At long last, the viscount has found his viscountess.
More than a year after debuting on Netflix in some 82 million households around the world, Bridgerton—the mega-hit Regency romance executive produced by Shonda Rhimes and based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Julia Quinn—has returned for its sophomore season, telling a brand new love story while continuing to usher in a wave of diversity in period dramas.
The show’s second season centers on Lord Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), a viscount and the eldest son of the Bridgerton family. He becomes embroiled in a love triangle with Kate (Simone Ashley) and Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran), two sisters who are new to London’s high society after arriving from India with their widowed mother, Mary (Shelley Conn). Determined to make the best choice for his family, Anthony, the ton’s most eligible bachelor, begins to court Edwina, the queen’s hand-picked “diamond” of the debutante season. But over the course of eight episodes, he develops an undeniable connection to Kate, and the two begin to bond over their shared sense of duty and family. Soon enough, they’re embroiled in a slow-burning romance for the ages, full of longing glances and declarations of forbidden love.
In a late-night Zoom interview from his home in London, where he is currently starring in a three-month run of the play Cock with Taron Egerton, Bailey spoke candidly with BAZAAR.com about his working relationship with Ashley, how he shot this season’s lake scene, and what he hopes for “Kanthony” going forward. (Ashley has confirmed that she and Bailey will be returning for the show’s third season.)
What parts of Anthony’s journey were you looking forward to exploring the most this season? And how did you approach his relationship with Kate, knowing that it had to feel completely different than his relationship with Siena (Sabrina Bartlett) last season?
Oh, I’ve never been asked that question. I think it’s a really rare opportunity to have source material—Julia Quinn’s novels—that lets you understand exactly who the character is at his endpoint and then work backwards. In the hands of [creator and showrunner] Chris Van Dusen, Anthony in Series 1 was more of a prologue to Anthony in his Kate Sharma years. I read the second book before I accepted the role, and what drew me really to him was this sense of grief and loss—and also a comment on the patriarchy. It’s about how knotted status is in a world where men lead before women, and where the impact on the women around them is clear. I think this show really is brilliant, because there are no emotionally capable men in Bridgerton—all of the women are way ahead and far more evolved.
I’m sort of fascinated with the idea of loss, and the distance between presentation and what’s really going on inside. I think it’s always appealing—to use a Bridgerton expression—to dance the dance between those two realities, especially in the Regency period. These people are presenting a version of themselves, and the stakes are really high because they need to marry in order to economically secure their futures. I just sort of fell in love with the idea of playing someone who had a disconnect within him. It’s a study of how you can move on from something that’s stunted your growth.
I think Siena represented another way in which Anthony was sabotaging himself, because that relationship was never going to move forward. I think his self-esteem was quite low and he knew that it wasn’t gonna work. Love is a balance, and it’s an all-seeing, all-knowing, sort of shared understanding with someone else, and I think that’s what he was always gonna find with Kate.
What do you remember from your chemistry read with Simone?
Simone is phenomenal and this working relationship is so unique. It was evident straight away. As soon as they said, “When you’re ready…” [in the chemistry read], we just locked in. We were doing it with [casting director] Kelly Hendry in the room, and all of Shondaland on Zoom. We sat facing each other on a wiped clean sofa, and it was all a bit sort of sterile in a really big room in the middle of a pandemic, and yet it immediately felt like we were at home. And I think that’s so true for Kate and Anthony—they feel at home together, and that’s why he’s so obsessed and curious about what he feels when he’s around her.
I remember in the car, on the way home, I spoke to Chris Van Dusen, and he was like, “What do you think?” And I just said, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s Kate.” But I think they all well and truly knew that anyway, because there were no other actresses that I read with. Their search was long and extensive, but I just think they always knew that Simone was gonna be the one and they just needed to wrestle her out of her contract, which I’m sure is the first of many times that’s gonna happen in her career.
LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX
Bridgerton is famous, among many things, for the ball scenes, and Kate and Anthony have two extremely intimate dances that make them the center of attention. How did you and Simone work with the choreographer Jack Murphy, and what do you think those two dances help to convey about their deepening connection?
With Kate and Anthony, I think the secret to their chemistry is that they’re always asking, but they’re asking with their bodies, with their breath, with their eyes, and there’s a hunger for truth. That’s what made him and Kate so compelling, and that’s why they’re incredibly vulnerable—they are hungry beyond the limitations that they put on themselves. The dances were really the moment where they could put into their bodies what is going on in their heads. There’s something amazing about the Regency ballroom, because you cannot hide when you’re up there dancing and [there’s] that excruciating tension when they’re dancing in front of Edwina and they start talking.
Anthony never danced in Series 1, and when I read the first dance with Edwina, I thought, That’s when he’s actually at his most vulnerable. That’s where he mentions the loss of his father to Edwina for the first time.
I think the hunger and the need to know that [Kate] is gonna be there for him is in that final dance as well. There’s nothing more romantic and, really, sort of upsetting than a last dance. We spoke to Jack and also to Cheryl [Dunye], who directed those last two episodes, about how the stakes had to be so high—it was gonna really be the last time that they would set eyes on each other. And that only really earns the declaration of love, because it’s so important that he needed to go beyond the dance, and obviously the dance only happened because of Edwina. It’s so brilliant the way it’s constructed. God, I’m a bit of a Bridgerton geek, aren’t I? But there’s so much thought that goes into it.
There’s a moment in the finale when Anthony jokingly asks Kate how many fingers he’s holding up before they dance again. Was it intentional for the number of fingers to match the number of kids Kate and Anthony have in the books?
Yeah, of course. But maybe it’s the number of seasons that they’ll be in. You never know! We’ll have to wait and see.
Bridgerton is subversive in the way that the intimate scenes are often shot from the female gaze. What have you learned from the intimacy coordinators about the importance of consent and communication?
I think there’s something incredibly sexy about consent generally. It wasn’t scripted, [the line where] Anthony is saying to her, “I will stop, I will stop.” And that’s something that we put in the sex scene, because I think it’s really important that he is respectful and is understanding of the female, and there’s never going to be a moment where that isn’t the most important narrative point. He is obsessed with her all the way through the series, so it makes sense that it’s all about Kate’s pleasure, and it always has been, really. He sort of wants to devour her.
To be really, really honest, there was a lot more that we explored, and I think, initially, the first edit was a lot longer, and obviously there was more intimate stuff in Episode 8. But I think it’s perfect the way that it’s earned. [Bridgerton] is sex positive—it’s got incredible characters that are groundbreaking and empowering—and to be able to be a part of a sex scene that is highly erotic, but also completely consented to and balanced, is what it’s all about.
It was nice, conversely to Series 1, to show a story of two people who were maybe slightly more worldly and more in control and command of their sexual wants and needs. To make Kate someone who knew what she wanted was genius. It shows who these two characters are, and it sets them apart from the first couple. And long may Bridgerton continue to show different ways in which people can emotionally connect and physically connect, because I think that’s what the romance genre is all about.
I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about your Pride and Prejudice moment in Episode 5, when you fell in the lake like Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in the BBC miniseries. What was it like to shoot that sequence, and more importantly, how do you make it look sexy and not look like a wet dog?
Man, it was a bit of [a] soggy puppy. It was so perfect to be able to do a nod to a much beloved [Jane] Austen film. It’s something that me, Sabrina and Phoebe talked about, actually, in the first series: the connection between Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, amongst others. It’s just such a beloved adaptation in the Bailey family.
And the truth is that it went really quickly. We got it right the first time. This stuntman was just like, “You just gotta bloody go for it and really put some energy into the fall.” And we did it. And obviously, I didn’t have anything under my shirt. But my bottoms, I had these really long sort of plastic sheaths, which were sort of confusing, so I sort of felt like a half Ken doll underneath. And then the jacket was incredibly heavy, which hadn’t been factored in, but what had been factored in was the transparency of the shirt. I remember in the fitting, there were a couple of shirts that I tried on, and they had one of those sort of house plant spritzers to spritz me down to see how much chest hair you can see through it.
COLIN HUTTON/NETFLIX
What are your biggest hopes for Kate and Anthony as they settle into married life? Do you want to see them with a baby when the show returns, or do you still want to see them in the honeymoon phase?
Oh my God, the honeymoon phase is essential. I think Kate’s gonna have a shock. She’s had a lot of responsibility within her family, but she knows nothing [about how] to head up the Bridgerton family. She is now gonna be the viscountess, so that’s gonna be an interesting balance between her taking over from Lady Violet (Ruth Gemmell). And there’s a lot, still, in the books that I know will be stitched into their relationship going forward—about her past, about their shared grief and sense of mortality. But then, my God, for them to have their first born, Edmund, is gonna be incredibly moving, especially because both of their relationships with their parents have been so complicated. I think they’ll really come together to be incredible, loving parents, and that’s gonna be joyful to see.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Bridgerton Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
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