Nicola Coughlan Made Luke Newton Blush With a Song From His Boy Band Days on the Bridgerton Set

Bridgerton looks like so much fun behind the scenes. Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton, who play the central couple in season 3 of the Netflix hit, literally broke the chaise longue they filmed an intimate scene on, and that’s not even the half of it. Coughlan spent three days setting up an excellent prank on Newton after finding out he used to be in a boy band, arranging for one of the group’s songs would play while they filmed a ball scene.

If you didn’t know, scenes set somewhere where music is playing are almost never filmed with the actual music playing, because it would be impossible to cut the dialogue together. But for the Bridgerton balls, since they’re dancing to the beat, the actors have in-ear monitors playing music. In this case, they’re waltzing to a violin cover of “Snow on the Beach” by Taylor Swift feat. Lana Del Rey. (Season 3, episode 4, “Old Friends”—yes, I went back to find it.) But Nicola Coughlan set it up so that everyone would hear “Cougar Town” by Newton’s short-lived boy band, South4, which he’d formed with his friends 11 years ago (based on their YouTube presence).

It only took Newton half a second to recognize what was happening, at which point the rest of the cast started dancing, as you can see in Coughlan’s behind the behind-the-scenes footage. But if you’re in the mood for some truly inspired lyricism, we highly recommend this tape of the whole song:

And if you’re eager to hear even more of Luke Newton’s admittedly impressive singing voice, he also has a handful of covers on his personal YouTube page…

He’s not the only singer in the cast. Jonathan Bailey, who plays Anthony Bridgerton, plays Fiyero in the upcoming Wicked movie, and Claudia Jessie, who plays Eloise, apparently has a great voice as well, as Coughlan revealed during an interview with Wired.

So…Bridgerton musical episode when?