Speaker 1: Bridgerton The Official Podcast is a production of Shondaland in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Bridgerton the Official Podcast, your exclusive peak behind
Speaker 2: the curtain of Shondaland's Bridgerton Series. Season three premieres on
Speaker 2: Netflix on May sixteenth, and rest assured, this podcast will
Speaker 2: be your faithful companion, covering every single episode in depth
Speaker 2: with extraordinary insights from some of the most amazing guests ever.
Speaker 2: And while we're certainly feeling this like buzz anticipation, it's
Speaker 2: way more buzzy than that because the premiere is only
Speaker 2: fourteen days away, which actually means it's really fourteen days
Speaker 2: too many. But we're just gonna have to wait. I'm
Speaker 2: Betsy Beers, executive producer Bridgerton, and I'm your host for
Speaker 2: Inside the ton a four part special that dives deep
Speaker 2: into the genesis and the journey of some of the
Speaker 2: most beloved characters.
Speaker 3: From the show.
Speaker 2: And on this very first inaugural episode, come on, it's
Speaker 2: only fitting that we're talking about our next leading Lady,
Speaker 2: the Wallflower, Penelope Featherington, joining me across this character spotlight
Speaker 2: series or none other than Julia Quinn, author of the
Speaker 2: Bridgerton novels and our incredible showrunner Jess Brownell. Plus later
Speaker 2: you're gonna hear from the incomparable Nicola Coughlan herself on
Speaker 2: the evolution of Penelope and all those amazingly big feelings
Speaker 2: that are always bubbling up as she takes center stage.
Speaker 2: But first, let's recall the recent events in the life
Speaker 2: of Miss Penelope Featherington. Are you ready because I am.
Speaker 2: While penn has always seemed like an awkward wallflower to
Speaker 2: the other members of society, we all know that she's
Speaker 2: actually the sharp witted gossip monger that that Ton just
Speaker 2: can't get enough of. You know her, you love her,
Speaker 2: Lady Whistledown, And at the end of season two, Eloise
Speaker 2: discovered penelope secret, leading to the first major fracture in
Speaker 2: the one relationship Penelope could always count on. Now to
Speaker 2: the rest of the Ton, and especially Queen Charlotte, Lady
Speaker 2: Whistledown's identity is obviously of great interest, but nobody knows
Speaker 2: who she is yet. Okay, now, in order to know her,
Speaker 2: Penelope might be headed.
Speaker 3: Where do we start? At the very beginning?
Speaker 2: A very good place to start, as our own Lady
Speaker 2: Whistledown Julie Andrews one saying to help with that, I
Speaker 2: had the incredibly cool experience of sitting down with Julia Quinn,
Speaker 2: the original mind behind the Bridgerton universe, Julia Quinn, who
Speaker 2: wrote eight Bridgerton novels that inspired our Netflix series. We
Speaker 2: had such a good time talking about the inspiration behind
Speaker 2: creating Penelope, the origins of Lady Whistledown, and by the way,
Speaker 2: if it's an accident that all this Featherington girls have
Speaker 2: names that start with the letter P, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You got to listen to find out. Okay, today, what
Speaker 2: we're gonna do is we're going to talk about something
Speaker 2: I think we've all really been waiting for, which is
Speaker 2: obviously Bridgerton Season three, And goodness, we've been waiting a
Speaker 2: little while, but it's finally time.
Speaker 3: And I don't know.
Speaker 2: The season is so special for like so many different reasons.
Speaker 2: But I got to say, as a gigantic, obsessive Penelope fan,
Speaker 2: as I think a lot of people in this world are,
Speaker 2: I can hardly wait for this season where we get
Speaker 2: to focus on Colin and Penelope. And look, I would
Speaker 2: assume you must feel the same way, given the fact
Speaker 2: that you know, you originally created the characters of Penelope
Speaker 2: and Colin.
Speaker 4: You know. So here's an interesting story before I wrote
Speaker 4: this book, which is as much the book fans know
Speaker 4: where I guess as all the book fans know is
Speaker 4: actually the fourth book in the series, so we're going
Speaker 4: a little out of order. So we'd had three books
Speaker 4: to kind of build this up, and my fans were
Speaker 4: all going.
Speaker 1: Colin, Colin, we want Collin's book.
Speaker 4: It's all about Colin, Colin, Colin, Colin. And then after
Speaker 4: the book came out, all they wanted to talk about
Speaker 4: was Penelope. I mean, she just which is something about
Speaker 4: her just spoke to so many people in a way. Yeah,
Speaker 4: no other heroine that I'd ever written had and I
Speaker 4: mean the most vivid comment I got from somebody and
Speaker 4: said something like, were you spying on me in high school?
Speaker 3: Because that was me?
Speaker 4: And I just think that the essence of Penelope, in
Speaker 4: my mind, is someone who it's not that she doesn't know.
Speaker 3: Who she is.
Speaker 4: She knows who she is, but she doesn't know how
Speaker 4: to be the person on the outside that she knows
Speaker 4: she is on the inside. And I remember that feeling
Speaker 4: so distinctly from my high school days. I pulled a
Speaker 4: lot from that too.
Speaker 3: Is just it.
Speaker 4: Sounds so good in your head and then you say
Speaker 4: it and it comes out all wrong and things like that,
Speaker 4: and you're just like, no, I know I'm funny and
Speaker 4: I know I'm smart, and how come whenever I then
Speaker 4: try to be that way, it really feels like I'm
Speaker 4: trying too hard or I just cannot be effortlessly effortless
Speaker 4: sleep cool. See I still can't even say the word effortlessly.
Speaker 2: It's an overrated word. No, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2: I do think that that's the part. It's almost like
Speaker 2: there's a jet lag between your brain and then when
Speaker 2: it comes out of your mouth. That's somehow or another
Speaker 2: time went by and it was great the way it
Speaker 2: sounded in your hand, but then it popped out. And look,
Speaker 2: I think we all at the core of it is
Speaker 2: we all identify with PENELOPEA at one point or another,
Speaker 2: because we've all been that person who felt like one
Speaker 2: thing internally, and then we realize that we don't project
Speaker 2: at all the way we actually I wished that we did. Now,
Speaker 2: when you first started the world of Bridgerton, how soon
Speaker 2: did Penelope emerge and what kind of thought process went
Speaker 2: into your your I mean obviously your own experience, but
Speaker 2: the creation of her character, like, what was that process like?
Speaker 4: So when I wrote the first book, she was really
Speaker 4: kind of just this side character who came about who
Speaker 4: there wasn't much of her. But I just wondered, I needed, like,
Speaker 4: you know, this wallflower who she almost existed as a
Speaker 4: prop or came up as a prop. So like the
Speaker 4: Bridgington boys, we could show that they were kind because
Speaker 4: they needed to be kind to somebody. And that's how
Speaker 4: she first kind of entered, and then she kind of
Speaker 4: became a little bit more. But when I was writing
Speaker 4: the first book, I had no idea who Lady Whistledown was.
Speaker 3: I was just about to ask you that I.
Speaker 4: Figured it out, or I should say I decided when
Speaker 4: I was right around me, probably a few chapters from
Speaker 4: the end, and because I'm starting to panic, I'm thinking,
Speaker 4: I really need to know who this is. Even if
Speaker 4: I'm not going to reveal it, I need to know
Speaker 4: who it is. And so then I decided, you know,
Speaker 4: I think it should be Penelope because she's you know,
Speaker 4: she's off everyone's radar. And then I went frantically back
Speaker 4: to make sure I hadn't done anything to make it impossible,
Speaker 4: like I hadn't, you know, had her often you know,
Speaker 4: Scotland or something when when she would have to be
Speaker 4: seeing something. And then from there, from the next few
Speaker 4: books on, I knew that she was Lady Whistledown. So
Speaker 4: there was a lot more thought involved in developing her character,
Speaker 4: but in kind of a slightly stealth way not to
Speaker 4: make it so obvious that she was going to be
Speaker 4: this big part, and also just really kind of to
Speaker 4: to ramp up her crush with on Colin. And so
Speaker 4: one of my favorite scenes that she's in is actually
Speaker 4: in an Offer from a Gentleman, which is Book three,
Speaker 4: which they have a version of it in last season,
Speaker 4: where she overhears Colin saying I'm never going to marry
Speaker 4: Penelope Featherington and it's it's the world's most awkward moment.
Speaker 4: It's a little different in the book because he's talking
Speaker 4: with his brothers then as opposed to a bunch of friends,
Speaker 4: and you know, his brothers are really horrified on his behalf.
Speaker 4: I mean they just I mean they can't even defend
Speaker 4: him because it's just this terrible, terrible moment. And yeah,
Speaker 4: so kind of went on from there.
Speaker 2: I think that the whole kind of concept of Lady
Speaker 2: Whistledown is such an interesting idea because you figure it
Speaker 2: is so you think about, I mean, people talk by gossip,
Speaker 2: earl et cetera, et cetera. But it's so much rooted
Speaker 2: in obviously the history of regency England and England. How
Speaker 2: did you go about building because you're two different personalities,
Speaker 2: so it sounds sort of like you did it. It
Speaker 2: is two trains running, and then you put the trains
Speaker 2: together and then started to tailor Penelope to incorporate whistle Down.
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Whistledout definitely had her her own voice before
Speaker 4: I realized it was Penelope. But it didn't mean that
Speaker 4: it couldn't be Penelope, because as I was writing the
Speaker 4: first book, The Duke and I, Lady Whistleden was a
Speaker 4: much bigger part of it than Penelope Feather and Chain was.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't like I was establishing this Penelope's character
Speaker 4: in a way that made it not make sense with
Speaker 4: Lady whistle Down. It was sort of Yeah, So Lady
Speaker 4: Wiston did kind of come first in terms of developing
Speaker 4: the characters. And then as I realized I needed to
Speaker 4: work with Penelope in this way. I started, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: say hints, but started just building her out in a
Speaker 4: manner that could incorporate this. And then when we got
Speaker 4: to Romancing Mister Bridgerton, which is the book upon which
Speaker 4: season three is based, that's when I really had to
Speaker 4: get into it, because that's when you're finally in her head, right.
Speaker 4: And I still wanted to write that book in a
Speaker 4: way so that even halfway through the book, the reader
Speaker 4: didn't know that she was Lady Whistledown. It didn't even
Speaker 4: revealed to the reader. It still could have gone a
Speaker 4: different way.
Speaker 3: I loved that.
Speaker 2: I mean I loved that, somehow or another, you were
Speaker 2: still in point of view. And that's a real trick,
Speaker 2: is to stay in point of view but keep a
Speaker 2: secret from the reader without making the reader feel like,
Speaker 2: how could I not have known this? But that was
Speaker 2: such an incredible juggling act. Now I know we talked
Speaker 2: about this in the Bridgerton book, that Whistledown is there's
Speaker 2: a historical precedent for Whistledown because from what I understood,
Speaker 2: there were gossip columns during this period of time. This
Speaker 2: wasn't something which was totally out of the ordinary. I
Speaker 2: suspect I don't know that the identity of the gossip
Speaker 2: communist was always secret. I mean that I don't know.
Speaker 4: The big difference was that in the gossip columns they
Speaker 4: never named people outright. God they always and you could
Speaker 4: usually guess who it was, but they never actually wrote
Speaker 4: out full names, and so that was meant to be
Speaker 4: the big the big deal that lady whistled Awound was
Speaker 4: actually pointing fingers directly at people, and then I tried
Speaker 4: to make it so it was also maybe just being
Speaker 4: a little bit I don't know, harsher's the right word,
Speaker 4: but a little bit more detailed in what she was saying, too,
Speaker 4: which made it pretty clear that it was one of them,
Speaker 4: somebody who had a lot of inside knowledge was in there,
Speaker 4: which I'm not sure the gossip colonists then were as
Speaker 4: connected as Penelope.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I sort of feel like the gossip columnists then
Speaker 2: were much more like blind items. I used to live
Speaker 2: in New York and there was a New York Post
Speaker 2: and there was these blind items. Was it felt to
Speaker 2: me like it was much more observations without names, and
Speaker 2: this which is so startling because it is calling out right,
Speaker 2: you know that the ton of incredible detail. Penelope is
Speaker 2: so incredibly captivated by the Bridgerton family, obviously, as are we.
Speaker 2: I mean, what is it about what are the embody
Speaker 2: that you feel appeals to Penelope to that degree? I mean,
Speaker 2: can you say in words like what is it about that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know what appeals to me about the
Speaker 2: Bridgertons is you just want to be a freaking Bridgerton.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think it's just the love and the acceptance
Speaker 4: and you know, the fun. I mean, they don't always
Speaker 4: get along, but you know that they're always there for you.
Speaker 4: They've always got each other's back, and that is something
Speaker 4: that she's not getting in her family at all. She's
Speaker 4: never feeling that she's got that her family has her back.
Speaker 4: And in fact, in the book, and this was something
Speaker 4: that we couldn't really incorporate into the television series because
Speaker 4: we elected not to have Felicity, there was a fourth
Speaker 4: Featherington's sister in the books, in Him's Felicity, And there
Speaker 4: is a scene in the book which I thought really
Speaker 4: encapsulated when Colin comes to ask for her hand, her
Speaker 4: mother assumes that he wants Felicity, and she's just like Felicity,
Speaker 4: Felicity get down here, and he's like, why would Felicity
Speaker 4: need to be here, you know, And it was just
Speaker 4: this perfect moment of all the ways Penelope has been overlooked,
Speaker 4: which I mean, I do think the show still captures
Speaker 4: it wonderfully even without Felicity, But it was just this
Speaker 4: is what she sees as a family that supports each other,
Speaker 4: which she just doesn't have.
Speaker 2: Now you have all the other Featherington girls and mom
Speaker 2: with the letter p SO, because you have Philippa Pruden's Penelope,
Speaker 2: and then there was.
Speaker 4: Philippa sounds like you an f SO. I don't know,
Speaker 4: it just seemed like it just seemed like the right name.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to Bridgerton the Official Podcast. It should come as no
Speaker 2: surprise that I love nothing more than a fast minded,
Speaker 2: brilliant creative. Such a joy to take a peek into
Speaker 2: Julia's Penelope process right now. As Julia mentioned, Colin and
Speaker 2: Penelope story takes place in book four. However, we moved
Speaker 2: it up to season three of the series. Why well
Speaker 2: I talk more about this decision with the one and
Speaker 2: only Jess Brownew. Jess is a fabulous writer, the phenomenal
Speaker 2: showrunner for season three of Bridgerton in an all round
Speaker 2: incredible human being who I've known many many years and
Speaker 2: is just a big bright burst of talent to get
Speaker 2: into Penn's series journey and some of the decisions of
Speaker 2: how season three is crafted. Please enjoy my conversation with
Speaker 2: the amazing showrunner Jess Brownew. Obviously, this is the season
Speaker 2: of Colin and Penelope. We're all incredibly excited to see this.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've been following them for two seasons now,
Speaker 2: in their individual orbits and in their incredible friendship and
Speaker 2: connection with the each other. I know, we decided to
Speaker 2: skip a book in the series, so we sort of
Speaker 2: went straight from book two to book four. Can you
Speaker 2: give us any insight as to why we decided to
Speaker 2: move out order on that, Jess.
Speaker 5: So we decided to move the book order for a
Speaker 5: few reasons. First, you have the fact that you know,
Speaker 5: we've known Colin and Penelope for two seasons now, We've
Speaker 5: fallen in love with both of them. We love you know,
Speaker 5: Nikola and Luke and want to see more from them.
Speaker 5: But most importantly, there's this dynamic between Colin and Penelope
Speaker 5: where she obviously has a massive crush on him and
Speaker 5: he has no idea, or as soon as he is
Speaker 5: about to have an idea, he pulls back from having
Speaker 5: an idea, and it's a sort of infuriating dynamic. I
Speaker 5: think as a viewer, you want to scream at your television, like,
Speaker 5: come on, Colin, She's right in front of you. And
Speaker 5: we just felt like that wasn't something we could continue
Speaker 5: on for too long before people would be maybe physically
Speaker 5: shaking their TVs. So it was really it was really
Speaker 5: time to, you know, push their dynamic in a new
Speaker 5: direction and see what else is there for them. I'll
Speaker 5: say also that, as people know, the book that was
Speaker 5: skipped was Benedict's book, and Benedict is a real fan favorite,
Speaker 5: and he's a real writer's room favorite. You know, Benedict
Speaker 5: has a real appetite for adventure, and it didn't feel
Speaker 5: right for him to settle down to three seasons into
Speaker 5: our show. It felt like we wanted to see more
Speaker 5: of his adventures and give him a few more high
Speaker 5: jinks before he's ready to meet his one and only.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's such a good point because
Speaker 2: in a way, it's despite the fact that there are
Speaker 2: two trains running, you know, Penelope and Colin. We dug
Speaker 2: much more into their stories. I mean, Colin had the
Speaker 2: entire experience with Marina in the first season, and obviously
Speaker 2: Penelope's been a point of concentration since we discovered she
Speaker 2: was whistled down at the very least. So it does
Speaker 2: make so much sense that these these two characters who
Speaker 2: we've we've always had this connection with, get to move
Speaker 2: forward at this point, you know. And I also just
Speaker 2: think it's it's fascinating to have Penelope as the sort
Speaker 2: of third heroine, if that makes sense, because so far
Speaker 2: we've had Daphanie. She was poised and she was confident,
Speaker 2: and she knew what she wanted and she was going
Speaker 2: willingly into the marriage mart And then we had Kate,
Speaker 2: who had no interest in it whatsoever except for her
Speaker 2: sister and was feisty and judgye and and now we've
Speaker 2: got Penn, who's, you know, sort of a wallflower. I mean,
Speaker 2: how do you think Penn's going to bring and what
Speaker 2: do you think she's going to bring to the table
Speaker 2: as a leading lady.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, she's a very different kind of leading
Speaker 5: life Penelope. She is a bit of an underdog and
Speaker 5: has been underestimated left and right by especially her family
Speaker 5: and the rest of society as well. And I think,
Speaker 5: you know, Nicola Coughlan, first of all, brings so much
Speaker 5: humor and optimism and this effervescence to the role, which
Speaker 5: makes her a really exciting character. Even though Penn is
Speaker 5: getting kind of dumped on left and right by her
Speaker 5: family and everyone else, you always know that she's going
Speaker 5: to find a solution, She's going to make the best
Speaker 5: of a bad situation because that's what she does, and
Speaker 5: Nikola brings that sort of, you know, sense of optimism.
Speaker 5: So I'm really looking forward to seeing this character get
Speaker 5: to shine this season. You know, she's spent so long
Speaker 5: in the Shadows. She has this double personality where she's
Speaker 5: a badass, she's whistled down deep inside, which is almost
Speaker 5: like the girl if she were at the end of
Speaker 5: her arc, and yet she can't show that person in
Speaker 5: her public life, in her romantic life. So seeing her
Speaker 5: get to step into her own with skills we already
Speaker 5: know she has is really exciting.
Speaker 2: How do you think about her two identities and how
Speaker 2: do you feel like they're intersected? In seasons one and two,
Speaker 2: like how does she embody them?
Speaker 5: So we have Lady Whistledown on the one side, who
Speaker 5: is this badass woman who has had the fortitude to
Speaker 5: put together this scandal sheet, to figure out how to
Speaker 5: get it printed, to figure out how to secretly destro it.
Speaker 5: And then you have Penelope in season one, who, even
Speaker 5: though she's you know, writing about affairs and really sexy,
Speaker 5: scandal is like how do women come to be with child?
Speaker 5: So there's this real dichotomy between what she has inside
Speaker 5: of her. But the fact is she's still a girl
Speaker 5: in seasons one and two, and it's a lot of
Speaker 5: power and a lot of responsibility to give a girl,
Speaker 5: and we've seen her make some mistakes along the way.
Speaker 5: So when we enter season three, I think that that's
Speaker 5: something that she'll have to reckon with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the relationship at the end of season two,
Speaker 2: I mean when Elouise finds out obviously it's so complicated.
Speaker 2: I mean that's that extra layer that now got placed
Speaker 2: upon it, which is she has this particular power. She's
Speaker 2: done her best to try to balance how to use
Speaker 2: that power, and in the process has potentially destroyed forever
Speaker 2: her best friendship, which is an incredibly difficult pill to
Speaker 2: swallow in in a weird way. For me, when I
Speaker 2: saw that, it was sort of like the first time
Speaker 2: I think she actually really it fully resonated on to
Speaker 2: her the kind of power she has because she made
Speaker 2: certain choices. Is, you know, encouraging Eloise's breakup in order
Speaker 2: to save her. It's it's this weird realization that you're
Speaker 2: not just a gossip columnist. In a weird way, you're
Speaker 2: playing god, you know it. Just certainly I think Eloise's
Speaker 2: point of view too, And I really feel for Penelope
Speaker 2: because I think your point is so well taken. She's
Speaker 2: she's just a girl who needed an outlet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she chose a pretty big outlet, but yeah, she
Speaker 5: doesn't have the means to understand her power because she's
Speaker 5: denied power in so many ways. Think about, you know,
Speaker 5: Daphne in season one having sex barely explained to her,
Speaker 5: and then you can extrapolate running an empire in which
Speaker 5: you're sharing everyone's secrets, like you don't understand the code
Speaker 5: or the ways of the world. No one is explaining
Speaker 5: anything to these girls. They're having to figure it all
Speaker 5: out for themselves.
Speaker 2: No, when you think about it, the only person that
Speaker 2: she's been able to confide in at all in the
Speaker 2: least tiny way as the mode East. You know, so
Speaker 2: there's been she's had. To your point, it's it's not
Speaker 2: like she has a team of a team of helpers
Speaker 2: who are counseling her. There's no business here. It's Penelope
Speaker 2: of the floorboards. She's also hiding it from everybody, So
Speaker 2: it's it's definitely, it's definitely a lot. How did you
Speaker 2: go about planning the seeds of pollen?
Speaker 3: Seeds of pomp? That's funny. How did you go about
Speaker 3: planting those seeds like putting? I just realized that was.
Speaker 2: A pun y'all in seasons one and two, because I
Speaker 2: know we just you know, you can't get away from
Speaker 2: a good pun. Fans I think have really high expectations,
Speaker 2: obviously for this relationship. I mean, I know I do,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure everybody else does. And because we're so
Speaker 2: invested in them, I mean, how do you ever meet
Speaker 2: everyone's expectations? In the beginning of any of these shows,
Speaker 2: like any any season of Bridgerton, it feels like, how
Speaker 2: do you do it?
Speaker 5: You can't think about it, you know, when we talk
Speaker 5: about the fans, when I first started on the show.
Speaker 5: You know, my grandmother is ninety one years old. She
Speaker 5: has never watched anything else I've worked on. You know,
Speaker 5: she's very specific at her age about what she watches.
Speaker 5: But when I told her I was going to write
Speaker 5: on Bridgerton, she freaked out. She has read every single
Speaker 5: Bridgerton book, you know, a decade before the show ever
Speaker 5: was a thing, and she was like, don't let me down.
Speaker 5: And it was a ton of pressure. But I've realized
Speaker 5: that instead of worrying about what the entire fandom wants
Speaker 5: to see, I hire people who are fans. We are
Speaker 5: a bunch of fans sitting around in the writer's room
Speaker 5: debating the marriage of different storylines. And you know, may
Speaker 5: the best debate or win, I guess, but you know,
Speaker 5: we have to write to character. Instead of thinking about
Speaker 5: pleasing any particular faction of the fandom, we think about
Speaker 5: who is this character, what is the arc that they
Speaker 5: need to travel on, what obstacles are going to make
Speaker 5: them face those.
Speaker 2: I know that makes a lot of sense. It's so
Speaker 2: funny because I remember Necklace first audition, like when she
Speaker 2: was auditioning and she was one of those characters we
Speaker 2: cast virtually immediately off the first audition, and I think
Speaker 2: we cast her so much as Penelope. I didn't even
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about the whistle doown part. And
Speaker 2: she's managed to embody in the most delightful way. All
Speaker 2: that whistledown is, which is the fun, the innocence, the cheek.
Speaker 2: It's incredible that she as an actress can do both
Speaker 2: things so incredibly well. I think it's just a delight
Speaker 2: to watch.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, and when we cast her, she's obviously
Speaker 5: not she wasn't seventeen or however old the character was.
Speaker 5: But I look back at those older seasons and she
Speaker 5: has this little girl voice, and then every season the voice,
Speaker 5: you know, sounds more and more like an adult. And
Speaker 5: people will see stepping into season three, you know, she
Speaker 5: sounds like someone who's been through some stuff now and
Speaker 5: the character certainly has.
Speaker 2: Do you see up until now, how Penelopees evolved over
Speaker 2: the course of the show, I mean, in how it's
Speaker 2: signified to the audience, how she talks, how she dresses.
Speaker 2: Because I feel like over the course of the past
Speaker 2: couple of seasons, I mean, I'm very excited for this one,
Speaker 2: but there have been these sort of adjustments.
Speaker 5: You look at season one and she has this, you know,
Speaker 5: younger voice, and the way she dresses is obviously much younger.
Speaker 5: It's dictated by what her mother tells her to wear.
Speaker 5: And she also isn't speaking up for herself really at
Speaker 5: all in season one. Then you track into season two
Speaker 5: and you have these moments where, you know, Colin says
Speaker 5: to her, I've sworn off women, and she says, but
Speaker 5: I'm a woman, and he goes, oh, you're just Penelope
Speaker 5: and she stops there. But there's just these little moments
Speaker 5: where she goes, no, I'm gonna say who I am,
Speaker 5: you know, very slowly. She's putting herself out there, and
Speaker 5: we'll see a big swing in that direction in season three.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to hear more and more from the
Speaker 2: brilliant Jess Brandellen coming episodes. I know I've said it,
Speaker 2: I'm going to say it again, and then I'm going
Speaker 2: to say it again after that. She is the very best. Now,
Speaker 2: I couldn't think of anyone better to bring Penelope to
Speaker 2: life than Nicola Cochlan. She has this hunger for love
Speaker 2: well also having this equal passion for the Nicola embodies
Speaker 2: this so seamlessly, and it is such a testament to
Speaker 2: her talent. Schandalane sat down with Nicola behind the scenes
Speaker 2: on set to discuss exactly what Penelope has meant to
Speaker 2: her thus far.
Speaker 6: When I found out that Luke and I have the
Speaker 6: leads of season three, my first reaction was panic rather
Speaker 6: than excitement, because I didn't expect it, and I'd had
Speaker 6: a conversation with Claudia a couple of days before, being like,
Speaker 6: isn't it so fal underpaid? Like the weirdo in the corner,
Speaker 6: and that's a real comfort zone for me. So then
Speaker 6: the work in my brain to have to go, You're
Speaker 6: the leading lady, you know. It's like art imitating life
Speaker 6: in the show, Penelope having to come into her womanhood
Speaker 6: and herself and who she truly is and have that confidence.
Speaker 6: I've also been going on a similar journey because it's difficult,
Speaker 6: you know, following the footsteps of Phoebe and Simone, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, well, how am I going to do that?
Speaker 5: How am I gonna?
Speaker 6: You know, you you question yourself all the time, you know,
Speaker 6: in pasture syndrome. But I think that's what has made
Speaker 6: this such a beautiful experience.
Speaker 2: Thank you to my special guest Nicola Coughlan, Jess Brunnell,
Speaker 2: and the incomparable Julia Quinn. I'm your host, Betsy Beers,
Speaker 2: and thank you especially for listening to Inside the Ton.
Speaker 2: Do you have any theories or hopes or dreams of
Speaker 2: what Penelope will experience in season three? Ooh ooh, let
Speaker 2: us know in reviews. We love reviews. Let us know,
Speaker 2: and maybe we won't tell you.
Speaker 3: But we'll still love to hear it.
Speaker 2: And guess what you can get even more Inside the
Speaker 2: Ton right now, because next up we're spotlighting the most
Speaker 2: rebellious of the Bridgerton family, Benedict and Eloise, and exploring
Speaker 2: how we left the notorious Swingset siblings at the close
Speaker 2: of season two. I want to be there for that.
Speaker 2: Of course I will, because I'm hosting Bridgerton. The official
Speaker 2: podcast is produced by Shondaland Audio and Wonder Media Network.
Speaker 2: This show is executive produced by Sandy Bays, Alex Alcea,
Speaker 2: Lauren Homan, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our producers are
Speaker 2: Sarah Schleid, Edie Allard, and Carmen Borca Carrio. This episode
Speaker 2: is edited by Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Lauren Williams and Akia McKnight. If
Speaker 1: you haven't finished binging Bridgerton, please head to Netflix so
Speaker 1: you can enjoy these spoilers with us each week. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.