Phoebe Waller-Bridge

On her father's side, she is a descendant of the Revd Sir Egerton Leigh, 2nd Baronet, and a distant relative of politician and author Egerton Leigh, Conservative MP for Mid Cheshire from 1873 to his death in 1876.

Waller-Bridge grew up in Ealing in London and has two siblings: an older sister, Isobel Waller-Bridge, a composer, with whom she has collaborated; and a younger brother, Jasper.

Her parents are divorced.

She was educated at St Augustine's Priory, a Catholic independent school for girls, followed by the independent sixth form college DLD College London in the Marylebone area of London.

She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Her grandfather, Cyprian Waller-Bridge (1918-1960), "a Wodehousian sort of character... 'the eccentric son of an eccentric vicar'", was an actor and BBC announcer.

Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge (born 14 July 1985) is an English actress, screenwriter and producer.

Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge was born in Hammersmith, London, on 14 July 1985, the daughter of Michael Cyprian Waller-Bridge, founder of the electronic trading platform Tradepoint, and Theresa Mary, daughter of Sir John Edward Longueville Clerke, 12th Baronet, employed by the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers.

The Bridge, later Waller-Bridge, family were soldiers and clergymen, who came to rank among the landed gentry of Cuckfield in Sussex.

Waller-Bridge's performing credits begin in theatre in 2007.

At that time, she co-founded the DryWrite Theatre Company with Vicky Jones.

They are co-artistic directors of the company.

The two women met and became friends while working on theatre productions.

Among her acting theatre credits are the 2009 productions Roaring Trade at Soho Theatre and Rope at the Almeida Theatre.

Waller-Bridge began her screen career in 2009, playing roles in short films and in individual episodes of television sitcoms and dramas.

She has also acted in the comedy series The Café (2011–2013), in the second season of Broadchurch (2015), and in the films Albert Nobbs (2011), The Iron Lady (2011), Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

She contributed to the screenplay of the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021) and starred in the adventure film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

She performed in a production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever in 2011 and Mydidae in 2012.

Her early television appearances include the 2011 film The Night Watch, as well as Bad Education and Coming Up in 2013 and Blandings in 2014.

She had supporting roles in The Café from 2011 to 2013 and in the second season of the crime drama series Broadchurch in 2015.

Her first feature length theatrical film roles were in 2011 for Albert Nobbs and The Iron Lady.

Her role in Albert Nobbs had her cast alongside Emerald Fennell, to whom she would later hand off showrunner duties for Killing Eve.

Waller-Bridge then wrote and starred in Fleabag, which she first performed as part of the London Storytelling Festival on 25 November 2012.

The first full version of Fleabag premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013.

She later wrote the short plays production ''Good.

Clean.

Fun. Waller-Bridge returned to the stage for further productions of Fleabag'' between 2013 and 2019.

Waller-Bridge has voice acted for several BBC Radio plays, such as 2013's Vincent Price and the Horror of the English Blood Beast, in which she played actress Hillary Dwyer, and a 2014 adaptation of an Agatha Christie story.

She has provided narration in short films, including a 2015 television documentary on dating apps and a 2016 Christmas themed animated short film.

She has also voiced ads for companies such as The Cotswold Company, Warburtons, Gordon's Gin, Trainline, Travel Republic, Kuoni Travel, and Tropicana.

As the creator, head writer, and star of the comedy series Fleabag (2016–2019), she won three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes and a British Academy Television Award.

Waller-Bridge has also created, written, and starred in the comedy series Crashing (2016).

In 2016, she wrote and starred in her first television project, the Channel 4 comedy Crashing about a group of twenty-somethings living in an abandoned hospital under the property guardianship scheme.

It began streaming on Netflix after airing in the UK, with W Magazine calling it Waller-Bridge's "twisted take on Friends."

GQ Magazine described the show's six episodes as: "perfect little whirlwinds of comedy building to one big maelstrom where everyone falls to pieces—some are better off for it, and some are not. No matter where the chips fall, you'll have a good time."

After an initial release on BBC Three, Fleabag was broadcast on BBC Two from August 2016.

It was picked up by the on-demand Amazon Video service and premiered in the United States in September 2016.

For her performance in the series she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance and was nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.

She received further Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for writing and producing the spy thriller series Killing Eve (2018–2022).

Fleabag's second and final series aired in 2019.