Film

People Are Calling Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Multi-Award-Winning Writer, A 007 “Diversity Hire”

And Daniel Craig has stepped in to tell them to fuck off.

by Joseph Earp  5 November 2019
Daniel Craig and Phoebe Waller-Bridge

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Earlier this year, news broke that Daniel Craig had asked Phoebe Waller-Bridge to do a pass on the script for the new James Bond flick No Time To Die.

Most people reacted to the news with sheer, unbridled joy. After all, Waller-Bridge is the internet’s best friend — and with good reason. The second season of Fleabag is one of the most masterful works of television to drop in the last ten years or so, full of light, and warmth, and fun.

Mind you, Waller-Bridge isn’t only generally talented, she’s also talented in the ways that make her a perfect fit for Bond. She might be one of the coolest writers in Hollywood, the kind of person who can decimate an awards speech, annihilate the talkshow circuit, and get snapped sipping a margarita and looking better than any human has ever looked.

But because this is 2019, and professional whiners rule the day, there were some grumblings when Waller-Bridge was first hired. According to the worst pissbabies of the internet, Waller-Bridge was nothing but a diversity hire, designed to make the series more ‘woke’.

Now, Craig himself has shut down that line of questioning during an interview with The Sunday Times, in which an apparently very leading question about diversity and representation was asked.

“I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s wrong,” said Craig when pushed on the reason for the Fleabag scribe’s hiring. “It’s absolutely wrong. She’s a fucking great writer. One of the best English writers around. I said, ‘Can we get her on the film?’ That’s where I came from.

“She’s just brilliant. I had my eye on her ever since the first Fleabag, and then I saw Killing Eve and what she did with that and just wanted her voice. It is so unique — we are very privileged to have her on board.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Mr. Bond.