Do we like Phoebe Waller-Bridge?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful found, a record of backing struggling artists and women's stories, but little on record about her wider causes.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the writer-performer behind Fleabag, and these days she is a one-woman franchise machine. She has an Amazon deal and a hand in Bond and Indiana Jones. Her latest big swing is Tomb Raider, which she created and co-runs with Chad Hodge.
The Tomb Raider project says a fair bit about her. She has told Vanity Fair she was a heavy gamer as a teenager, and she wants to do right by the original Lara. She criticised how the studio later marketed the character as a sex symbol. For a mate, that's a decent sign of where her head is at.
On the scandal front there is honestly not much. We searched for court cases, lawsuits and allegations and found nothing against her. Every result was about a different Phoebe, the singer Phoebe Bridgers. Her most-discussed career stoush was leaving the Mr and Mrs Smith series over creative differences, and reports described it as amicable.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up in her words or acts, and nothing in her recent work or the company she keeps. She told Vogue her SNL monologue originally had jokes about US abortion laws, which she cut. She also pushed back on the idea she was hired for Bond to help with the female characters. The record is thin on LGBTQ+ rights and the planet, and we'd rather say that than guess.
The good stuff is real. In 2020 she co-launched the Theatre Community Fund with Olivia Colman and producer Francesca Moody, to give grants to UK artists hit by COVID. Founders pledged to give a share of their income over two years. She was also named a vice president of the charity Acting for Others that month.
So: would we support her? Yes. She hasn't put a foot wrong that we could find, she backs the people who work behind the scenes, and she tells stories about women with some bite. The only reason it isn't higher is that she keeps her politics fairly quiet, so there's less on record to go on.