Julia Grogan has the kind of energy that makes you lean in. She is quick, sharp and fabulously foul-mouthed, with a gift for puncturing pretension and exposing the things most of us would rather not admit about ourselves. She is both raw and polished: entirely at ease talking about the messiness of being human, yet clever enough to turn that mess into beautifully constructed stories.
We are meeting at Grounded to talk about Grogan’s recent one woman show at the Soho Theatre in London and then, somewhere around the halfway point of our interview, she mentions the Apple TV deal.
Rye resident Julia Grogan has sold a comedy-drama thriller to Apple for a six-figure sum, after every UK buyer turned it down. Was She Pretty? the story of a young woman obsessed by her boyfriend’s ex, prompted a bidding war between Apple and Paramount. It is an extraordinary achievement.
For a woman who sold ice creams in the foyer at Mamma Mia! and taught baby ballet to make ends meet after graduating from drama school, which was “ a living hell” this is also the story of dreams … or as Julia puts it, “this is a story of patience and persistence. I don’t want anyone to think this is easy.”
Growing up in Stratford-upon-Avon, she was “obsessed with theatre from the womb.” She trained as an actor at Rose Bruford College, only to graduate into a dispiriting stretch of no acting work. A job behind the bar at London’s Royal Court Theatre introduced her to the world of new writing and a story about the murder of British backpacker Grace Millane sparked an anger in her that she expressed in her first play, PlayFight.
She wrote the first ten pages when she got home from work that night. The play went on to win the ETPEP Award in 2020 and was shortlisted for several others, including the Women’s Prize for Playwriting. At 23, she had an agent.
Then came Covid, which closed theatres and pushed her towards screenwriting. A sitcom developed with Hat Trick Productions, about three Stratford teenagers dressed as Tudors while trying to lose their virginity, never made it to screen. But it helped open doors. Screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge read one of Grogan’s scripts, leading to three months working with her on a major US Amazon series. The money helped Julia buy a home in Rye.
She has also just sold another pilot to LuckyChap, the production company co-founded by Margot Robbie, for a dark comedy inspired by “alpine divorces.” She uses the phenomenon as a way to explore the fractures and absurdities of modern relationships.
That is Julia Grogan’s territory: the things we think but don’t say, the insecurities we dress up as confidence, the sheer weirdness of living in the world, while also living inside our own heads. Her work is darkly funny, emotionally exposed and particularly interested in women whose stories have too often been told from the outside. As a fan of gothic literature she says she was also acutely aware of how absent women were from their own stories. And she hopes that in some ways her writing can redress that.
She is candid about her own experience of intrusive thoughts and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which at times made ordinary life and relationships painfully difficult. She knows that anxiety can provide material, but is wary of the idea that suffering is somehow the price of being creative.
There is no tidy inspirational message here, and that is part of her appeal. Grogan can talk about difficult experiences without sanding off the rough edges or pretending everything happens for a reason. Her humour doesn’t disguise the vulnerability; it makes the vulnerability easier to recognise.
I saw her one-woman play You’re So Special in London in September, and it confirmed what becomes obvious over coffee: Grogan is funny, talented and incredibly charming. She’s also very versatile. Alongside her scriptwriting she’s doing a course at the Royal Opera House to bring new voices into the genre and she’s writing a musical with the RSC. Yep, Julia Grogan also has a fantastic voice.
Grogan, who has just turned 30, moved to Rye last July, buying a two-bedroom cottage with her partner and her dog. She says people often ask her why here? The answer is simple. She had visited for a few weekends and fallen for the cobbled streets and independent shops. “There is a freshness to Rye that I wasn’t expecting in a small coastal town, and it’s full of creatives who aren’t stifled by politics … I get off the train and I come home back to Rye and my heart rate goes right down.” She concludes, “I feel it’s a choice to live in Rye. And I have made the choice to live this lifestyle.”
As our conversation ends, it’s hard not to be caught up in Julia’s energy and enthusiasm. With major screenwriting deals under her belt and new projects taking shape, her career looks set to reach a much wider audience. But for now, Rye is where she comes to breathe, think and write. And with plans for a writers’ “outhouse” at the bottom of her garden, it seems she’s found just the place to dream up her next story. Watch this space.
By Talya Roberson
