Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover Frazer Harrison/BAFTA LA/Getty Images for BAFTA LA
Donald Glover was initially set to star in Mr. & Mrs. Smith alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge — but the twosome’s falling out led to Maya Erskine landing the role.
“It’s a divorce in a weird way,” the actor, 40, told The Hollywood Reporter of the reason behind Waller-Bridger’s exit in a Wednesday, February 7, interview. “You’re like, ‘Oh sh-t, this should have worked.’”
Looking back, Glover shared that his relationship with Waller-Bridge, 38, was never quite as comfortable as he thought it could have been. “This is just me, being honest, but I think a good relationship is one where you don’t waver from the extremely uncomfortable, and I don’t know if we were ever going to get to a place where we could be completely brutal to each other.” he said.
The pair were initially set to costar in the Prime Video series before Waller-Bridge abruptly exited in September 2021. While speaking to THR, the Atlanta star confessed there were a few reasons behind the duo ultimately choosing not to work together.
For one, Glover explained that working in the U.K. and the U.S. sparked creative differences. “It might’ve just been cultural,” he said. “You’ve got to think, Fleabag was written entirely by her, they don’t really do writers rooms in the U.K. And I look back at Atlanta, and we built a culture where we could say mean things to each other or be like, ‘That idea is kind of [crap],’ and then we’d laugh. You weren’t afraid to say something — but we also had the right to roast you. It’s just how we got the laughs.”
Glover noted that while they were filming, the comfort factor never grew and their personalities didn’t mesh as well as they’d hoped. “I don’t think we ever felt comfortable enough with each other. And that’s OK,” he admitted. “That’s what happens when you’re two captains. It’s like, ‘This is how I run my ship.’ ‘Well, this is how I run my ship.’ And it’s such a big idea, this show, I don’t think it can have two captains.”
Donald Glover and Maya Erskine in ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith.’ David Lee/Prime Video
He continued, “I mean, she rewrote the pilot, and I saw her script and I was like, ‘It’s definitely not my style,’ but if she’d done it with her in it, we’d all be like, ‘This is a great f-king show.’”
Ultimately, Glover noted that like real-life relationships, everything added up over time and the actors made the tough decision to call it quits on screen.
“It’s like a real divorce where the hardest part is knowing when to say it’s over,” he shared. “Like, when do you quit? Because you want to be cool, like, ‘Oh it’s over, that’s fine.’ But we both put a lot of work into it. We both were working really hard. So, who gets to keep the cat?”
It’s never easy to say goodbye, even if it’s a television goodbye. While no TV show can last forever – well, Law & Order: SVU is in the running – the cast doesn’t always stay as long. Many actors choose to leave after their contracts end. Some give the networks a lengthy heads-up, while others […]
In the end, Glover said the pair’s decision to go their separate ways remained professional, adding that it was his passion for the project that kept him on the show over Waller-Bridge. “I feel like Phoebe wasn’t fully in love with the thing,” he told the outlet. “But I feel really good about the fact that if the thing was feeling more like hers and she was like, ‘I just love this,’ I would have been like, ‘You should have it.’”
When Waller-Bridge’s character was recast, Erskine, 36, ended up taking on the role of Jane Smith. Together, the two play a married couple who are both secretly deadly assassins. The series is based off the 2006 movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and premiered on Friday, February 2.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is now available to stream on Prime Video.