Phoebe Waller-Bridge has said her work on the upcoming James Bond film involved “throwing things out there and hoping that anything sticks”.
The acclaimed creator of Fleabag was drafted in to beef up the No Time To Die script, reportedly on the advice of 007 star Daniel Craig.
Waller-Bridge, known for her razor-sharp humour and offbeat style, worked closely with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and director Cary Joji Fukunaga.
She has now described her role as trying to offer different options.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour: “I mean, it was really challenging, and my role there was to try and be helpful and to offer things.
“The script was there, Cary 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!’”
Waller-Bridge, 34, earned widespread critical acclaim for her work on Fleabag’s lauded second season and won a host of awards including Emmys and Golden Globes.
She told how she was first approached by someone saying Broccoli wanted to meet her, before having “incredible conversations” about an “iconic character who you’ve grown up with”.
Waller-Bridge added: “And you’re just suddenly in a room again with post-its on the wall, and then you’ll go to the loo and you’ll see a set being built outside for some extraordinary thing and you’re like, ‘oh yes, this is different, this is different from Fleabag’.”
Asked what her highlight of working on Craig’s 007 swansong was, Waller-Bridge provided a surprise answer.
She said: “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.”
Woman’s Hour airs on Friday at 10am on Radio 4.