Phoebe Waller-Bridge might not be a name that you’re instantly familiar with, but after September has come and gone it will surely be one that’s more prominent on your radar. After tearing up the UK by making a name for herself on programs like Broadchurch, Man Up, and Crashing (which she also created), Phoebe has moved on to writing and starring in Fleabag, which feels like her most personal and polished work yet. Adapted from her award-winning Edinburgh Fringe Festival play of the same name, Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag is a series like no other.

While many dark comedies offer damaged, flailing characters that filter the world through their very specific perspectives, the world of Fleabag is a wholly new experience. You truly feel like this confused character is sharing her most intimate secrets with you, placing you in a unique position as a viewer. Fleabag takes many emotional risks, but it’s also flat-out hilarious with Waller-Bridge’s voice being as hysterical as it is acerbic. On the cusp of Fleabag’s premiere on Amazon, we chatted with its star about balancing comedy and drama, the show’s constant fourth wall breaking, and the more surreal moments from the series.

DEN OF GEEK: You’ve been working on this show for a while now, with it starting as a play. What has the adaptation process been like and how have you seen this story changing?

PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE: I guess the main challenge was that it was originally constructed to be a one-woman show. So I would play all the characters and I had complete agency over any information that I gave the audience. The audience is completely at the mercy of this one woman’s portrait of her own life. Then to turn that into a TV show, whether she’s describing it one way or another, you’re still seeing a different image, and there’s some level of truth removed there. So that was sort of the biggest shift because so much of the show was about her being an unreliable narrator and telling a story in a very specific way. Just in terms of the way you get information out and only show certain parts of other characters. So I suddenly I was like: “Woah! She’s lost all that control the moment she hits the screen.” Painting the complicity with the audience was crucial there where she might say one thing and another thing plays out. Or she describes a character one way and he’s in fact totally different. It also keeps her role as narrator strong without becoming diluted by the real world.