Unbelievable Twists and Turns: ‘Indiana Jones’ Meets its Most Thrilling Adventure Yet, with a Surprise Twist by Phoebe Waller-Bridge!

There’s a photo of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, taken at an Emmy after-party in 2019, that captures, better than any contemporary celebrity photo I’ve ever seen, the enduring allure and glamor of Hollywood blockbuster. In it, the British writer and actress wears a shimmering low-cut dress, seated in a high-backed chair, a cigarette in one hand and a gimlet of vodka in the other, flanked by side tables stacked with gilt statuettes bestowed on “Flea Bag”, the raunchy, groundbreaking, swoon-inducing show he created and starred in. Where does a person go at a time like this? Now, a few years later, we know. Waller-Bridge, 37, co-stars in the newly released “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate”. (This is after previously contributing to a script for a movie about another iconic character: the 2021 James Bond effort “No Time to Die.”) Further on the horizon is Waller-Bridge, who also created the spy thriller series. “Kill Eve” is working on a show based on the video game “Tomb Raider” for Amazon Studios. (However, at press time, progress on that show is currently on hold due to the WGA writers’ strike.) one, least of all Waller-Bridge. “I ask myself this question all the time,” he says, smiling mischievously. “What am I doing?”

There’s another way? Well, I’ve been having these conversations with myself. I’m trying not to think too much.

This is perhaps a bit of a cynical question, but… I already like it

So the way you just described the emotional foundation of “Indiana Jones” — that reminds me of when I read an interview with an actor where the person talks about making a comic book movie and says something like, “This is my way.” to explore mental illness.” No! It’s a comic book movie! You earn a lot of money and you look great!

What ideas are most interesting to you right now? [Laughs.] You are a bastard. Because that goes straight to the question I ask myself every day as a writer. This is what I was thinking about this morning: with AI, there’s this fascination with this other voice that’s going to come in and be smarter and faster than all of us, but we want to hear it. Everyone is terrified, but they go to ChatGPT and experiment. There is this tension between wanting to evolve and go to the next stage and also wanting to go back and feel safe. We’re not in a period like the ’80s when we were like, “Come on! Go! Money, future and technology! Nor is it a super nostalgic time. We are somewhere stuck in the middle. So what does it mean to be a part of this era? It’s like that old lullaby: You can’t go over, you can’t go under, you have to go through it. I wonder, is there an AI that can compose music so beautiful that we can’t deny that it moves us, and we go to those concerts and buy those tickets, and the novelty is hearing this beautiful AI work of art played by an orchestra? Is it still art if it’s created by AI? Is it okay to move us? Christ, I don’t know the answer. Maybe we’ll get to a point where the novelty is that a human being wrote something: this person showed that he was in a box away from any AI when he wrote this.

What other thing? OK, another thing I’m thinking about a lot is the comedy role. Comedy needs to pick up. Are we allowed to just sit back and laugh at a sitcom? I feel like there’s a desire for that. But does laughing for the sake of laughing feel like cheating in any way because the world is in crisis? It’s such an interesting time. I was talking to a friend the other day: Remember when a writer got a show on the BBC and that slot went gold? Now, people might say, “I have a show,” but you don’t know where he’s going to go, you don’t know how many people are going to see it. It’s a completely different relationship with the work. In a way, it makes you purer, because you say, “I just have to write exactly what I think.”

I don’t mean to be rude, but to put it rudely: How does Amazon money affect what you do creatively? Do you feel like a kid in a candy store? Is it an albatross? It’s complex! Because it totally changes life and it’s extraordinary. I am very grateful for it. But that feeling of having something: For an artist it is unusual. They are a great support for the things I want to do. I have such brutally high standards for myself and now double because I really like them, so I want to offer something that they think is worth it. Landing on “Tomb Raider” made sense because I was like, I know this is going to be fun for everyone, and I can guarantee something Amazonian in terms of the scale of what they want. But the albatross wants to do the right thing. Whereas before you were like, nobody cares, nobody’s watching, nobody’s going to give you anything, but you’re going to do it anyway, now you’re like, they’re going to give you all! It’s crazy that it happens.

Can – [Laughs.]

Why are you laughing? You make me laugh because you start your questions with, “I don’t want to be cynical; I don’t mean to be rude”, but you are asking me the most honest questions. I like. Those are the real things I think about and the real conversations I’m having. So I appreciate it.

Do you agree with the comments? That’s my problem. I have the same. I want him to fall to the ground in amazement and unable to breathe because he is captivated by what I have done. That’s an impossible expectation, which is why I don’t show him too much. When he loves it, then I’m on top of the world. When he’s not sure, I know he’s right. We are very careful not to affect ourselves too much. But it’s kind of fun! It’s like an extra layer of a kind of coquetry: “I’m writing something.” “Oh yeah? What are you writing about?” “I’m not saying.”

When you sit down to write and a little devil climbs on your shoulder and whispers in your ear, “Try this,” what kinds of things does it say to you? I have a naughty hand.

What is the naughty hand? Naughty hand is when I’m writing, and I get mad at myself for being boring, and all of a sudden I start writing something a little bit angry. Naughty hand is like, “For [expletive] For God’s sake, Phoebe, just fix this! At first, she’d hand a script to a producer and say, “This is a bit…” and I’d say, “I know! I hate it! This is what I really want to write!” And she would have another script: the naughty hand script. It would be like, “I wanted to do that.” And they’d say, “This is really good!” It was like I had to get the one that I thought people wanted out of my system and then say, “Assholes! Here’s a much better one!”

It’s a window into your psychology: you want to be accommodating and do your homework well, but what in fact I want to do is something more risky. Oh my God. That is exactly what it is. But the best is when you satisfy both. The journey there can be quite [laughs] I love the feeling of having done what I’m asked to do, but I hate the feeling of complying.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and writes the Talk column. He recently interviewed Emma Chamberlain on leaving YouTube, Walter Mosley on a dumber America and Cal Newport on a new way of working.