‘Bridgerton’s Cast Takes Us Behind-the-Scenes of the Iconic Pall Mall Game

One of the highlights of Bridgerton Season 2 comes as soon as Episode 3 “A Bee in Your Bonnet.” The episode takes us away from the hustle and bustle of London and to the Bridgertons’ serene country seat, Aubrey Hall. There, the family unites to entertain the Sharmas so that Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) can attempt to woo youngest sister Edwina (Charithra Chandran). Being in the country gives the competitive family the opportunity to play their most cherished, most blood-thirsty game: Pall Mall.

“The iconic theme for this season is the game. The Pall Mall game,” Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh told Decider recently. “Who ends up succeeding and getting through the wicket and who ends up in the bushes… All of that, it’s a great analogy for relationships and how things go in the show.”

The Pall Mall sequence in Bridgerton Season 2 brings a burst of comic energy to the show and doubles as a love letter to book readers. The Pall Mall chapters in Julia Quinn’s The Viscount Who Loved Me are some of the most beloved sequences in the whole Bridgerton book series. While Anthony is attempting to be on his best behavior to woo Edwina, he can’t help but spark off of her elder sister Kate (Simone Ashley). Add four of Anthony’s siblings — Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), Benedict (Luke Thompson), Colin (Luke Newton), and Eloise (Claudia Jessie) — to the mix, and things get even more delightfully hectic for all involved. It’s a scene that combines the two best parts of Bridgerton: the show’s unabashed love of sexual tension and its even greater love for the Bridgerton family’s dynamics.

As it turns out, the fun we see on screen was quite the mirror to how things went behind-the-scenes…

“We actually played the game,” Simone Ashley said. “That was one of my favorite weeks of filming. It was super sunny, spring time, filming at this incredible location. We played the game.”

“I was massively excited [about the sequence] because after reading the books, I knew how iconic that was going to be and I knew that was gonna be a fan favorite from the get go,” Luke Newton said, noting he wasn’t even sure if Colin would be in the scene or not as his character was supposed to be on a grand tour. “So I was really excited that I was involved.”

Newton revealed that the cast prepped with a “a little practice day” where they learned how to play. “It was up to each individual actor to decide how their character would do it, so I was like, ‘Great,'” Newton said. Things were a little less great for Newton once he realized that he had competition from someone else in the Bridgerton cast.

“There was a ring at the end that’s like probably my height and you have to, at the end of the game to win, get your ball through that hole,” Newton said. “Which felt impossible when we played ’cause you have to chip it up like a golf shot. But actually you can’t do that because of the mallet, so it’s really difficult. Anyway, Luke Thompson put it between his legs and flipped the ball up and it went straight in the hole. So the entire cast were like raving about it and then he had like, ‘Champion,” basically written on his back for the entire week as if he was amazing.”

“Competitive me, I was like, ‘Hang on, I’ve tossed some really great shots. I may have not been able to flip it through the final hole, but I’ve done some great shots,'” Newton said with classic Colin Bridgerton humor.

Newton added: “Our competitive sides came out because we just got to play. It was such a fun week. The director at one point just said, ‘Play the game. This is the order that you’re going in, but just have fun and enjoy it.’ And you can see that in the sequence. You can see that we’re just enjoying it and having fun. It was brilliant.”

However, one Bridgerton star revealed they struggled with tampering down their competitive side when it came time to shoot. Of all the characters playing Pall Mall in Bridgerton Season 2, only one doesn’t seem to be having a good time: Charithra Chandran’s Edwina. Ironically, Chandran is an avid athlete who found herself having to hold back her skill when they shot the sequence.

“I grew up playing a lot of croquet just at boarding school, in my university, and I grew up playing a lot of competitive sports,” Chandran said. “For me, there was a part of me that took it really seriously and wanted to play properly. Sometimes admittedly, I’d forget and have to be like, ‘Oh no no no, I’m Edwina. I’m not playing as Charithra.”

“Really, it was a battle between my competitive drive and my need to embody my character,” Chandran said.

Another actor who was torn between their love of competition and what the script demanded? Lady Danbury herself, Adjoa Andoh. She admitted she was jealous she had to watch on with mothers Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Mary Sharma (Shelley Conn).

“Of course I was [jealous]! Didn’t you see Lady Danbury on the sidelines just shouting at everyone and barking and cheering?” Andoh said, revealing that she’s also into crochet, like Chandran, and soccer. “I think Lady Danbury, she’s incredibly competitive whether it’s about who gets to be the diamond or what matches are made or whatever it is. She’s incredibly competitive and no less so for Pall Mall. She wants Eloise to take good shots and she wants to see blood on the carpet because that means a good game has been had.”

As it happens, the Bridgertons and Sharmas do give us a good game. Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma, though, give us a better game. Even before the game starts, the two spar over who gets to play with the family’s black mallet, nicknamed the “mallet of death.” It’s yet another iconic holdover from the books, and Kate infuriates Anthony by picking his favorite mallet. So what was it like for Simone Ashley to wield such an iconic piece of sporting equipment?

“Holding the mallet of death?” Ashley said. “I guess it was just great to grind Anthony’s gears as Kate.”

Bridgerton Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

Watch Bridgerton on Netflix