Speaker 1: Bridget The Official Podcast is a partnership between shondaland Audio
Speaker 1: and Iheartradiotin offers an escape, and for me, that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that got me excited about the show,
Speaker 1: and it's what I want viewers to take away that
Speaker 1: they can be transported an escape to this other world,
Speaker 1: this beautiful, gorgeous, decadent world. But I also want viewers
Speaker 1: to relate to these characters and to see themselves on screen.
Speaker 1: No matter who you are, I want you to laugh
Speaker 1: and cry and love right along with them. I wanted
Speaker 1: this show to be about a world and about an
Speaker 1: entire society, and there's a vibrancy to this world. Things
Speaker 1: are fresh, things are youthful. There is an effervescence and
Speaker 1: a sparkle to every thing, and I think that's true
Speaker 1: for the set design, the costume. Certainly everything is rooted
Speaker 1: in the regency time period, but still slightly updated. The
Speaker 1: volume is turned up on everything that was Chris Van Deuson, creator, showrunner,
Speaker 1: and executive producer of Bridgerton, the show that led us
Speaker 1: to be gathered here today. Welcome to Bridgeton the Official Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Gabrielle Collins, and you can consider me
Speaker 1: your official guide behind the scenes at shantaland so I
Speaker 1: live for the art of fact history, drama docs. I
Speaker 1: also love spreadsheets and stand well oiled production teams, so naturally,
Speaker 1: Bridgeton was a super combo of the stuff I love
Speaker 1: about life's top shelf, medicine, television. So gather your dress,
Speaker 1: straighten that assinator, and come with me on this podcast.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear how Bridgerton came to life. And y'all,
Speaker 1: I have some friends coming along and they are excited
Speaker 1: to talk about how life behind the Scenes rocked. Allow
Speaker 1: me to introduce my highly esteemed co hosts. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Jess Brownell. I was a writer on season one of
Speaker 1: Bridgerton and also on season two. I'm Hannay Craig. And
Speaker 1: I'm the historian who is lucky enough to be on
Speaker 1: set with Bridgeton. And I'm Anna Belhood. I was a
Speaker 1: researcher and Chris Benduson's personal assistant on Bridgeton, and I
Speaker 1: am You're certified behind the scenes guide Gabrielle Collins. And this,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it tured you off? Do I click?
Speaker 1: Do you want me to click? How big this file?
Speaker 1: This is? Gonna be a big file. Oh was I
Speaker 1: doing that? I'm so sorry. Take control of my computer.
Speaker 1: We're connected. Can you say something? No? Hold on? Wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been a we've got a connection issues. This is
Speaker 1: the glamorous world of podcasting these days. Compared to when
Speaker 1: it's pouring rain and you ankle deep in mud and
Speaker 1: you just kind of like push all your equipment up
Speaker 1: a muddy hill to try and get to the next location.
Speaker 1: That's how glamorous. This is very glamorous. So this is
Speaker 1: what we're going to do on this little episode. It's
Speaker 1: a minisode, little appetizer before we get into the main
Speaker 1: course of the show. Since there are so many voices
Speaker 1: you're going to hear on this podcast in the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: we just wanted to take the time to introduce ourselves
Speaker 1: and talk a bit about what's to come on the podcast.
Speaker 1: So you're basically going to get to know your guides.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna sit here and get giddy about Bridgerton
Speaker 1: and what it was like bringing it together. Jess Annabelle Hannah.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to go behind the scenes and learn
Speaker 1: about your time on set in the throes of production.
Speaker 1: We are going to give you a peek inside the
Speaker 1: writer's room. Yes, we're going to learn how the sauce
Speaker 1: was made. We're going to get into the themes and
Speaker 1: modern twists in Bridgerton with book series author Julia Quinn,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into how the writer's room debated and
Speaker 1: came to some of the decisions you all made on
Speaker 1: the show, Jess. We'll also hear from Chris van Dusen
Speaker 1: and Shonda Rhimes is long time producing partner and an
Speaker 1: executive producer on Bridgerton. Betsy Beers, Oh, I actually used
Speaker 1: to work for I started my career at Shondalan, asked
Speaker 1: Betsy Beers's assistant. Believe it or not, that's right, Jess.
Speaker 1: I love how you never leave us hanging on the sidelines.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about being in the writer's room. You
Speaker 1: pull up a seat for us, and we feel like
Speaker 1: we're there with you. So if you're really pulling up
Speaker 1: a seat in the writer's room, you're feeling a little
Speaker 1: bit sweaty because you've been sitting in there for ten hours.
Speaker 1: You're drinking sparkling water, which is, for some reason, the
Speaker 1: official beverage of writer's rooms. Actually, season one, we wrote
Speaker 1: in a windowless room. So okay, that's the seat that's
Speaker 1: being pulled up, just you can set the scene. That's perfect.
Speaker 1: I will also mention that Madame Delacois is named that
Speaker 1: because we drank so much Lacroix in the room that
Speaker 1: when we were joking, when we were trying to come
Speaker 1: up with a French name, I think someone pitched as
Speaker 1: a joke like de Lacroix. Did ye really get it stuck?
Speaker 1: I'm gullible, I'm not lying. It's like a joke at
Speaker 1: this point that TV writers rooms are obsessed with Lacroix.
Speaker 1: They're always stalked with it. We would go through cases
Speaker 1: and cases a day. Wow, wow, and yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: she got her name. It's like we hate to strip
Speaker 1: back all the glamor is. It's so true from such
Speaker 1: humble beginnings came you know, this very sexy show. Oh, Hannah,
Speaker 1: listeners are going to feel the same way about what
Speaker 1: you have to say. What are you most excited to
Speaker 1: get into? Oh, it's just going to be exciting to
Speaker 1: think about all the stuff we put together for Bridgeton.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, it's like a world that's like
Speaker 1: one foot in the past, one foot in the present
Speaker 1: and then just all this glitter that comes from schandaland
Speaker 1: it's just going to be exciting to think about that again.
Speaker 1: And I will talk about history to anybody, so I'm
Speaker 1: happy to do that on the podcast Awesome Awesome. I'm
Speaker 1: excited too because Will Hughes Jones said that Google and
Speaker 1: Wikipedia are wonderful things, but that you were like a
Speaker 1: walking encyclopedia. I do see myself as the kind of
Speaker 1: the reference resource, the walking reference library that anyone can
Speaker 1: pull on. I think it's helpful that I've worked quite
Speaker 1: a lot with productions over the years. I understand how
Speaker 1: something goes from script to filming to final production. Okay,
Speaker 1: so tell us a little more about how you ended
Speaker 1: up being the historian on Bridgerton. Well, I think if
Speaker 1: someone had said to me many years ago, oh, Hannah,
Speaker 1: if you get a PhD, then one day you can
Speaker 1: work on a Shonda Rhimes production, I wouldn't have believed it.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't the sort of typical path that I
Speaker 1: thought that history would take me to. But of course
Speaker 1: it's a very exciting, magical path that I've ended up on.
Speaker 1: And I've always loved history even as a child, and
Speaker 1: some of my childhood memories involved visiting historic sites with
Speaker 1: my family in Europe and in England, and what really
Speaker 1: captured my imagination actually were sort of things like the
Speaker 1: set of stone steps that you see in a castle
Speaker 1: with those dips in the middle of the steps, and
Speaker 1: I just used to walk down those steps and think
Speaker 1: how many people must have walked there before me to
Speaker 1: have made that dip in stone. And you can see
Speaker 1: the marks on a wall where all the hands have gone,
Speaker 1: and I just think, who were those people? Were they
Speaker 1: like me? What were they doing? Were they happy? Were
Speaker 1: they sad? And that always took me to kind of
Speaker 1: wanting to read about the past and think about the past,
Speaker 1: And it is just kind of an excuse to sit
Speaker 1: in a kind of landscape of your own imagination that's
Speaker 1: filled with all these ideas from all the books that
Speaker 1: you ease, and then as a historian, all the sources
Speaker 1: you start to study. My head was always kind of
Speaker 1: teeming with the voices and the stories and say for me,
Speaker 1: it always felt like film and television became a place
Speaker 1: where lots of these people then also came to life.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a natural progression for me. Each
Speaker 1: episode Hannah will give us a Regency era history lesson.
Speaker 1: She's gonna unpack the stuff that will make you go
Speaker 1: back and watch Bridgerton again looking for clues twice. I'm
Speaker 1: unashamed to say that I have, Hannah. Your expertise is
Speaker 1: going to help us to contextualize the setting of the
Speaker 1: show and help us low keep easter eggs. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: don't worry. I'm not going to set a test at
Speaker 1: the end or anything. But if you do want to
Speaker 1: write an essay, I will read it for you. I
Speaker 1: love a test. I miss school. I would like to
Speaker 1: take better. Okay, all right, we need like Bridgerton the
Speaker 1: board game where you get tested on history or something.
Speaker 1: You as you advance you get to like, you know,
Speaker 1: make out with a duke. Yeah, and lazy time Reston
Speaker 1: of Iniquity. I would be in all the time, hang
Speaker 1: out in the den of Iniquity. Yes. And finally, on
Speaker 1: the podcast, we're going to geek out with the production
Speaker 1: and custom designers and the cast about how this fantastical
Speaker 1: world was built. Annabelle will be our guide. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: had the privilege of seeing just how Bridgeton came from
Speaker 1: being in Chris Vanderson's imagination and the just the sheer
Speaker 1: power of everyone working together to make this show. I
Speaker 1: am Chris van Dusen's personal assistant. That's pretty self explanatory.
Speaker 1: But then you're not just getting lunches and helping schedule things.
Speaker 1: You're on a lot of email chains and you know
Speaker 1: a lot of things. I know a lot of secrets.
Speaker 1: I could be lady whistled down with how many secrets
Speaker 1: I know. People friends are texting me being like, do
Speaker 1: you know what's happening with this? And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: literally can't tell you. I'm so sorry, I literally can't
Speaker 1: tell you what's happening. That's really really cool. Now that
Speaker 1: Bridgeton has become such a huge hit, there's lots of
Speaker 1: crew that are coming out with behind the scenes photos,
Speaker 1: and if ever I'm tagged in one of them, I'm
Speaker 1: usually like standing in a corner on my phone and
Speaker 1: my laptop at the same time. I'm never doing anything interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm never like standing in the middle of a field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you are the island of calm though the whole time,
Speaker 1: and about you. You know, when everything else was I
Speaker 1: tried to fitting around you. You would like the calm
Speaker 1: person always. Yeah, sometimes with a hard stare, I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to get to experience this for season two, to
Speaker 1: be uncertain, experience all the stress. But it is fun.
Speaker 1: That's what people. We say. It's stressful, and we say
Speaker 1: it's crazy, and we say we're standing in the pouring rain.
Speaker 1: But then at the same time, you catch yourself looking
Speaker 1: around me like I wouldn't actually want to be anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Is it kind of maybe type too fun where you're like,
Speaker 1: as it's happening, you're sort of complaining, and then you
Speaker 1: look back on it and you're like, that was awesome. Yes,
Speaker 1: I got the sense that y'all were in sync from
Speaker 1: day one, like especially during writing and when the engines
Speaker 1: fired up on set. Yeah, it always the first day
Speaker 1: of set always feels like the first day of school.
Speaker 1: You're meeting new people for the first time. You know,
Speaker 1: you can be as prepared as possible for the first
Speaker 1: day of school and you still feel like you've forgotten something.
Speaker 1: And that's definitely what Bridgeton felt like day one. And
Speaker 1: then by day two everyone was friends. Everyone got along
Speaker 1: and it was like, all right, let's make this TV
Speaker 1: show nice. You know, there was only one of the
Speaker 1: writers on set per season one obviously because it was
Speaker 1: London and far away, so we didn't get to experience
Speaker 1: the crew tightness. But that writer's room, I will say
Speaker 1: we are still all on a group thread. We talk
Speaker 1: like every day. It was such a close knit group,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that close knit energy, you know,
Speaker 1: is reflected work, Like we were really able to bounce
Speaker 1: off of each other in this awesome creative way. And
Speaker 1: you're in the rider's room now, right, I am for
Speaker 1: season two? Yes? What's that like? Before we get into
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes of season one? I see people
Speaker 1: on Twitter and everywhere else freaking out about season two. Well,
Speaker 1: no spoilers, but it's going very well. We're really excited
Speaker 1: about what we have to present for season two and
Speaker 1: we hope that the fans are gonna come along with us. Nice,
Speaker 1: it's all I can say. That's so we're allowed to say, Annabelle,
Speaker 1: are you hanging out with Jess two? What's going on?
Speaker 1: I've been in the Rider's room, but I've just been listening.
Speaker 1: Annabelle saves us on the regular. She's being humble, but
Speaker 1: we'll run into a story problem and she's like, here's
Speaker 1: this a convenient historical fact that solves your story problem
Speaker 1: for you. Oh, thank you, Annabelle nice. Okay, we're all
Speaker 1: a happy family. Now, let's go back to Chris Van Duson,
Speaker 1: the creator, showrunner and executive producer of Bridgerton. This is
Speaker 1: a show about love, and it's a show about family,
Speaker 1: and there was a real family dynamic with this cast
Speaker 1: and with this crew on set. Every day we were
Speaker 1: in some of the most amazing locations and a lot
Speaker 1: of it was challenging, and just to watch everyone rise
Speaker 1: to the occasion and really give everything. They're always just
Speaker 1: so amazing and so inspiring to see. And Annabelle, you
Speaker 1: are in so many ways so up close to the
Speaker 1: process of a showrunner. That's what I love working with
Speaker 1: Chris is that he has the entire world of Bridgeton
Speaker 1: in his head as in credit and I'm like trying
Speaker 1: to bother him with scheduling stuff, and he's got all
Speaker 1: these things going on in his head. But it's great
Speaker 1: to work with him. I genuinely feel like I'm one
Speaker 1: of the luckiest people to be able to work with Chris.
Speaker 1: Chris led a team of amazing artists, actors, organizers, producers
Speaker 1: to help build the world of Bridgert and in talking
Speaker 1: with Chris and the cast and crew. Y'all, my appreciation
Speaker 1: for this production has deepened. You think you love Bridgerton
Speaker 1: until you hear about the show behind the show. It
Speaker 1: was big. It's a very very big set. We really
Speaker 1: did build a costume house, built all the fireplaces, we
Speaker 1: built a ball, built all the windows, and then we
Speaker 1: built a water rig into it. The whole set stood
Speaker 1: in a tank that we built as well. There were
Speaker 1: seventy five hundred pieces of costume. Me. Okay, it was
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, it was big. Rome or in the
Speaker 1: case of Bridgerton, Grosvenor Square wasn't built in a day.
Speaker 1: It was built in one hundred forty days. But this podcast,
Speaker 1: it's not about counting yards of fabric, cans of paint,
Speaker 1: or hours spent on set. My co hosts and I
Speaker 1: are peeling back the layers of work that made Bridgerton
Speaker 1: reson eight with so many audiences millions of households. We're
Speaker 1: going to hear from some of the cast members, production
Speaker 1: design team, choreographer Jack Murphy, composer and sickening pianists Chris Bowers,
Speaker 1: Ellen Murrasnik and John Glazer who give us costume life,
Speaker 1: and even Shonda Rhymes, I'm basically escorting you through a
Speaker 1: ball of TV and streaming Badassrie. Okay. I think what
Speaker 1: drew me in was the books. They're so incredibly well
Speaker 1: written and plotted at such a pace that I don't
Speaker 1: know if you see in other romance novels, you know,
Speaker 1: the twists and turns come so quickly. I thought it
Speaker 1: would just be like so drawn out and glances and
Speaker 1: talking about feelings and stuff, and I thought it'd be cheesy.
Speaker 1: But I think the fact that the show moves so
Speaker 1: quickly and that the plot goes places you don't expect
Speaker 1: it to go is really refreshing. I also got really
Speaker 1: pulled in by doing the research for the show about
Speaker 1: the period and realizing how different but similar it was
Speaker 1: to today. But it's always human stories that connectors, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And you know, as a historian, when I work on productions,
Speaker 1: I'm all I always remember that it's the stories of
Speaker 1: the characters that carry us through, and history is about that.
Speaker 1: History is about emotion, about motivation, about the choices you
Speaker 1: make in the past, and that's the essence of a
Speaker 1: good story. And I always think it's incredibly exciting as
Speaker 1: a historian to be able to see a world that's
Speaker 1: set in the past come to life. I find it
Speaker 1: magical to see something on a script where I know
Speaker 1: people have thought over every single word and changed and
Speaker 1: written it and rewritten it, and then it comes to
Speaker 1: life in the production and you see all the camera
Speaker 1: crews working and all of the kids, and I love
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. And then suddenly it's all on screen,
Speaker 1: and you know screen it. It's also slightly different because
Speaker 1: then you get the music and the editing and you
Speaker 1: can suddenly see what everyone was aiming for. It's just
Speaker 1: incredible to see this thing come to life at the ends.
Speaker 1: And history is in our imagination, isn't it. And that's
Speaker 1: why I became a historian, because it lives in your imagination,
Speaker 1: but television and film thinks that's life. All right, everyone,
Speaker 1: We're going to wrap it up right here. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this little Get to Noah's session. Next week,
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes ball really begins. So get ready,
Speaker 1: we're going in. We're going to talk about locations and
Speaker 1: the setting of this fantastical world. Until then, like subscribe
Speaker 1: and share. I'm Gabrielle Collins. Our editor is Chandler May's.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Chris Van Dusen and Lauren Homan. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Bridgeton. The official podcast is a production of
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.