Vicky Jones is seen at the press night afterparty for The One at Soho Theatre on July 12, 2018, in London.David M. Benett/Getty Images
HBO’s new series Run offers a dangerously tantalizing premise, which is doubly fantastical in these locked-down times: What if you simply dropped everything in your life – job, home, relationships – and ran off with the love of your life for an adventure of unknown possibility? It is an enticing concept, made even more outrageous by showrunner Vicky Jones, who most audiences likely won’t recognize by name, even though she’s one-half of the creative partnership behind the Fleabag theatre and television phenomenon (alongside longtime creative partner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who executive-produces here).
Ahead of Run’s excellently timed launch on April 12, the British multihyphenate Jones – television writer, playwright and theatre director – spoke with The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz about breaking genre rules, digging deeper into onscreen sex, and the oft-literal juggling of responsibility and creativity.
The five episodes of Run that HBO has made available all end with cliffhanging twists. How challenging was it to construct such a narrative arc – did you feel you had to constantly one-up yourself?
It was incredibly hard, and not something I’d ever done before. When writing plays, I tended to follow my nose, which is why they don’t have much story in them. So here, it was all about plugging away at it, and wanting something to feel that, while it can be quite shocking, it also could happen to potentially two ordinary people. And if all these things that we wrote did happen to two ordinary people, how would they behave and respond? And would we believe it?
There’s a fascinating mesh of genre here. It feels like Run is at times a thriller, an intense drama, a romantic-comedy, an action movie.
I’m a huge fan of Richard Linklater’s Sunset trilogy, and in finding the gritty details of a relationship. It’s always a mystery to me as to what goes on behind closed doors, what are the intimate rules and patterns of any relationship. So looking at these two characters, [Merritt Wever’s Ruby and Domhnall Gleeson’s Billy], we wanted to lean into the fact that they were two people under immense pressure, and now the world comes back to bite them on the ass. Which meant we were going to make a comedy/drama/thriller – all those things, which is a complicated blend.
HBO's romantic comedy stars Merrit Wever and Domhnall Gleeson, and is co-created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Vicky Jones.HBO / Crave
It’s interesting how sexuality drives at least part of Run. And how frank it is. One of the first things we see Ruby do before she meets Billy is masturbate alone in a train compartment. And then Billy does the same.
It was so important for us to show the audience that these people are desperate for each other – how much they want each other. So that tells a different story than the one in their head versus their heart. Or what their body really wants.
You’ve said in previous interviews that you’re disappointed when you hear people – critics and journalists, but also friends and colleagues in the industry – say that Fleabag was just out to shock people with its sexuality. Do you think that Run will, or is intended to, shock audiences?
I don’t know if it’s shocking these days to see what happens on Run. I do hope, though, that audiences find it absorbing enough to care about these characters. I’ve tried very hard to make them feel true and understandable and complicated in the right way, which is what I’ve felt about Fleabag. I also hope the world has changed since Fleabag came along. I hope people are absorbed, and not put off by the sexual nature of some of it.
You’ve also talked before about how you turned to playwriting to counteract a dearth of decent female roles for Phoebe. So here is Ruby, one of the more layered characters, female or not, to come along in some while.
I feel like all of her behaviours are felt differently in different contexts. She’s become one person in her marriage – indecisive, mainly – and then Billy comes along and she’s so much stronger. That’s what she’s craving from him – when she’s with him, she can hear her own real voice, and she isn’t afraid. I feel that when you’re falling in love, you’re falling in love with who you are with that particular person. And her relationship with her body, that’s something I wanted to explore because you can be a feminist and assure everyone else that they’re strong and beautiful just the way they are, but when it comes to yourself, you feel not lovable. We have very low self-esteem. And that’s one of the reasons she walks away from her life. Not that I’ve ever had the urge to desert my own home, but it’s one of those secrets that women do have. Escaping your life.
On that notion of escape ... oops, sorry, that’s my baby crying right now in the background ... hold on
Oh god, yes! My baby is being walked outside by his daddy right now. But I’m usually with mine all day. How old is yours?
He’s just two and a half months old.
Tiny! Oh my gosh. Mine's talking now. Lucky! You get to spend a lot of time with them right now. [Laughs]
Sort of on that topic, there is a point in Run where – and I should insert a GIANT-BUT-VAGUE SPOILER WARNING here for my readers – you examine the concept, or even modern myth, of family. In terms of responsibility, of what our obligations are ...
That was the reason to do it for me. It’s still something that makes people feel uncomfortable, to look these things in the eye. Whether it’s about internalized patriarchy, or the consequences of putting yourself first over other people. I think we should ask questions of why that happens, and what it means to be a good person. We should express these things about being unhappy. But still, we feel we can’t talk about it. That’s what this is about.
Run premieres April 12 at 9:30 p.m. on HBO/Crave
This interview has been condensed and edited. While holding a baby.
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