Why did Phoebe Waller-Bridge leave ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’

TELEVISION

By Michael Starr

Mr. & Mrs. Smith star Donald Glover is spilling the tea on why Phoebe Waller-Bridge left the main video Series, based on the 2005 film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Waller-Bridge, 38, was replaced by “Pen15” star Maya Erskine in the eight-episode show, which premiered Feb. 2.

“I think because we were friends and I really liked Phoebe and we had worked together… it’s a divorce in a weird way,” Glover, 40, said. The Hollywood Reporter.

“You’re like, ‘Oh, shit, this ought They have worked.’ And it’s just me, to be honest, but I think a good relationship is one where you don’t waver in the face of the extremely uncomfortable. And I don’t know if we would ever get to a point where we could be completely brutal to each other.”

Glover created the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” with “Fleabag” star Waller-Bridge as co-writer and co-star of the series, which follows two married spies, John and Jane Smith. The pair worked together on “Solo: A Star Wars Film” and everything seemed to be going well.

But Waller-Bridge left the show in September 2021. about a “different creative vision” to Glover’s plans for the series.

Glover told THR that those creative differences “could have simply been cultural,” since Waller-Bridge is from the United Kingdom, where television production can be a little different than in the United States.

“’Fleabag’ was written entirely by her; There aren’t really any writers’ rooms in the UK,” he said, unlike his FX series, “Atlanta,” where, in the writers’ room, he “built a culture where we could say bad things to each other or be like, ‘That idea is kind of (garbage),’ and then we were laughing.”

Glover won two Emmy Awards in 2017 for “Atlanta” for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series.

“You weren’t afraid to say something, but we also had the right to roast you,” Glover said of the show’s atmosphere. “That’s how we laugh… I don’t think (Waller-Bridge and I) have ever felt comfortable enough with each other.”

Glover added that the fact that the series initially had “two captains” was also part of the problem.

“It’s like, ‘This is how I run my ship.’ ‘Well, that’s how I run my ship,’” she said. “And it’s such a big idea, this program, that I don’t think it can have two captains. I mean, she rewrote the pilot, and I saw her script and I thought, “That’s definitely not my style,” but if I had done it with her in it, we would all have said, “This is a great movie.” Damn show.’”

Glover said Waller-Bridge’s departure from “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” felt “like a real divorce where the hardest part is knowing when to say it’s over.

“Like, when do you quit? Because you want to be cool and say, ‘Oh, it’s over, it’s okay.’ But we both worked a lot on it. We were both working very hard. So who will get the cat?

Glover added that he brought co-creator Francesca Sloane onto the project and that Waller-Bridge “wasn’t completely in love with the project. But I feel really good about the fact that if the thing felt more like hers and she said, ‘I love this,’ I would have said, ‘You should have it.'”

Erskine was hired only to act in the series, which made life easier on set, but Erskine told THR that she still felt Waller-Bridge’s presence while filming the series.

“There were some lines that were left that I could feel were Phoebe,” Erskine said. “I’d say, ‘Oh, I love this line. This feels like Phoebe.’”

“It was crazy,” Glover added. “Fran (Sloane) always said, ‘She’s right.’ That was Phoebe’s line.'”

“Mr. & Mrs. Smith” include Alexander Skarsgard, Sharon Horgan, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Sarah Paulson and Parker Posey, among many others.