Bridgerton season three shines the spotlight on Penelope Featherington, portrayed by Nicola Coughlan, and her romantic journey with Colin Bridgerton, played by Luke Newton. In keeping with the show’s signature style, the season features several intimate scenes, a choice that Coughlan actively supported.
“I specifically asked for certain lines and moments to be included,” Coughlan revealed in an interview with Stylist, as reported by BuzzFeed. “There’s one scene where I’m very naked on camera, and that was my idea, my choice. It just felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering.”
Coughlan has faced hurtful comments about her body throughout her career. In 2022, she expressed her struggle in a now-deleted Instagram post, stating, “It’s really hard to take the weight of thousands of opinions on how you look being sent directly to you every day.” Addressing her critics directly, she added, “If you have an opinion about my body, please, please don’t share it with me.” In a 2018 op-ed for The Guardian titled “Critics, Judge Me for My Work in Derry Girls and on the Stage, Not on My Body,” she emphasized the importance of focusing on her professional accomplishments rather than her appearance.
In a recent interview with the L.A. Times, Coughlan opened up about her apprehension before filming her first intimate scene. She recounted her reaction when costume designers provided her with a thong for the scene, saying, “I went to the bathroom and looked in the full-length mirror. I was like: ‘Absolutely not!’ I hid it down the bottom of the laundry basket. I was like: ‘How am I going to do this?'” However, Coughlan shared that filming the scenes with Newton turned out to be unexpectedly liberating. “By the end of the day, we were both lying under a blanket, not clothed, just chillin’. We were like, ‘This is why nudists do it,'” she recalled.
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