Nicola Coughlan, who is about to take center stage in Netflix’s “Bridgerton” Season 3, wrote a Lady Whistledown-style letter to preface this moment in her career.
The letter, written for the Harper’s Bazaar UK UK May cover, details how Coughlan feels about the transition from “oddball in the corner” to “very much centre-stage.”
“One part of doing this job I love is stepping into the spotlight and shouting from the rooftops about how proud I am to be part of this thing, and how much it would mean for the world to love it as much as I do! And with this comes scrutiny. So much scrutiny,” Coughlan wrote. “Luckily, I have a fool-proof way to avoid scrutiny as a woman in the industry!”
The “Derry Girls” actress then wrote a set of sarcastic principles to follow, highlighting the criticism that surrounds women in entertainment as they age. Her bolded guidelines include: “Be permanently 22 years old,” because “you’re not allowed to age beyond this;” “Be a sample size,” and “accepting that in every interview you will have to talk about your figure instead of your work;” and “You must have a sparkling personality,” because “in this industry, men might not be canceled for being abusers, but women will get canceled for saying something slightly annoying in an interview one time.”
“Look, I can’t help being facetious,” Coughlan added. “As much as I love what I do, all the scrutiny isn’t easy, and fame is a very strange consequence of doing my job.”
The actress further described stepping out into the spotlight from Penelope’s previous wallflower status as something she felt “racked with doubt” about. She also described filming Season 3 of “Bridgerton” and her Channel 4 comedy “Big Mood” simultaneously, with a month of shoots overlapping.
“Do I find it harder to put work out when I know there will be more and more eyes on me? Absolutely,” Coughlan continued. “At the time of writing, only two clips of the new series of ‘Bridgerton’ have been released into the world, and the response has been… actually, amazing. I girded my loins for terrible comments, and when they were so positive, I was shocked.”
“Bridgerton” Season 3, Part 1 arrives May 16 on Netflix.
