Jenny Rainsford ("Boo") Interview

Say it with us: This is an EXCELLENT one. It's Boo herself, Jenny Rainsford! Jenny joins Chrissie and Allie from lockdown in London to chat about hiding a 7-months' pregnant belly in the Fleabag pilot, working with Phoebe on a last-minute change one of season 2's most critical scenes, the surprising cameo by her niece at the church fete, and the challenges of parenting during social distancing. Plus Jenny answers listener questions from our Facebook group!

Transcript

Chrissie: Thank you again. I was so excited when your agent emailed.

Jenny Rainsford: It's my pleasure to be here.

Chrissie: Because when I emailed your agent, I got the preview that came through on my phone that was like “Thank you for your interest” and I was like, "Okay, I get it. It's a no," and then she was like, "She's more than happy." I could not stop smiling the rest of the day. I'm so excited.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, it's a pleasure.

Chrissie: Our Facebook group, everybody has literally said this is like the ray of light in the middle of all this, knowing that this interview is coming.

Allie: So thanks for feeding of the fandom!

Jenny Rainsford: Well, I'm hoping I can tell you stuff you don't already know. That's my aim.

Chrissie: We've been watching this show nonstop for months, but I think there's plenty we still have to learn. We started this podcast back in I guess... when was it, Allie, like September?

Allie: September, I think.

Chrissie: August, September.

Allie: Yeah, early September.

Chrissie: And thought it was going to be 12 episodes, just talking about each episode of the show. And then apparently, it became even more popular, the show Fleabag [laughs]. And so, we've just kept going. We're so thrilled now to talk to people from the show itself. We'd never would have imagined it.

Jenny Rainsford: So when you were doing it, were you doing your podcast not knowing what was happening next or had you seen the whole thing?

Chrissie: No, we had already seen the whole thing.

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, because it's on Amazon, of course it was, yeah.

Chrissie: Basically, we joke that our friends were tired of hearing us talking about it and they were like, "Please go talk to strangers about this instead."

Allie: And so we did.

Chrissie: People who might care. So yeah, like we were saying, I mean, everything's so crazy right now. Where are you right now? You're obviously in lockdown like everybody else.

Jenny Rainsford: I'm in lockdown. It's 8:30 and we've just had the most moving thing here in the UK, which was at eight o'clock. Some messages went round in the last couple of days saying at 8 PM, let's all clap for the NHS from our doorways and balconies. And it just happened and it was so brutally moving. There was a bagpipe player out in the street playing “Amazing Grace.” We are actually an incredibly soft nation, and it comes out occasionally and it's brutal when it does. Yeah, it was amazing.

Chrissie: I'm going to burst into tears right now, Jenny.

Allie: Are you a mess?

Jenny Rainsford: We're so sentimental. Don't believe anything else. I mean, you can probably tell even with Fleabag. Look at it. There's some of the most sentimental lines you'll ever hear on-screen in that show.

Chrissie: Oh, yeah. It's like given language now, to these feelings we never knew we had or feelings we had but we didn't know how to articulate them.

Allie: Absolutely.

Chrissie: So you were saying when we were emailing that you've got two kids?

Jenny Rainsford: I've got two kids, yeah. One's four and one's four months and they've both just gone to bed, so I’m sat here in my back room, glass of wine, it's lovely.

Chrissie: My first question is that you got your kids to bed before 8:30 I want to know how you did that.

Jenny Rainsford: I was extremely boring for the last week and they’re stuck home with me. I've bored them to sleep.

Chrissie: That was my question like, how are you entertaining your four-year-old? Because I have a five-year-old son and I keep saying like, all these people who are like, "Oh my god, here's books to read and here are movies to binge and here's online yoga to do," and I was like, I have never been busier. It's hard.

Jenny Rainsford: I tried that online yoga thing and he got to the first bit where you do a prayer and you go “namaste” and he went “namas-" and then fucked off. I don't know if he...

Allie: So he tried.

Jenny Rainsford: “Namas-“ and then he was gone.

Chrissie: That is hilarious.

Jenny Rainsford: Things that worked for me is essentially Netflix and aside from that... I mean, a lot of things. I did a treasure hunt today, it took me so long to do it, but he found the treasure almost immediately.

Chrissie: Oh wow, I'm impressed because I...

Allie: Yeah, that's amazing.

Chrissie: I stopped at Netflix. I just went like, "Let's watch Clifford."

Jenny Rainsford: Just give up. And he's worn nothing but pants for five days. Today was actually my first... I had a bit of a breakdown today this morning where I was like I don't know how to make today different from yesterday, which I think the whole world is... we're all a mixture of cabin fever and scared, aren't we?

Chrissie: Exactly.

Jenny Rainsford: There's so much good going on. You just hold on to that. There is so much good going on.

Allie: And I have no kids and two cute dogs and I'm standing here in awe of both of you.

Jenny Rainsford: I want to say I've been around dogs, fair play to you there.

Chrissie: My son has done something, Allie has seen it, it's called The Tape Project and what it is, is he's taken multiple rolls of colored tape and he's just created like a subway map in our floor. Then he's got very specific rules that he hasn't informed us about. So all of a sudden you're walking and he's like, "No, not on the blue!" You're like, "Okay," so I feel like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible walking through our house. And then sometimes the sticky part will be up and I'll trip on it. I'm just like, "This is too much.”

Allie: How far do you let this get?

Jenny Rainsford: Incredibly expensive games, aren't they?

Chrissie: That is what's fun. He will find the creative things with like an empty box or something. But anyway, we're here to talk Fleabag and like I said, we're so excited that you're here and thankful with everything going on that you would take time.

Allie: Yes.

Jenny Rainsford: It's a real pleasure. I hope I can offer your listeners something new.

Chrissie: The fact that you're on the phone with us is something new.

Allie: Yeah, I think you've already succeeded. Don't even worry.

Allie: To start, we all love and know Boo. A lot of our listeners have binged it quite a few times. But we'd love to learn more about you. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and where you grew up and how you ended up finding acting?

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, of course. So I'm 34. I'm from a town in North London, just outside of London called Watford, which is a shopping town really, right on a load of freeways. But lots of people from my town have ended up in the business, so people like Geri Halliwell. I went to her school.

Chrissie: Really?

Allie: You knew a Spice Girl!

Jenny Rainsford: George Michael, who is from Watford or near Watford. Elton John's near Watford. It's one of those places everyone wants to get out of. Also, I had a very, very happy time growing up there. I then tried to avoid being an actor as hard as I could. I went to university and then I left university, got lots of different jobs, tried everything and I eventually applied for drama school and went to RADA after university. So it was very quite a long road. And so I've been graduated from there for about 10 years and I've mainly done theater. I mainly ended up in places like the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) here and probably most of my work's been more on the classical side. But I try to put comedy as that's what has always meant the most to me.

There's lots of brilliant women in this country who have inspired me the most. There's a woman called Caroline Aherne who made lots of amazing sitcoms here and wrote them and was so brave and I believe not necessarily… I think she might have been quite a shy woman. I might be wrong about that. But Phoebe is probably someone who has picked up people like her mantle. But that's why I do the job, is people like this, especially young women and especially funny young women.

Allie: Yeah, I love that. So you mentioned you went to RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Allie: Is that were you connected with Phoebe? Because we know she also went there because we're not stalkers.

Jenny Rainsford: So Phoebe was ahead of me. She went straight from school. We're exactly the same age but she went straight from school, so I didn't know her there. But I saw the first Soho show of Fleabag in I think 2013 when it just arrived at Soho from the Edinburgh Fringe and it was brilliant. Thought nothing of it. And then the following year, I was in a play at the Soho Theatre, in the theatre above where Phoebe was reprising her Fleabag and we used to have this massive nightmare in the second act of our play because of the stomping and cheering going on downstairs with Fleabag. But I used to see her in the bar occasionally and I always remember doing that play… because I'd seen the show so I knew there was something really special about her.

But you have to know about the Soho Theatre. I don't know if you've ever been. It's a tiny, little, fringe-y place in Soho and her I remember walking past her dressing room as I would go up and down the stairs to our theatre. Just a tiny little chair with a tiny little mirror just all by itself. And it's so weird as an actor doing a one-man show that there's no one preparing with you. There's no one there at the half. I used to see that tiny little chair and the little mirror and then I'd hear the applause of the show. And then we'd go outside and there'd be all these fans… and I've always thought of that little dressing room.

Allie: Do you think that's all she wanted or is that all she is could get?

Jenny Rainsford: No, mate, it's all you get at the Soho. But she wouldn't care.

Chrissie: That makes me think of one of the multitude of award speeches where she got more emotional saying like just the journey of this has been so overwhelming when you think about starting in that little tiny room and now this.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, it's been huge. A lot’s happened to her in those respects. When I did the pilot for Fleabag, she hired me pregnant and I was unknown and no one does that in our industry. You can see in the dressing room shot in the pilot, it's a slightly funny angle and that's because I had this massive tummy. And then we re-shot a lot of the rest of it.

Chrissie: How pregnant were you?

Jenny Rainsford: I was seven months, I think.

Chrissie: Oh my gosh. See, I never noticed that.

Jenny Rainsford: That's an unbelievably generous thing to do.

Allie: Yeah, I mean, that's really women lifting other women, right?

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Allie: That's incredible.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Chrissie: I have never noticed that.

Allie: Oh, no, we're going to have to watch it again.

Chrissie:

I guess so. All of a sudden, it's like Boo's doing laundry every time we see her.

Allie: So what was that like when you first met and you auditioned?

Jenny Rainsford: I was very lucky I had seen the show, so I knew the style and yeah, I had an understanding because you'll know that the stage show, basically, is the pilot, the first episode, episode one of series one. And so, yes, I had a rough idea, but when I auditioned for her, it was an audition to play Boo in the reading that was going to be the pitch to the industry. So this is like six or seven years ago now. It was quite casual. Again, I was like nothing's going to happen here because I've got a kid on the way, but they didn't know that at the time. I did the meeting and I remember in the audition, I had to sing the song, but I just made up. That was it.

And then they said, "Oh, yeah, come and do the reading." And then we did this reading in another basement in Soho and at that reading, most of the actors that you know from the show were there and I just remember how great the chips were. They were really good chips. But it was great. One does lots of these things and you don't get responses like that very often, as she had for that reading that day.

Allie: Wow.

Chrissie: Yeah. It seems like everybody from the start had a sense that it was something special.

Jenny Rainsford: I think so. I mean, there's always stories… of nothing is ever a given. There was no sense that… I think we all thought, if people don't like this, then that's fine, but we like it. She was an easy person to have faith in, but that's not to say that it was always going to be a hit.

Chrissie: Right. Did you guys hit it off from the beginning? Because you guys have such a strong chemistry on the show that we just all assume you're really lifelong friends.

Jenny Rainsford: From my perspective, I can give you my side of it, yeah, we got very close very fast. But I think it is hard not to play such a friendship and not be quite affected by what you're playing. But also, we had a lot of fun and it's really amazing doing stuff with someone who's written it because you get to look into their eyes and then you see what they want because of the way they're looking at you. And then there were so many kindnesses from her. She's a relentlessly kind person.

Jenny Rainsford: She used to do stuff… like, loads of my stuff was to camera, yeah? So often, if you're doing stuff to camera, especially on a very, very low budget show like this, I mean, I can't tell you how low the budget was, you'll often do it to a mark because the other actor has to be somewhere else or whatever. And I never ever once did anything to a mark. She was there every time behind the camera and that's for series two as well.

Allie: As if she didn't have enough to do.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah, we are close. Yeah, she's brilliant.

Chrissie: I like relentlessly kind. That's such a nice...

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, she is. Yeah.

Chrissie: Allie was joking, she's like, "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on this chick."

Allie: I know, right? Everyone's like, "She's just the perfect mix of everything." and I'm like, "Alright, I believe you, but don't break my heart."

Jenny Rainsford: I know. It'd be so funny if you interview someone that's like, "What a dick. Oh my god. Now let's hear the real truth. Everyone's lying."

Allie: I was curious, the concept of feminism is so common throughout the show and I think that's why it resonated with so many people, especially women, just to think about what's like, a realistic way to be a feminist and what does it really mean. I'm curious if in prepping your character, did you and Phoebe discuss feminism at all or was there any sort of intentionality when it came to that or did you just go with what was natural?

Jenny Rainsford: No, I think the writing took care of a lot of it. I think it was always a feeling, especially in the first series, of it's them against the world. I think that was really important. Like in the scene where they're shutting up their shop and their cafe and there's such no hope in so many areas of their lives. I think the furthest we got was that they were best mates and that was the bottom line.

Chrissie: Because even though we don't know a lot about Boo's background, you get the sense that these were two souls who found each other.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I used to think about it. They're not that similar, but they are soul mates, I would say. I think Boo's a beat behind most things. This is my take and it might not be what comes across, but I think part of her charm is that she's not as fast as Fleabag and I reckon Fleabag was a complete winner at school and I'm not sure Boo was and I don't think their backgrounds are the same. I think Fleabag, as you know, there's some money there. There's a very handsome house that they live in. Not sure that's the same with Boo, but it's completely irrelevant because they have each other.

Chrissie: Yeah, but Boo, she's never played... and this is one of my favorite things about the show. No character’s ever played as just like dumb. It's never that she's flighty. She's sharp and she's there and she's one of the people willing to play back and forth with Fleabag.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, and she's very present and I think she put a good laugh before most things. And I think she would also put things like getting stoned before most things.

Chrissie: Yeah, she lives in the moment.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, very much so. Yeah, yeah. So you can imagine them doing their taxes on that café because I think Boo would have done it in felt pen and just gotten bored, like what I was trying to explain about my son doing namaste.

Chrissie: Right.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, she's very present.

Chrissie: I just saw because now with all the promotion coming out for Run with Vicky Jones, the show, there was the quote, and I think Phoebe has said this before, that they almost view their friendship as the great love of their life and that their boyfriends are the affair. They said their boyfriend or husbands don't really love that. That just segues into you're basically kind of portraying that friendship that she has with Vicky. And so when did you meet Vicky and were there similarities between you two or what was your first impression when you met her knowing that that was the role you're playing?

Jenny Rainsford: I was so late to pick it up. I think I basically shot the whole thing, but I worked it out. So we did the pilot and just at the end of the day of filming, I remember, because Vicky was working on it as well and I knew they were obviously best mates and stuff and they said, "Do you want to go to the pub," and I was like, "I can't," because first trimester, not feeling great. Really want to, I just can't. I saw them skipping off down the street together and I saw Vicky's little blonde head and I went, "Oh shit." That's Boo and I've just filmed it.

Jenny Rainsford: But to be honest, I didn't think of Vicky because you just have to have tunnel vision and play the words and play the moment. Otherwise, you'll get eaten alive by shoulda coulda, or you know… I just thought only of what we were doing in that exact moment, but she is the loveliest girl.

Chrissie: In my mind, Boo’s the most important character in the show, I think, just because everything Fleabag does stems from her love for Boo and the grief that she felt when she lost her. And I feel like even the scenes you're not in, you're in because her spirit just carries through everything, especially in season one. I think just that portrayal of such an intimate friendship, especially among two women I think that's part of the reason it's resonating. I don't think a lot of women have seen that before.

Jenny Rainsford: I'm so happy that you felt that. You put stuff out, you don't know how it's going to land. So, thanks.

Chrissie: I think some of it, when you're talking about Boo's presence, I think that's a lot of the strength of Phoebe's writing and she's talked about that, of like… you really just feel like you're in that moment only when you're watching a lot of those scenes and especially between you two. They're just so warm and joyful, which actually segues, you were saying because you didn't really know… the sadder nature of Fleabag's character didn't really hit you until you watch the finished episodes because your scenes together were so happy. So what was that like when you watched season one for the first time?

Jenny Rainsford: It was brutal and the main thing when you're watching something for the first time is that you're so... I was so hopeful for Phoebe because I'd seen how much she put into it. Her car used to pick me up in the morning occasionally, having picked her up if we were going to the set and she'd be there at 5:30 with her laptop open in the backseat and rewriting, making it better, better, better. Between every take in the back in a little kitchen somewhere she was there on a laptop making it better and better. When we shoot the scene, we try 10 different lines and then usually often go back to the beginning and go over and over. I remember going over to see what she was up to and she was casting the guinea pig in the middle of a... I cannot tell you how much she put in. And so when we watched season one, I was like, "Please let this go well for her."

Jenny Rainsford: But I suppose a really big thing about playing Boo is that it's not as sad for Boo as it is for everyone else. I had to have a lot of tunnel vision in playing her because you have to remember that I don't think Boo ever knew Fleabag slept with Jack. And the second thing is she never meant to kill herself. She was just feeling reckless and mad and she wanted a really good broken arm and a really good resolution with Jack. So I think what Boo thought would happen is that she'd break her arm, she'd get back with Jack and she'd soon be back with Fleabag laughing at it. So as far as Boo knew at the moment of her death, Fleabag was her best friend forever. So yeah, it was awful watching the fallout, but I couldn't ever play any of that. You have to play against that.

Chrissie: Yeah, and I mean the way they did it, especially with the cutbacks to Boo in the street and everything, because when we talked to Gary Dollner, he said that that was a real challenge, was how much to give away.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I don't know how they did that because when Phoebe was doing the edit, I said, "How is it going?" She said, "We got to episode six and the editor was upset by the ending," and I said, "Do you mean that he didn't know at any stage that it had been Fleabag? " It wasn't Gary, sorry. I don't know if it was a sound editor, but she says, "Someone hadn't." And I said, "That is unbelievable that no one has noticed that it could have been you," and she said, "No one did and they're all really angry with me." I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay, that's pretty cool. That's amazing that you've done that."

Allie: So they had the experience that we all did. That's incredible.

Chrissie: And I remember thinking to myself, "How did I not figure that out?" Because so many shows, and I've even seen interviews where Phoebe will turn to Vicky and be like, "This is what's going to happen next on the show. This is what's going to happen." If you watch enough stuff, you know what's going to happen, which I kept doing  with Fleabag. I'd be like, "Oh, I know what's going to happen," and then it wouldn't happen and I'd be like, "Oh, this is a better show." But I think, yeah, that twist at the end was so gutting because you just never saw it coming, which I guess is the mindset of Boo. That never even occurred to her that it would have been Fleabag.

Jenny Rainsford: It shows such control over the material. It's really hard to pull something like that off, I think.

Allie: Yeah. And I have to say, I'm glad to hear you say that Boo didn't know that it was Fleabag because there was some speculation at least initially, as far as your perception.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, from my perspective, no, she didn't. I don't think that would have ever occurred to her ever.

Chrissie: Allie also has a theory about Fleabag's motives.

Allie: I have a theory that I don't wish to believe, but it occurred to me a few months ago, and I'm curious on your take, but I was thinking, what if Fleabag slept with Jack because she wanted Boo back all to herself and how that would contribute to the grief after all of it?

Jenny Rainsford: Wow. I mean… One day you'll speak to her and you’ll find out.

Allie: Then we'll know.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Chrissie: When you do enough episodes, you start really going deep for meanings. I like that idea. I just like the idea that Fleabag loved her that much that she might have had that.

Jenny Rainsford: There are friendships, aren’t there, when you're young, it's devastating when someone gets a partner.

Chrissie: Oh my gosh.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Chrissie: Yeah, you're like, "How could you do this?"

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah. It's part of growing up, isn't it?

Chrissie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So we were talking about how Boo was central to the show and so when we had posted, I wanted to read this comment that we got from one of our listeners, Ellen, and she said, "Please be sure that Jenny knows how much Boo and her portrayal of Boo is loved. And it's all about love. Fleabag's and Boo's relationship is the only instance of unconditional love in the first season and remains a standard of that in the second. Without Boo, we'd hardly know that Fleabag was even capable of love. Their relationship grounds the entire series."

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, that's such a lovely thing to say. Thank you.

Chrissie: That sums it up so perfectly. And the thing about it being the only unconditional love… because that's such a great parallel between season one and season two where it feels like the Priest is now... she's found her new person who reminds her she could find somebody else who she connected with as much as Boo. Again, not a question. I'm drinking Rosé. I'm kind of...

Allie: It's after five o'clock here. Also, we're home in a crisis so I think we do whatever we want.

Chrissie: I was going to say it's just now after five. I've been drinking for a long time. So you had talked about that you had seen the stage show. Because we were just curious, when Phoebe was first describing the role to you directly, what were her notes and her direction on who Boo was?

Jenny Rainsford: I think that would happen very specifically in the scenes. Something I really remember her saying is they both shop at Topshop, okay?

Chrissie: Now what is Topshop for Americans?

Jenny Rainsford: You know that moment where Fleabag is in a shoe shop and she's having that chat with Martin and he's like, "What are you? What are you," and she goes, "I wear these just like everyone else," and she picks up actually quite a standard pair of shoes. Topshop is what every girl wears between the ages of 14 and maybe 30 but onward in the UK. It's like our main clothes shop and it's cool and fun, but it's also… a jumper is £25, £30.

Chrissie: Sounds like Old Navy here.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, it's not extreme in any way. It's like they're not abnormal people. They don't have vaulting ambition, they’re not terribly rebellious, but in their little unit, there's something magnificent. So that was one thing, but I don't remember any really strong “this is the character.” Again, I would say it's all in the writing really, isn't it? You can see who it is and I had seen the stage show, so I knew from Fleabag how much she cared about this person, so I knew it was a very pure love affair. I knew that very certainly. And it was a lovely thing to play because there's absolutely no ambivalence about that.

Allie: Were there any scenes where you needed more guidance or you were like, "I just don't know how to play this," or did it come organically and naturally?

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, yeah. I just fumbled through all of them until you hopefully land on something vaguely right. I think the most intense scene and also the one that was hardest to film initially, but then easy, was the funeral scene. What happened with the funeral scene is that we arrived and they'd set up lots of assays. So there were lots of funeral guests in the room and there was lots of food and a buffet. We had the morning to do the scene or whatever it was, an hour or two, and we were standing there with egg sandwiches doing the scene and we were staying stuff that was really true, but in a slightly awkward egg sandwich kind of way and it just wasn't working. It wasn't working. It was really, really hard. Really, really, really, really hard.

And then everyone broke for lunch and so the room completely emptied and Phoebe and I were like, "Let's just run the lines." So we sat down at a table and ran the lines and very quickly got really, really quiet and really, really sad, and really, really intense but just the two of us. It was no one else in this entire room and it was so peaceful and close, and we never got up from those chairs. The director, wonderful director, he just brought in the cameras really, really quietly and we just shot it there at the exact spot where we had gone to run the lines and that's the scene you have.

Chrissie: Is that the all the love I have for her scene?

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, yeah.

Allie: Yeah, because that is so intimate. That's really cool. It worked and they caught on to that. I love that.

Jenny Rainsford: There are lots of different versions of lots of the scenes I would imagine, but that one... Harry as a director was just so gentle and so enabling and he just saw that we found our little spot and he quietly brought the cameras in and we just did it. Poor Phoebe was so upset. It's all quiet and we just did it. And then, 20 minutes later, it's done and we'll just move on to the next scene, we'll go home or whatever. When I left that scene, I was like, that's a rare moment, that kind of scene, where you get to... I did walk away from doing that scene being like, you're not going to have many moments in your career like that, where you get to do scripts like that with people like that. It's lovely.

Chrissie: It's such a beautiful scene. I think it just so captures grief and their relationship and then it connects to her love for the Priest. It's just such a short little scene but it's dense. And this seems like an example of where it feels like everyone on the show was just at the top of their game. Like you said that Harry had the nimbleness to come in and just shoot that right then instead of having it be like...

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, and you have to remember, we've been going over time. It's very hard for a crew, and producers, and everyone if you have to do something, there will have been other stuff scheduled for that moment after lunch, but they took the time and did it. That flexibility, which is a very hard thing to do, probably contributed a lot to the show.

Chrissie: Talking about the intensity of her relationship with Boo, we've mentioned on the podcast that it feels like her relationship with Boo is a contrast with her relationship with her sister, with Claire, and that Boo is like the sister Claire didn't know how to be for her. And so did you guys ever talk about that dynamic or the contrast between those relationships?

Jenny Rainsford: No, but I know Sian well and I really love her so much and I always remember thinking, I used to watch what she was doing and I was like, "God, that is a different TV show! I think they might be doing a whole different TV show.”

Chrissie: Why? What struck you about her performance?

Jenny Rainsford: You come in and do your bit, and then… Basically, because she is the driest, funniest, she's such a fabulous Claire, isn't she? She was there in her dark clothes, scowling. Whenever I came on set, she was there with like, “For God's sake!” this kind of attitude towards Fleabag when they were filming that I was always baffled. I really didn't feel like I was in the same show setting. But in terms of the sister, no, we probably didn't have that discussion, but it was such a release when we did the funeral when I could be on set with the other actors and because they knew them all–she knew them all well and I think she would have found Claire absolutely hilarious.

Allie: Yeah. What's your take on the rest of the family? What was Boo's relationship with all the others?

Jenny Rainsford: So she has a massive crush on the dad.

Chrissie: She's not made of wood.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah. She's out of control. I think she'd have adored the mother. Absolute indifference not even knowing who the hell the godmother even was. And amused by Claire, but also I do think impressed by the success of the family, probably quite in awe of it. I think Claire earns well and is a can-do person. But I think Boo was stoned quite a lot of the time, so she was probably amused by her as well.

Chrissie: You say that Boo had a crush on the dad. That gives us our answer because one of the people on our Facebook group, this guy Seb, who's one of the few men we should applaud for being on the group, but he posted a poll of who would you rather sleep... Gun to your head, who would you sleep with, Fleabag's dad or Martin? And it sounds like that's a solid Fleabag's dad for Boo.

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, yeah. I don't know. It will be something completely random like he's got a Scottish accent or something. I don't know. Nothing based on anything particularly solid. If they went on a date, it would be the longest silence in history.

Chrissie: Well, according to godmother, he's a deeply sexual person.

Allie: That's what swayed a bunch of us.

Jenny Rainsford: Do you believe that? I don't know. I think Boo does. Boo definitely does.

Allie: So talking about the structure of the show and what it was like to film for you, we talked to Jonathan Paul Green, the production designer, and he mentioned that Boo was a dream of a character to design for. We're curious what your impressions were when you walked onto the sets for Boo's apartment, for the café. How did how did that feel to know that those were built around your character?

Jenny Rainsford: So I remember walking into the cafe and going, "Oh my god, this is this is the worst business I've ever seen in my life." Those sandwiches look horrendous. They've got absolutely no style or panache. But the theme is all so adorable. It's an enormous privilege for an actor to walk into their character's own house because you get so much help. When you do a play, you don't get that help quite so much because it's often a less detailed set sometimes. Yeah, it's amazing because you were asked to send in photos from your own life and so you see pictures. It's all fully made. I remember there was like, I think a dream catcher around and like maybe only about three items of clothing, I don’t think she owns very much, with an extremely full ashtray. Yeah, it was lovely. Lovely to do that.

Chrissie: So when did you hear you guys were coming back for season two?

Jenny Rainsford: I can't remember, really. I think Phoebe must have said that she had got an idea for season two. I think she wanted to have the right story. And then she had this idea. Then we went to an event together and I remember saying, "Just get it right. I'm really happy to not be in it," and she said, "I think there might be this funeral scene." You don't ever hold out hope for these things just because it's sometimes not right. It's not right for the piece. But I was so happy to be invited back, of course.

Chrissie: Even just that one little… in the preview. I can't remember it was actually in season one, but there's that shot of you holding Hillary and she's wearing a little hat and glasses.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, yeah, that was a funny day.

Chrissie: Oh my god, that little cutaway is so cute.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, so cute. I mean, here's something, I was trying to think what is something that they might not know because there's obviously been so many interviews about the show and you guys must know pretty much everything.

Chrissie: But we haven't heard from you.

Allie: Exactly.

Chrissie: We never hear an interview from Jenny.

Jenny Rainsford: I'll tell you one extraordinary scoop. Just get the press on the phone now. And that is that the actual guinea pig in the second series is the actual same guinea pig as the one we used in the first series. They only have a lifespan of about three years and I think it was the same one. Can you believe that?

Chrissie: Wow. She was meant for stardom. She was just hanging on hoping to get that call.

Jenny Rainsford: But she's probably still around now. I don't know. Maybe she's doing Star Wars or something.

Chrissie: Allie got the scoop that that Hillary is retired.

Allie: Yeah, I think I read somewhere that they retired her. She's sitting on her... really enjoying her Fleabag money.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chrissie: They shredded all of her Fleabag money and lined her cage with it.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was BBC Three. It's probably only going to have been a carrot.

Chrissie: When did you realize what a huge hit season two had become?

Jenny Rainsford: I realized what a huge hit season two had become when my husband's uncle, who lives in a tiny ancient cottage in Wales, he hasn't got a television or internet or hot water, and he'd seen it. So that was when I was like, "Oh, okay." I think the awards. When you see people, pictures of the Fleabag company going to the awards, I don't think they knew they were going to win all that stuff and I also think... I don't know. I was having a child the whole of last year, so I was in like a cave. I just think it's special so you hope the rest of the world does too and I'm so happy they did. I'm so happy they did.

Allie: Is it strange? I mean, how do you reconcile the very real experience you have, just, it's your job, to eventually talking with two random American chicks who love it so much they have a podcast? I imagine that’s just a strange experience to realize that the show has resonated so well with people.

Jenny Rainsford: Listen, every job I've ever done, I've had two American girls doing a podcast. It's not abnormal for me at all.

Allie: That makes us feel better.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, it's amazing and you know it's not going to happen every job. But also, these are funny times, aren't they, right now? God, if anything makes people feel distracted and happy, then brilliant.

Allie: That is the goal.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, it's a such a such enormous privilege to be part of something that's done so well. Yeah, enormously.

Chrissie: And you have some of the most quoted lines among the fandom.

Jenny Rainsford: I didn't know that. That's lovely.

Allie: Well, in our group anyway.

Chrissie: Like every single thing is, “This is an excellent one,” which that line... did you do a lot of takes of that line? Because that read is so beautiful and so perfect.

Jenny Rainsford: When she's putting the pictures up?

Chrissie: Yeah, just that little pause before excellent, it makes that whole scene.

Jenny Rainsford: If you look at the pictures though, how can you do it any other way? Do you know what I mean? Have you seen the bow?

Chrissie: Yes. And Allie made a great point about what's so fun about how whimsical the cafe is, is that Boo takes it completely seriously.

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, yeah. God, to the death.

Chrissie: There's no irony to her at all.

Jenny Rainsford: No, no, no, never. Well, no, no, no. Again, just too stoned.

Chrissie: She's present.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, no she's present.

Chrissie: Do you have a favorite line or scene that sticks out for you?

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I loved doing the scene when they're in bed talking about physical flaws. I loved that. We laughed a lot doing that.

Chrissie: “I always say the wrong thing!”

Jenny Rainsford: I think that's probably one of the rare occasions where I actually forgot there was a camera there. And as said, I loved doing the funeral scene. That was really lovely. They're all little gifts. I mean, you guys have obviously got the Scriptures, but you can see like every little piece is a little gift to an actor. It's like a complete treasure trove.

Chrissie: Well, and what's fascinating for us though, reading the scriptures, is a line on a page that looks basic and simple… I mean, we're not actors–well, Allie used to–but that it would get read or the choices you guys make to make it so memorable. It really gave us a new respect for the talent that you guys bring to it.

Allie: Yeah, absolutely.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, and we had Phoebe there with us and we also had a brilliant director. All those things. And also, you look around the cast and you're like, "Whoa, okay, got to up my game."

Chrissie: Well, that was another thing we were talking about because just a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you saw the interview that Kristin Scott Thomas did where she said she struggled with her scene and that she felt really intimidated or inadequate. That was the word she used.

Jenny Rainsford: Wow. No, I haven't seen that.

Chrissie: Yeah, because she said, rightly so, Phoebe's got a very specific way she wants things read and it just took her a second to find the right rhythm. And so we were saying, to hear Kristin Scott Thomas say she felt inadequate… You're like, "Wow."

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, yeah. Everyone's desperate to get it right. I mean, that's why she's brilliant as well.

Chrissie: Yeah. I mean, we're like well, that scene ended up fantastic.

Allie: Yeah, exactly, like you'd never know.

Chrissie: I remember when we announced the interview, one of our listeners, Dina, commented, and she just wrote, "What? What has happened?" Sorry, no. That one I rewound probably 10 times. What?

Jenny Rainsford: Guys, my ego won't be able to get through the door.

Allie: Good. We can all use it.

Chrissie: Just play this for your husband and just be like... anytime you’re having an argument, just hit play on this and be like, "I'm loved."

Allie: I'm curious, in that first scene when we really meet Boo and Fleabag and get to know their relationship in the cafe, we've touched on this, but you two are talking about how “they don't get it. This is just us.” I love that song , Modern Women, and I'm curious, what is the background of that song? Did she just make it up? And also, is that a thing she does? Is that a thing you do? Share.

Jenny Rainsford: As in the real Phoebe.

Allie: Yes.

Jenny Rainsford: So she's got a ukulele. I think she's quite good at it, actually. We obviously didn't do it with a ukulele, but I think that is a song from her world because it had a proper tune and everything but we didn't make up together, it was already made and I don't know this, but it might be a song that... I don't know. It might be from her friendship with Vicky, but I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that.

Allie: Yeah, that's okay. Because I honestly loved it. I looked up that Modern Woman song. And afterwards I was like, "Is this a real song I could listen to?" And it was not.

Chrissie: Can I buy this?

Allie: Yeah, exactly. Take my money.

Chrissie: But we want to go to some questions and we want to be respectful of your time. We know it's late over there and free time to yourself when the kids are in bed is a precious commodity. But we just want to go through some of our listener questions and we have a voice message that we got from Julia.

Julia: Hi, Jenny. This is Julia in Austin, Texas and I adore your character and Fleabag. Oh my god, Boo is everybody's best friend, especially mine. So I’ve got the Scriptures handy here and my question for you, Jenny, is how was that exactly filming on episode three page 81 of the scriptures when it says “Morning in Boo's flat” and you and Fleabag are really high? That whole scene is so wonderful and adorable and I would just like to hear what that was like to film. And thank you for such good work. You've touched our hearts in so many ways. Thanks.

Jenny Rainsford: That's so lovely. Thank you. Yeah, that was another joyful one to film. It was the funniest building. It was like, you often film around London in these disused stately homes, which have then been acquired by the military, which have then been abandoned and then end up being used as film sets. And I think we were in a corner of one of these buildings in a sort of office-y room. Where on earth are we? Walked through this door and then there's the room and it had incense and it was a bit smoky.

Jenny Rainsford: For the first series, a lot of the flashbacks were shot with a very soft light and they were very atmospheric. It was almost quite theatrical because I think they were going for her memory. I remember laughing a lot and I think it might have been the first thing I shot, so I was very nervous. But just hanging out on the sofa with... I didn't actually know Phoebe very well initially, so every time we were shooting a scene, we were getting to know each other.

You have to mainline these herbal cigarettes, oh my god. So they're not real tobacco or anything. They're just these pretend things. Yeah, it was brilliant fun. Brilliant fun. And then we had Jack there as well. It was a really lovely scene to be the first scene I shot after the pilot because you could completely orientate, "Okay, this is her. This is her friendship. She’d love a boyfriend so, so much," all this stuff.

Allie: I love when their heads are on top of each other and it's like such an old school screwball, like Lucy and Ethel vibe.

Jenny Rainsford: I just think they're rarely more than a meter apart, those two.

Chrissie: One of our listeners, who’s actually a friend of mine, Kinnier, asked about Fleabag breaking the fourth wall and there was a theory that a lot of fans had that she was talking to Boo.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Chrissie: So what conversations did you have with Phoebe about Fleabags relationship with the camera?

Jenny Rainsford: [Singsong] I can't tell you the golden secret.

Chrissie: You promised us something nobody knew [laughs].

Jenny Rainsford: Look, I cannot. That's her writer's secret, I think.

Allie: We respect it.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I don't know. She's never said, has she?

Chrissie: She did a town hall in New York where she said she assumed it was an audience, that she was... it's a performance.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I can buy that and I also think maybe it's loads of things. When we're talking to ourselves, we're talking to loads of different, either people who don't know us or we're talking to ourselves or we're talking to people we know.

Allie: That's a good point.

Jenny Rainsford: I love the speculation around that though.

Allie: Well, it’s how we're involved. It's so nice to feel like you're part of it.

Jenny Rainsford: Oh god, you are. Nothing without you guys, without the audience.

Chrissie: Well, that's what… I said at the end of the series, I felt like I got dumped. Like I literally spent the whole next day feeling like she had dumped me. I was like, "Okay, bye."

Allie: Oh, I just watched it again, so.

Jenny Rainsford: She'll be back. Well, I don't know if Fleabag will be back, but Phoebe will be back, don't you worry.

Allie: That's for sure. It just occurred to me, I'm curious, how many times have you watched it, Jenny?

Jenny Rainsford: It's not always that easy watching stuff as an actor. Well, I think it's the right thing to do though because you need to learn and you need to... I've watched it twice. I've watched it as screenings and then I've watched it at home. But what you see when you've done it is very different to what everyone else see and I had no idea what the response would be.

Jenny Rainsford: You know, when we filmed the scene where she kills herself by accident, we had to do that, it was really stressful in that we didn't have much time. It was a second unit we had and I was just walking into the street between two parked cars and we had like one parking bollard in front of me. I was like, "I don't know how this looks. I have no idea if we're selling this right." And there was a camera over the side and there was a camera... and then I think Phoebe and the director saw that and then we did it again just to try and...

I just remember going like, "Is that going to look right? Is that going to look believable?" We have these poor cyclists going past and going again and again. You just want it to be sold. You just want to hand it over to the audience in the way that you hope it's going to be handed over. The really short answer to your question is you watch the audience more than you watch the show to see what they read, because it's very hard to know what they're going to read.

Chrissie: Right, and what's going to come out in the editing.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, and I do find it immensely sad to watch. There's this one scene where my mom hates watching it. I remember my family being affected by the suicide scene. I was like, "Oh, okay, maybe it did get over the threshold." That scene where they're looking back on the guinea pig and stuff and I did find it excruciatingly sad, but I never played it as... basically, Fleabag's story is horrific. Boo's story is less horrific. She just had a guy that cheated on her and she didn't know she was going to die and then she died.

Chrissie: I had wondered though, like the scene when Fleabag was reading the story about the kids sticking pencils up the hamster, I think.

Jenny Rainsford: The hamster.

Chrissie: Hamster.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chrissie: Yeah, with the rubbers on the ends of pencils. And Boo has a line where she said, "Happy people don't do that." I had always wondered like... because even saying well, Boo just wanted to injure herself, that's still not a completely even-keeled thing to do.

Jenny Rainsford: No, it's not.

Chrissie: So I wondered, were there any conversations about just Boo's mental health even before she found out about Jack?

Jenny Rainsford: No, I don't think we had any explicit conversations. I think there's one clue in the way Fleabag says she could be a surprising person. I think there's layers to her complexity and I would say that one of those layers is sad. But I think she generally fights it quite well. I do think she's an incredibly compassionate person and it is an easy thing, it's an easier place to put her love is that guinea pig and then of course, Fleabag. She's able to be absolutely unconditional about those things and I think maybe she's the kind of person that’s surprised in situations where you're unconditionally loving to someone and it isn't reciprocated. I think she's probably a bit baffled by that. I would say that she's not necessarily that savvy when it comes to feelings. Hence, the absolute discombobulation about Jack cheating, you know?

Chrissie: Right, right. It wouldn't occur to her for somebody to betray her.

Jenny Rainsford: No, I think that completely explodes everything a bit for her. But I do think she'd have come back from it, that's why it's such a tragedy, yeah.

Allie: Yeah. How long do you think she and Fleabag were friends?

Jenny Rainsford: I think enough of a chunk of their adult life for it to be defining. Their adult life, I would say. I mean, I know how long Phoebe and Vicky have been friends. But as fictional characters, it could have been school, it could have been anything.

Allie: Yeah. So one of our listeners, Charmaine… you brought up Boo's relationship with the guinea pig. Charmaine wants to talk guinea pigs. What was your relationship with guinea pigs before the show and how has that changed? [laughs]

Jenny Rainsford: I wasn't cast because of my relationship with guinea pigs, but there was one at my primary school which used to go home with different kids in the holidays, which never came home with us. But they're amazing either way, the way they shudder and pant. You've ever cuddled one? You know the way they vibrate when they get nervous. They are amazing.

Chrissie: Did you get to some snuggle time with Hillary?

Jenny Rainsford: No, they are treated like Fabergé eggs.

Allie: Well, they're the talent.

Jenny Rainsford: They are the talent. I never got to rehearse with the guinea pig. Well, you're allowed to rehearse for three seconds and you're told how to hold it and all this stuff and you're like, "Well, what if I can't hold it like that because that’s not the way the camera works," and they're like, "Well, you’ve got to hold it like that." Yeah, it's always very funny having animals on set because they are much higher status than the actors. They used to say, "Guinea pig traveling, guinea pig traveling," on the speakers. Oh, there's one other fact that I could tell you, which is the baby in the church fete scene, that's my niece and they used to go, "Baby traveling, baby traveling." Exactly the same as the guinea pig.

Chrissie: Well, she did great. Was she Susie?

Jenny Rainsford: Yes!

Allie: Yes, beautiful baby.

Chrissie: She's really good at counting.

Allie: Yeah.

Chrissie: That one shot of Harry when he's holding... you know how babies wrap their hands around your fingers and she’s just got her little arms out, oh my god, it's adorable. So, Sarah would like to know what Boo would think of Fleabag and the Priest.

Jenny Rainsford: She would absolutely love it. I think she'd have done a First Holy Communion within days of finding out about the relationship. I think she'd be altar girl immediately with her like Reebok Classics underneath her gown. She'd have absolutely loved it, yeah. She'd have amusingly exploited the whole situation as much as possible and I do think she'd have probably been pretty fed up with her best friend as well, but she would've understood with absolute sincerity. I think she'd have gone to all the Bible classes as well. She would’ve become a Catholic, I think.

Allie: That's dedication.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah.

Chrissie: And probably love the subversiveness of it too.

Jenny Rainsford: And she'd have loved him completely, yeah. Who wouldn't?

Chrissie: Why do you think that is?

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, because he's funny. He's funny, and he's unsurprising, and he's irreverent. But also, they have stuff in common. When he buys in, he buys in and I think when Boo buys in, she buys in. She doesn't hold anything back and she's not cynical. I don't know, maybe the Priest isn't cynical. I'm not sure.

Chrissie: People have talked a lot about the parallels between him and Boo and just her relationship with them and even down to where... because there's the dressing room scene with you guys in the first episode and then in season two, there's a scene where she's with him in the dressing room. Whether that was intentional, I don't know, but that he is, like we were saying, becoming her new person and that he's got maybe some of the qualities that she saw in Boo that connected her with Boo.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I think there's probably truth in that and they're some of the things that she finds harder.

Chrissie: Like what?

Jenny Rainsford: Well, they don't make jokes about everything and she often makes jokes about everything. They're very endearing in their commitment to their choices. They're very serious about the things that they've decided to be serious about and I think sometimes Fleabag finds it hard to be serious, even though she feels everything, yeah.

Chrissie: Right. They're both a little more earnest in their emotions where she pushes it down.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, and they're able to be really honest about the choices they make. I suppose that they're quite fearless really, aren't they? I've got this absolute failure of a guinea pig cafe and I love this thing to death. And I am going head over heels into this relationship with someone, be it God or this guy, whereas maybe Fleabag is a bit more tentative.

Chrissie: She's a little less willing to be vulnerable.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, I think she finds it really hard to be vulnerable and I don't think they do, maybe. I don't know if that's a sweeping generalization. I might be completely wrong. I'm not sure.

Chrissie: Well, no because I think that's the beauty of season two for so many people is that he's able to break that down for her. She finally is able to become more vulnerable.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, and he's made a clear choice. Yeah. It was not an easy one, but it's clear.

Chrissie: We always say we take the ending… the fact that when she says that she loves him and just let that sit there on its own. That's the accomplishment for her. She's able to tell someone that and not expect anything because it's even after she knows that she's not getting that in return.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, that's really brave thing to say, isn't it?

Allie: Right.

Jenny Rainsford: The absolute truth, yeah.

Chrissie: But Erica wants to hear more about what you're working on now and she said that she loves you in Finding Joy, which I don't think we can get over here.

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, it's a lovely Irish sitcom.

Chrissie: We might have to dig a little bit.

Allie: Yeah.

Jenny Rainsford: What I'm working on now is, like everyone, I am working on loading the dishwasher and then unloading it and stuff like that.

Allie: Yeah, things have changed since we wrote that question a few weeks ago.

Jenny Rainsford: I know, I know, I know. But in another life, I would be doing a play at the moment, which is a device piece which I've been working on for years, which is about an agency where you go to hire a mother that's not your own for like an hour or a day or half day or whatever you can afford. It's a comedy, so the fallout from that. And then I did a film in the summer about coffee with Kate Nash and that was really fun. Hopefully it's really funny. I've seen some of it and it really made me laugh and there's so many animals in it again. I think they're finishing that, but I'm not sure what's going to happen to that in the next stage. So that's my imaginary other life.

Chrissie: So is Finding Joy done or you're still working on that?

Jenny Rainsford: Finding Joy was an Irish sitcom that we made… not the winter we've just had but the one before, and they've just filmed the second series, but I couldn't do that because I had my second son. But it's such a lovely show and Aisling Bea's in it. I don't know if you know her.

Chrissie: Yes. She's fantastic.

Jenny Rainsford: She's really funny.

Chrissie: I love her.

Jenny Rainsford: She's in the first series.

Chrissie: And then ironically, because you didn't have any scenes with Andrew Scott on Fleabag, but his sister’s in Finding Joy.

Jenny Rainsford: Yes, that's exactly it. So yeah, well done. Brilliant detective work.

Chrissie: And then… why am I blanking on her last name, Amy, is it Haberling? Isn't she like the main star?

Jenny Rainsford: Amy Huberman. Yeah, yeah, she also wrote it. She's brilliant.

Chrissie: We found that that whole world starts to kind of... the network-

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, when you go to Ireland, there's like four of them. Literally, everyone you've ever heard of, firstly, are mates, and secondly, the talent is extraordinary.

Chrissie: Yeah, and half of them are in the Scott family.

Jenny Rainsford:Half of them are in the Scott family, yeah. And then there's like Ed Sheeran and then there's like... and they're all mates, yeah.

Allie: Of course.

Jenny Rainsford: Domhnall Gleeson, literally, the world belongs to them. They're brilliant.

Chrissie: Well, we were saying that because this is like a six degrees because you were in About Time with Domhnall Gleeson, which is a lovely movie. I sobbed so hard seeing that movie and that was before I had a son.

Jenny Rainsford: Oh, yeah. It's lovely, isn't it?

Chrissie: And now he's in the Vicky Jones show.

Allie: There you go.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, there's only three people in Ireland, you have to remember, and they're all actors.

Allie: That's what it seems like.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, they're all really successful actors.

Allie: So, our last listener question was: Laura said you have the opposite of resting bitchface, so congratulations.

Jenny Rainsford: I'm going to put that on my grave when I'm, ironically, resting.

Allie: Right! Oh, that's good. But you know, you seem so happy and lovable and maybe we're projecting but you seem, as we've just spent an hour talking to you, that all matches up. So are there any characters or roles you'd like to play that go against this persona? What is your dream role?

Jenny Rainsford: I do. I was thinking like, "Do I want to play a serial killer?" And then I was like, "I don't know. I don't know if I do." I really like playing very normal, ordinary people like cleaners and teachers and whatever. Quite non-glamorous people, introverts are very interesting. I quite like to play like anything funny and that can be anything. Do you know what I mean? Quite like playing blokes. Always find that quite funny. But also, I don't know, weird stuff. I like weird stuff as well. I can't give you a specific.

As I was saying, I've done classical stuff in the UK and so there's a few classical roles I'd love to do because you feel like there might be a time limit on some things. But no, I think they… I think they haven't been written yet and writing is getting weirder and wonderful and it's full of new voices. It's such an exciting time.

Chrissie: Yeah, once everything gets back up and running, there's so many opportunities.

Allie: Yeah. More and more badass ladies doing it too. I love it.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, these trailblazers.

Chrissie: Well, especially now Phoebe's got her own production company, so who knows what would come out of that.

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah. It would be really funny if she just did really quite sexist cop dramas with one-woman secretary, that kind of show, yeah, because that would really throw everyone off their course, wouldn’t it?

Allie: Just keeping us on our toes.

Chrissie: Well, the last thing, and this is how we wrapped up our other interviews, when you look back at your experience on Fleabag, what is the one memory that really stands out, like the story that you'll tell your children and your grandchildren about that time of your life?

Jenny Rainsford: I don't know. Probably just laughing with Phoebe between takes, not thinking anyone was listening and then realizing everyone was listening with their headphones because it was a professional environment.

Allie: And you have mics on, right?

Jenny Rainsford: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're mic-ed specifically so that everyone can hear. Yeah, stuff like that. And I suppose also what it's like to be in a hit. You don't expect something that is made for so little money for an online television show to be at the Emmy's, and the BAFTAs, and all these incredible things.

Chrissie: Alright, well, stay safe and healthy, Jenny, and thank you again.

Allie: Yes, thank you so much. Have a lovely evening.

Jenny Rainsford: Thank you and I hope you have a lovely evening over there.