going ‘pew, pew, pew!’”
Describing her highlight of the experience, Phoebe added: “It was actually seeing the stunt people, the stunt guys practising… Practising? Drilling? I don’t know.
“And they would actually hold their hands like guns, like kids, when they’re rehearsing it. I was walking past, and then they all go ‘pew, pew, pew’ for the gun sound! That was my favourite take away from being on a Bond set.”
Back in December, Phoebe spoke out to clarify reports about why she’d been recruited to help write No Time To Die, after several outlets suggested she’d been brought in to make the film’s women more well-rounded.
“That didn’t really come into the conversation,” she insisted. “That’s only really the press that have made that thing, in terms of me being a woman, you can see it is a button-pressing thing.
“The reality was I got a call from Barbara [Broccoli, the film’s producer] and Daniel [Craig] saying, ‘We like your work, can you come in and help us?’.
“There wasn’t ever really a conversation about can you come in and help us with ‘the ladies’.”
No Time To Die hits UK cinemas on 2 April, with Rami Malek and Lashana Lynch joining returning Bond stars including Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris.