How Nicola Coughlan Became Penelope Featherington of 'Bridgerton' 🐝

The hot air balloon scene was wild.

Luke Newton was living his best life that day

as like the hunk with the rope.

[Luke grunting]

He was loving it. It was great.

[screen whooshing]

Hi, I'm Nicola Cochlan,

and this is how I became Penelope Featherington

in Bridgerton.

[dramatic music] [static hissing]

[dramatic music]

I auditioned for Bridgerton when I had finished

season two of Dairy Girls.

I originally auditioned for Penelope,

but I didn't realize that she was Lady Whistledown.

Sorry, spoiler, if anyone who hasn't seen it,

and I didn't have a lot of time to prep.

I had like two days so I just learned my lines,

went and did it,

but it was with a casting director's assistant,

so I was like, okay, but this must be the step

before the the main step.

What I didn't expect was about two weeks later

getting a call offering me the job.

What is wild to me about Bridgerton is

that I never did a single chemistry test.

The relationships I have in the show, the ones

with Claudia Jesse who plays Eloise

and Luke Newton who plays Colin, they're really,

really important in the show.

A lot of it was to do with Shonda.

She cast a lot of the actors from a single audition.

Everyone says she just has an instinct,

and she feels like whoever's right

for the part is who she says,

and her track record's pretty amazing.

[dramatic music]

In the beginning of season one of Bridgerton,

we had a historical advisor called Hannah Grieg,

who was an expert in the Regency era.

We all know it's Bridgerton is not,

we're not like aiming for historical accuracy.

Bridgerton is its own thing.

She showed us a lot of pictures.

I remember one that really stood out to me.

It was of three young ladies lounging on a couch,

and aside from the dress

and, you know, the really, like, gilded interior,

it just looked like any three girls chilling out on a couch,

and that I went, Okay, they're not statues.

People at home chilled,

and they laid back on couches, and they put their feet up.

I wanted to have that differentiation between her at home,

chilling out, being herself, not having all the eyes on her,

and then when the queen is in the room,

you've gotta hold yourself differently,

but with Penelope, I think I was really lucky

because I always love having

as much source material as possible.

We have Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series,

the books in which the show is based on.

So I reread those a lot.

I read the fourth book,

which is Colin, the Penelope's book,

to get as much of an insight on her as possible,

but it was interesting 'cause she's a lot

older in that book.

So I had to take like, you know, anecdotal things

of how she was like when she was young.

A lot of it felt like my preparation was in

the physicality of her.

I always thought of her like a little like a yo-yo

in season one, that she'd kind of go out to say something,

but then she had to pull it back.

She'd try and be crafty and try and do this,

but it was like I've gotta bring it in,

and then in season two I wanted her

to have a little bit more of an arrogance about her

but misplaced maybe a little bit

because she's like the most famous person in London.

Nobody knows that she is,

and she sort of then convinced herself

that her and Colin are having this love story,

which they're really not in in season two,

but in season three, I wanna drift to feel more grounded,

more like a young woman

and more becoming comfortable with herself.

I always think a lot of the mistakes

actors make is when you have a big age gap

between you and the character you're playing is to try

and sort of patronize and not see young people

as still fully rounded human beings, which they are,

and they try and play it like a silly little baby,

and I'm like,

how many 17 year olds you know are actually like that?

They're completely with it.

So I just was like, she's a younger girl,

but I'm still playing her as a human, a fully rounded human.

So I think it was about innocence of her

but also not undermining her intelligence.

So when it comes to like Claire from Dairy Girls

versus Penelope, I sometimes

think of characters in terms of energy.

Like Claire is like up here.

It's like frantic frenetic energy,

and it's, you know, the speech is very like ratta tat tat

with her, and it's this sort of internal pace,

that's just go, go, go, go, go.

All these old women were ticking their tights off

and handing them to the driver.

Whereas I feel like Penelope is far more grounded,

and she's a real observer and takes things in.

I can always tell when a suitor is serious about

courtship just by how he looks

when a young lady danced with another.

They're both quite bookish, they're smart,

but Claire cannot keep anything in,

and Penelope keeps everything in.

I absolutely adore the dance lessons.

It's something that's been so central

to the show since season one,

and Jack Murphy has been our choreographer

throughout that time, and he's the most wonderful man.

Season one, the first dance I got to do

with Colin is called the Siege of Ennis,

which is really strangely a very famous Irish dance

that I've known since I was a little girl.

We were the contrast to the Duke and Daphne

with this very romantic sweeping dance.

We had this sort of giddy young childish dance,

and then, you know, I had another dance with Luca the end

of season two, and that was sort of inspired a little bit

by tango and a little bit back and forth.

They're kind of turning and they're not really seeing one

another and that is really reflective

of what's going on in their relationship at the time,

and then in season three we have several dances together.

I'm really happy to say it's just showing

where the dynamic has changed,

and the shift that comes with them,

and her standing on her own two feet a little more,

and also getting to dance with Lord Debling,

and that dance when she sees that a man finally sees her

as a romantic prospect and as a woman,

and I feel like in that moment it does something to her,

and the whole town sees it and Colin sees it,

and so storytelling through dance

is a super important part of the show.

It was more Penelope's tone of voice that I worked on,

the higher tones and the young energy

and not a lot of resonance.

He's already making his way back to you here

to come and take you home,

and then through season two I dropped her a little bit.

So your lady whistle down sir, it's over.

Season three, I dropped her more

because she has to feel like a woman,

and like there's a certain amount of grounding to her.

You do not much like attracting notice, do you?

[dramatic music]

The days on set are, they're hardcore.

My pickup time's only about 4:00 AM,

but I will get up like the very last minute.

I'll shower the night before.

I have my bag ready by the door, my water,

my script, everything.

I like to keep my scripts in these like spring binders,

so they hold them together,

and I'll keep two episodes at a time,

so I'll know which script we're doing that day

'cause we'll film generally like episodes one and two

together and three and four together and so on.

It takes about an hour to get to set.

I get there, we start hair and makeup,

getting the wig on, doing face masks,

doing everything.

So I have about two and a bit hours in there

where I'll read over my script.

We'd take Polaroids of every single look to document them.

Then you go down to set,

you do your director's rehearsal and the crew rehearsal.

We shoot not that much in a day, really.

If you like watch the show, it's probably like two scenes,

I guess a day, like it takes a long time to film,

and then we wrap up about, you know, 6:00 PM,

and then you go, you de-rig out of hair and makeup,

you get your wig off, you look like a little drowned rat,

take your makeup off and you're like, Oh my gosh,

I look like a regency era fancy lady a minute ago,

and now I look like this?

Then I get in the car, I move my tabs.

I've saved film this day.

Look at my scripts for the next day.

It could be an hour to two hours to get back home

because of London traffic.

Get in the door about half eight, fall asleep,

and do it all again the next day for eight months.

[dramatic music]

[indistinct crowd chattering]

The hot air balloon scene was wild

because initially it was scripted,

not as intensely as it was.

It was sort of like it came in Penelope's direction,

Lord Debling whisked her away,

but then they were like, no, we're gonna make

this a full stunt.

I was like, You are kidding me,

and we had to, like, head off

and do full stunt rehearsals for it.

I had to like throw myself onto a crash mat.

[Nicola laughing]

Tom Philips had to come and fully rugby tackled me,

like at one point he went in so hardcore that his coat stuck

to my wig, and we were attached to one another.

Yeah, Luke Newton was living his best life that day

as like the hunk with the rope.

[Luke grunting]

I really adored this season,

that they wrote some funny parts for Penn

because I feel like she's been such a sad character

in a lot of ways that hasn't had a lot of joy,

and to play her as like this goof

and realize how terrible she is with men

and how she has these insecurities

but they manifest in very funny ways.

I love birds as well. [birds chirping]

I adored that.

So in some of those moments I could be

slightly more off the book

and like take my time with stuff in away,

and I loved doing that.

Something I realized I do

as Penelope, it's unintentional,

is I blink a lot.

I'm like, do these like triple blinks,

and I'm like where did that come from?

I think I don't have a cute crying face,

you know like Florence has this really cute

like downturn, like, smile.

My whole jaw just goes like, and it's just like everything.

Yeah, I wish I was a cute crier,

but I've realized through seeing all the shows

in which I cry, I'm like, I'm absolutely not one at all.

When we were filming the carriage scene, I remember reading

that scene in the books, and it's super steamy in the books.

So we knew that it was a big deal

'cause the show is so much about those intimate moments.

It's a real part of the story.

Sometimes you see shows and you're like,

Well, why is this in there?

With Bridgerton, it never feels like that

because it's about female pleasure

and intimacy and romantic connection at a deep level.

Immediately it was like, that's terrifying.

I don't know if I can do it. I don't know that I feel ready.

So I had a long time to mentally, like,

and physically prepare for it.

I am very, very lucky that I've known Luke for like four,

almost like five years now.

We could talk about it with one another

and that makes a huge difference

because I think if I was going into it,

someone I didn't have a good dialogue with,

I'd feel even more intimidated than I already did.

What was beautiful actually is

that we had an incredible intimacy coordinator,

called Lizzy Talbot, who's worked on seasons one and two,

but we had a lot of say in what we wanted to do.

We felt a lot of ownership over it

and sometimes people misunderstand intimacy coordinator,

and they say, you know,

Is it like a dance routine in which

like your hand goes here

and you kiss at this point?

It's not really like that.

We got to do it in a really organic way,

but in that scene, a lot of it was just Luke and I

in the carriage with no one else in there.

So it was, it was nice

because it felt intimate in a very safe way.

It was quite funny actually.

I do have one funny story about when we were shooting it.

Our director Andrew Ahn, who I adore was like,

You know, it's gonna go up to this point

and then you're gonna hear me shout stop,

and you then got to Bridgerton house,

and I was like, Okay, amazing, that's fine.

So we were doing the whole scene and it's quite long.

There's dialogue and then there's the intimate stuff,

and we were going and going and going,

and doing the kissing and whatever,

and I was like, This feels long, like this,

it feels like it's going on a long time,

and I couldn't hear anything.

So we sort of kept doing it,

and I was like, This is going for ages,

like I don't understand,

and then I just sort of like took it to myself.

I was like, Oh, the carriage has stopped.

You know, I was like in character, but I was like, okay.

They called cut, and he came over,

and he was like, What were you doing?

We went, What?

He's like, Why didn't you stop?

And I was like, What do you mean?

He was like, I was shouting cut, cut,

but the carriage was like a little sound booth,

so we had not heard it.

Everyone was like, What are they doing?

[Nicola laughing]

[dramatic music]

So wardrobe is an enormous part of Bridgerton,

and an enormous part of getting into character

'cause you feel so physically transformed

when you put those gowns on.

This season, like you start off,

they really brought her back

to like the super garish colors,

and I was very, very up for that

'cause I was like, you really wanna see

that transformation in her.

So I feel like then the color palette,

she goes into this emerald for her reveal,

but I feel like then she goes,

that makes me stand out too much.

I'm gonna pull back and go into soft blues,

and then she sort of really starts the physical

transformation, and the mental transformation really then

starts to blend together over time.

[dramatic music]

The thought of doing this season scared me constantly,

throughout season two in the lead up to season three,

and then I finished and I was like, I did it.

You know, human beings were a lot more similar

than we are different.

You know, in season one when she was the shy girl

in the corner watching the boy,

she like danced with someone else.

I remember that as a teenager, you know,

I remember like dealing with sudden fame with Bridgerton,

like she was dealing with Lady Whistledown.

The process of loving yourself,

like that's still an everyday task.

I'm not gonna say I finished filming season three.

I was like, I've figured it out now,

but the importance of that

and the importance of valuing yourself,

nothing is ever gonna make sense

until you can give yourself that.

So yeah, she's teaching me things all the time.

[dramatic music]