Phoebe Waller-Bridge has opened up about her decision to quit the Mr and Mrs Smith reboot, which she was set to co-star in with Community's Donald Glover.
Chatting to Vanity Fear, the Fleabag star explained: "I worked on that show for six months fully in heart and mind and really cared about it – still care about it. 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."
She added: "Some marriages don’t work out." The star also touched on her process of writing scripts, saying: "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 plough and plough and plough, I just won’t make it."
Phoebe departed the project in September 2021 after claiming "creative differences", with sources telling Variety that her departure from the show was amicable. She has since been replaced as Jane Smith by Maya Erskine, who is perhaps best known for her roles in PEN15 and Obi Wan Kenobi.
Donald has previously been hugely praiseworthy of Phoebe. Chatting at the BAFTA awards, he said: "I was pulled over by my manager who said, 'Have you seen Fleabag? It's my favorite show. You have to meet her, she's amazing."
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"Phoebe was really sweet and incredibly graceful and we got to talk about writing and our shows… and she was really charming and had an unpredictable air in her that I hadn't really experienced in anyone else and I was intrigued. So I went home and watched the first episode of Fleabag. And then I watched another. I watched the entire season that night. And from the second I watched the first scene of the first episode, I was livid. Enraged, really. I'm not British, or a woman… but I should have been Fleabag."
Speaking about his new cast mate to Interview magazine, he said: "Yeah. She’s dope. It’s exciting. I really love the show. I’m writing the finale now… I still like [Phoebe]. I assume she still likes me."
The upcoming miniseries will be based on the hit blockbuster film Mr and Mrs Smith, which starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The story follows a married couple who are unaware that the other is actually a contract killer, and are assigned to kill one another.