‘Queen Charlotte’ Star Golda Rosheuvel Wants Her Iconic “Sorrows, Sorrows, Prayers” Printed on T-Shirts

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story flips the script on the Bridgerton format by turning its focus on the ‘Ton’s most mercurial monarch. For two seasons of the Netflix Regency romp, we’ve watched the older Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) play matchmaker, obsess over Lady Whistledown’s identity, and pine for her mentally ill husband King George (James Fleet). Shonda Rhimes‘s new prequel series shows us how a young German princess named Charlotte (India Amarteifio) fell in love with her George in the first place.

Queen Charlotte toggles between two pivotal moments in Charlotte’s life: her early marriage to King George III (Corey Mylchreest) and her late-in-life struggle to inspire her brood of royal ne’er-do-wells to produce a legitimate heir to their father’s throne. The latter storyline opens with a tragic event plucked from British history. In 1817, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only legitimate grandchild of King George and Queen Charlotte, died after giving birth to a stillborn baby. Her death rocked Great Britain as the 21-year-old royal was not only universally beloved — if you want a sense of her personality, Princess Charlotte literally saw herself in Jane Austen’s Marianne Dashwood, aka the “fun one” in Sense and Sensibility — but she was also the only heir apparent for the throne.

Queen Charlotte reacts to the grim news in a darkly comic way, sashaying to the princess’s coffin to barely comfort her son in the throes of grieving his own daughter. “Sorrows, sorrows, prayers,” is all the mother’s love she can offer Prince George.

In fact, “Sorrows, sorrows, prayers” tends to be Queen Charlotte’s go-to note of condolence when she’s both young and old. And it was a line that Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story star Golda Rosheuvel relished.

“I mean I hope that’s going to be a hashtag, do you know what I mean?” Rosheuvel said of “Sorrows, sorrows, prayers.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be an iconic line and I’m going to have t-shirts printed and I’m will be sending them all out to you all,” she said before getting more serious.

“But I think comedy has to come from truth and the truth is the complex relationship that she has with her children. The need to show some kind of love, but the complexity of society and the dedication and the need for an heir. I think she is struggling with all of that in that moment.”

One thing that wasn’t a struggle for Rosheuvel? Handing over the “Queen Charlotte” baton to India Amarteifio. Decider asked Rosheuvel if watching Amarteifio in the role she originated made her reassess her own understanding of the character.

“No, and I’ll tell you for why,” she said. “Because I’m thinking about how extraordinary her performance is and I’m so proud that she took the role and made it her own. That was the strong advice that I wanted to give her, you know? To find the character for herself.”

“There’s nothing that you can impose on Charlotte. She wouldn’t allow you to do that. So it’s about the actress taking it, finding the world for herself and finding how Charlotte fits in that world for herself. To really celebrate Charlotte as a person who is unapologetic, who knows who she is, that stands firm in her own womanhood. And that, for me, is one hundred percent right for the character and I think India does that in spades.”

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is now streaming on Netflix.