Speaker 1: Bridgeton. The Official Podcast is a partnership between Shondaland Audio
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. You have to wear blue shoes, little plastic
Speaker 1: things that you put over your shoes so you don't
Speaker 1: get dirt or mud or anything through any of their
Speaker 1: castles and such that we filmed in. By the end,
Speaker 1: people just like do I have to wear these? And like, yes,
Speaker 1: Prince Charles lives here, Prince Charles's house, Like please be
Speaker 1: respectful of the gold on the ceilings and the expensive
Speaker 1: marble and such. Welcome to Bridgeton the Official Podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Collins and I'm Annabelle Hood And on this episode
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how many London tourist attractions
Speaker 1: I got into for free because that's where Bridgeton was filming.
Speaker 1: We're jumping head first into Bridgeton with a spotlight on
Speaker 1: the production design team. We're going to talk about locations, castles,
Speaker 1: royal palaces, gardens, manor houses, the room where Philip passed out.
Speaker 1: We're entering Bridgerton through a few of the long serving
Speaker 1: homes of the English aristocracy, and our nineteenth century expert
Speaker 1: Hannah Gregg will explain the abiding flow chart of gentry
Speaker 1: and how in this world one could distinguish who's who
Speaker 1: by a home and its gilded appointments. We're also talking
Speaker 1: with the phenomenal gold Arocheville, who treated us to a
Speaker 1: Queen Charlotte that we've never encountered before. And we're joined
Speaker 1: by the Lambent Adua and do our Lady of Persimmon
Speaker 1: and Burgundy, Lady Danbury, And of course we're talking to
Speaker 1: production designer Will Hughes Jones. He's going to give us
Speaker 1: a peek at how his team snatched up these highly coveted,
Speaker 1: very protected locales for Bridgerton. The setting for Bridgerton is
Speaker 1: the plinth of this society, the corner stone of a
Speaker 1: society based on matchmaking and inheritance. The surroundings have to
Speaker 1: support that support this More is Not Enough world that
Speaker 1: straddles fantasy and the free spending eighteen teams. Some of
Speaker 1: the locations used in Bridgerton were dressed up just a little,
Speaker 1: and some, including a handful of not so royal buildings,
Speaker 1: were completely transformed. We want to relish the hard work
Speaker 1: that made it all happen. I felt like going into
Speaker 1: the royal grounds of Bridgerton would allow us to get
Speaker 1: right into what locked us into the world, Presentation Day
Speaker 1: and the balls. One of my favorite moments is Lady
Speaker 1: Danbury's bowl. It's like a promise. The season's opening bowl
Speaker 1: at danbry House is a most highly sort off to invitation. Indeed,
Speaker 1: for every Darling debutante from Park Lane to Regent Street
Speaker 1: will be on display. When we see that ball, it's
Speaker 1: like we're being promised. This is what the show is.
Speaker 1: This is how beautiful the show is going to be.
Speaker 1: Hopefully there's a ball every episode, and one of the
Speaker 1: episodes there was about six balls all in one. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Stanbury's ball. That's the first time we see
Speaker 1: everyone coming out to party after the presentation Day events.
Speaker 1: But where we filmed that was actually bath assembly halls,
Speaker 1: which are very very famous assembly halls during the regency time.
Speaker 1: We used it and we pretended it was Lady Dunbury's house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was thinking. Episode one is like this coveted invitation
Speaker 1: into this world. We're swept into the carriage and after
Speaker 1: this magnificent hall to meet the Queen Wilton House, Wilton House,
Speaker 1: which reminds me, dear listeners, allow me to reenter us.
Speaker 1: You to will Hughes Jones, the production designer. What's not
Speaker 1: to like being asked to create a regency world but
Speaker 1: heightened and over the top. You know nothing we've seen before.
Speaker 1: Will is a wizard of period design. He gave us
Speaker 1: the physical world of films like Jane Ear, The Musketeers
Speaker 1: and the television series The Spanish Princess. Chris van Dusen,
Speaker 1: the showrunner, if you remember, told Will to dream up
Speaker 1: ridiculously lush regency surroundings. I wanted the series to look
Speaker 1: like the most gorgeous, rich, aspirational English garden anybody's ever seen,
Speaker 1: and Will took that idea and he ran with it.
Speaker 1: Will spend some time with me to talk about getting
Speaker 1: the vision of Bridgeton out of Chris van Duson's head
Speaker 1: and into the planning stages. It was a really exciting
Speaker 1: process in the early stages getting to the point where
Speaker 1: we actually started building this world. I came on board
Speaker 1: at the beginning were in February twenty nineteen. I had
Speaker 1: this very strange interview with the Lovely World of Shondaland
Speaker 1: sitting at a desk, and I was sitting at home
Speaker 1: in my kitchen, and we talked about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I very quickly knew that this was a show that
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, and when I was lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be offered the job, I obviously very excitedly had
Speaker 1: lots of initial conversations with Chris about the look and
Speaker 1: the feel, and it became very clear to me that
Speaker 1: this was not a show that I'd ever seen before
Speaker 1: or had come across, which was even more exciting to me.
Speaker 1: We had so many locations, and they're all these incredible
Speaker 1: manor houses and castles, and Will and his team come
Speaker 1: in and they dressed them to be in the Bridgeting
Speaker 1: colors or to be in the Queen's colors, and you think,
Speaker 1: this is such an incredible place. This is amazing because
Speaker 1: they've brought in all the furniture, they've brought in all
Speaker 1: the paintings, and then if you ever go back as
Speaker 1: a tourist and see those places, you think, hang on,
Speaker 1: this doesn't look like Bridgeton set at all. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: Will and team went on a cross country scouting adventure
Speaker 1: to decide where they were going to base Bridgerton, because
Speaker 1: the whole thing, obviously is set in country houses and
Speaker 1: the biggest palaces in the country. They are scattered all
Speaker 1: throughout the country. But as well as that, we needed
Speaker 1: a very big space to build in. So we had
Speaker 1: this seventy two hours where we started in London. We
Speaker 1: looked around London. We then got on a train and
Speaker 1: we went all the way to Liverpool, the other side
Speaker 1: of the country. We went flying around Liverpool in vans
Speaker 1: and little minibuses, looking at probably about eight places. We
Speaker 1: then got in another bus and we went south down
Speaker 1: the side of the country, right down to Bristol and Bath,
Speaker 1: which is on the opposite end of the country from London.
Speaker 1: Did the same thing all over again and lived on
Speaker 1: picnic food and lots of laughs in this bus. And
Speaker 1: we will start looking at each other going what are
Speaker 1: we doing? We're still doing this road movie before we've
Speaker 1: even started shooting. Wow. So many locations were used from
Speaker 1: all over the country, but the Bridgerton world looks so seamless,
Speaker 1: so self contained. All right, Annabelle, help me grasp the
Speaker 1: scope of these locations. Break down the first few scenes
Speaker 1: of episode one. For me, it's a disconcerting thing when
Speaker 1: watching when you've done all the locations and you've filmed
Speaker 1: it yourself. So the Bridgeton House that's in London. Then
Speaker 1: we're in Bath when their carriage is going along the
Speaker 1: Royal Crescent at Bath, as everybody knows. And then when
Speaker 1: they get out of their carriage, they're at Hampton Court,
Speaker 1: which is just outside of London. And then we jump
Speaker 1: to them entering the room and that's at Wiltshire. Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, Wilton House in Wiltshire. So already within the
Speaker 1: first five minutes we've been in five locations. It looks
Speaker 1: so great on screen that it's just one linear story. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know, I bet you there are fans who
Speaker 1: are in the UK or who are just geography nerds
Speaker 1: and they know the Yes, I think that. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Royal Crescent and Bath is very noticeable. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: such a great location. It looks so incredible on camera.
Speaker 1: That's why people film there all the time, is because
Speaker 1: it looks so good and it fits our world perfectly.
Speaker 1: All of the architecture in Bath is just amazing. You're
Speaker 1: traveling four hundred and fifty people around the country. I
Speaker 1: mean I would literally wake up and not know what
Speaker 1: city I was in. Am I in Bath, Bristol, York, Liverpool.
Speaker 1: We even went to Liverpool at one point that was
Speaker 1: Sarada McDermott and she did everything behind the scenes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sarada was one of the producers on Bridgerton. Sarada is
Speaker 1: known for her work on movies such as Twenty eight
Speaker 1: Days Later, Tyrannosaur, Tolkien and Fighting with My Family. Bridgerton
Speaker 1: is her first television project. The way that I structured
Speaker 1: the project was that what I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: have the core, so that was going to be the
Speaker 1: studio and that would be thirty and then you would
Speaker 1: go what I call going out, which means that you're
Speaker 1: going into London in the lovely properties in London, like
Speaker 1: we shot in Lancaster House a Lot, which is where
Speaker 1: Prince Charles lives, and then we would go out out
Speaker 1: at out means into the regions and that means a
Speaker 1: four hour drive, so everyone's overnighting when you have all
Speaker 1: the big balls, which of course Chris loves a ball,
Speaker 1: like at least three balls an egg. Another thing about
Speaker 1: the balls, which won't come out on camera, is that
Speaker 1: we did three balls in one building in three days.
Speaker 1: It was just an office building in Bristol that we
Speaker 1: used the Ingineus ball, which is the ball where Daphne
Speaker 1: walks down the big staircase and the walls look like
Speaker 1: a tiffany y surey box. That was in one room.
Speaker 1: It was pretty to nice. Simply must have your first answer,
Speaker 1: you would be an honor, your highness. And then next
Speaker 1: door was the bird Ball, which was a sort of
Speaker 1: rich orange colored walls where Daphne's dancing with all their
Speaker 1: suitors and there's birds everywhere, and how did you find
Speaker 1: eligible bachelors? I must confess I felt more chemistry when
Speaker 1: being fitted at the modiste that was in the room
Speaker 1: next door. And then the room beside that was the
Speaker 1: ball where Daphne and Simon dance, and it's golden and crystals,
Speaker 1: and we must looked like we were enjoying ourselves. As
Speaker 1: difficult as that maybe, yes, quote when Lady Danbury and
Speaker 1: Simon walk into that room, initially we're actually walking down
Speaker 1: a tunnel which we made out of stands and fabric,
Speaker 1: because that was actually the orange ball from the day before. Wow.
Speaker 1: It was the only way we could manage to get
Speaker 1: all balls done in the time that we had allotted
Speaker 1: was to do it all in one place. And then
Speaker 1: the crazy thing about the whole thing is it was
Speaker 1: actually a council building in Bristol. It wasn't a big
Speaker 1: palace or anything, so that was a major transform it.
Speaker 1: It was very much Yeah, it was a sort of
Speaker 1: head scratcher because in order for our schedule to work,
Speaker 1: we knew that we had to do it all in
Speaker 1: one place. It was quite a coup from our location team.
Speaker 1: And then the Trowbridge ball that was just a bit bonkers.
Speaker 1: It was a crazy sort of theatrical ball. And it
Speaker 1: was a big country house in North London with a
Speaker 1: checkerboard floor, Jacobean paneling and very very over the top.
Speaker 1: Some make all her celebrations too provocative and I would
Speaker 1: caution any young lady from getting caught up in the
Speaker 1: sensual nature of the feats. It was a very difficult
Speaker 1: one for us to do because it being a Grade
Speaker 1: one listed property where I think it's the Duke of
Speaker 1: Northumberland lived there. They were very cautious about us doing
Speaker 1: anything in the building, so everything we had was either
Speaker 1: free standing or had like rubber matting underneath it. But
Speaker 1: again on camera you don't see that. It just looks
Speaker 1: like another amazing place that there's a ball happening, to
Speaker 1: be honest, and so I found myself left with one
Speaker 1: question to ask. I need a moment. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after this short break. Welcome back to Bridgeton the
Speaker 1: official podcast, Annabelle Sarada mentioned that you shot in Lancaster
Speaker 1: House a lot. Yeah, that's where Prince Charles lives. That's
Speaker 1: one of those places where the first time you walk
Speaker 1: in you think, oh my God, like, look at all
Speaker 1: this marble, look at all this gold. But we ended
Speaker 1: up filming there so many times that by the end
Speaker 1: when we watched the show, it's like, hang on that
Speaker 1: door leads to a different bowl on a different day,
Speaker 1: and it's supposed to be a different location, and it's like,
Speaker 1: right behind that door is a completely different set. I mean,
Speaker 1: it props to the actors for being able to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm going back to the beginning of the script,
Speaker 1: even though I just filmed the end of the script,
Speaker 1: yeah yesterday kind of thing. So you're sort of all
Speaker 1: over the place. Let's go back to will. We'll discovered
Speaker 1: Wilton House while on the road scouting for locations with
Speaker 1: director of photography jef U. One great moment we had
Speaker 1: with Jeff was we went to this fantastic house Dan
Speaker 1: in Wiltshire called Wilton House, and in the car going
Speaker 1: down there, we were talking about reference films that we like,
Speaker 1: and both Jeff and I were talking about a film
Speaker 1: called Barry Linden, which is a Stanley Kubrick film. And
Speaker 1: we go into this house and then sure enough we're
Speaker 1: standing in this room and Jeff and I look at
Speaker 1: each other and go, this is that room in the
Speaker 1: Kubrick film. And so we then thought, okay, we've got
Speaker 1: to use this room. It's fantastic. And that's the room
Speaker 1: that became the presentation chamber for the Queen's presentation. At
Speaker 1: the beginning. That sent goofed bumps down my spine when
Speaker 1: we were standing in this absolutely stunning room and it
Speaker 1: was as if Chris had written those scenes for that
Speaker 1: room without even knowing it flawless. Should we just have
Speaker 1: a watch party? The first episode? Should we just have
Speaker 1: a watch party? Actually? I love Presentation Day. I love
Speaker 1: any of the scenes with all the Bridgetins in it.
Speaker 1: This moment where Daphanie is walking down seeing the Queen
Speaker 1: at the end of that long aisle is where we
Speaker 1: are swept in. I mean, we've just seen the families
Speaker 1: getting ready and rushing to their carriages and there's all
Speaker 1: this like anticipation and fluttering all over the place. And
Speaker 1: then you get into this hall and you're just like,
Speaker 1: I am in this world now, my first time watching this,
Speaker 1: I don't know what is going on. I'm like, is
Speaker 1: this chick getting married to the duke already? Like? What
Speaker 1: is happening? She's wearing a white dress? Where is she going? Right? No,
Speaker 1: there's something more important. She's going to see the queen.
Speaker 1: That's when you get dressed up. So oh wait, did
Speaker 1: you just say that it's more important than getting married.
Speaker 1: It's going to see the queen. For me personally, it
Speaker 1: is only the queen's eye that matters. Today, a glimmer
Speaker 1: of displeasure and the young ladies value plummets do unthinkable depths.
Speaker 1: At what point in the production process were you filming
Speaker 1: this scene? This was in the very beginning, okay, because
Speaker 1: I know Day one was like a very racy, very
Speaker 1: steamy library scene. Yes, he was probably within the first
Speaker 1: month or two, so not everyone knew each other as
Speaker 1: well as we've finished. It was good because that's the
Speaker 1: deep end. When they say we're going to throw you
Speaker 1: in the deep end. That's what that is. Everyone's away
Speaker 1: from home. We were all in hotels. This was around
Speaker 1: the corner from Stonehenge. Everyone drove past Stonehenge on their
Speaker 1: way to work, being like, why is the traffic going
Speaker 1: so slowly? I just want to get to work. Oh
Speaker 1: it's Stonehenge in the middle of a field. Oh my goodness. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Wilton House is around the corner from Stonehenge. Okay.
Speaker 1: When I was at Stonehenge, I do not remember seeing
Speaker 1: anything that even looked remotely like this. This is about
Speaker 1: probably about a fifteen minute drive away from stonehe Out
Speaker 1: of here, it's still very close. Oh, it's just so secluded.
Speaker 1: Is there like a what is the grocery store? I
Speaker 1: want to say Salisbury Sainsbury Sainsbury's. Yeah. Wilton House is huge.
Speaker 1: It's bigger than it even appears to be in the show.
Speaker 1: We didn't even film in half of this house. The
Speaker 1: other half of the house is still residential and still
Speaker 1: being lived in, so we couldn't go near that side.
Speaker 1: That's how big this place was that an entire film
Speaker 1: crew could be in one half of the house and
Speaker 1: a family could be living and not hearing us in
Speaker 1: the other half. I wouldn't have two hundred film crew
Speaker 1: in my house, but they obviously allowed it. They did,
Speaker 1: and that privilege was not last on actresses Golder, Rochevelle
Speaker 1: and Adua Endol. They played the Queen and Lady Danbury.
Speaker 1: Here's Golder. I was saying that one of my favorite
Speaker 1: places was Wilton House. You know, I loved that because
Speaker 1: it's a young family that lives there and still runs
Speaker 1: it and owns it, and that to me it felt
Speaker 1: like home. Even though it was grand and opulent and yeah,
Speaker 1: felt very out of reach, there was something homely about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm always sort of thinking, well, I've seen
Speaker 1: all the would you would you from a bit of that,
Speaker 1: But somewhere at the back, does somebody having corn flakes
Speaker 1: and watching the news on the tele in the morning porridge? Yeah? Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: So we used Wilton House as several different locations. We
Speaker 1: used it Rotten Row, we used it as Clivedon, we
Speaker 1: used it as Buckingham Home in several different episodes. Well,
Speaker 1: Wilton House was a perfect choice. The detail and the
Speaker 1: velvety feeling on my eyes. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And it was very hot. It was hot. Wait was
Speaker 1: the air conditioning turned off for sound. That's not actually
Speaker 1: sun streaming through the windows. Those are some very bright lights.
Speaker 1: Oh right, the lights on cherry pickers on cranes basically
Speaker 1: shining through. I think it's either the second or the
Speaker 1: third floor. That room isn't so we've got bright, bright,
Speaker 1: bright lights shining through the windows. And then obviously all
Speaker 1: of our casts and all of our background artists are
Speaker 1: in corsets, dresses and wigs and feather headdresses. And I
Speaker 1: was hot just in my normal twenty first century clothes,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how they were doing right. Layers
Speaker 1: of fair bricks. Yeah, makeup honey, okay, yeah, yeah, That's
Speaker 1: why I constantly need makeup touching because you're just sweating
Speaker 1: it off. There's not enough setting spray in the world
Speaker 1: under those lights. No way. Oh my goodness. Let's get
Speaker 1: back to Danbury House and our conversation with Golder and Agua,
Speaker 1: who played Lady Danbury. Here's Agiwa again. So where I
Speaker 1: grew up, Gabrielle was carter and sheep and two busses
Speaker 1: a week. It was like deep country. Forty five minutes
Speaker 1: northwest of Wilton House is Badminton House, surrounded by countryside
Speaker 1: and it's the home of Lady Danbury's Den of Iniquity scene.
Speaker 1: And what's really cool about it, Badminton House is about
Speaker 1: five miles from where my father lives, from where I
Speaker 1: grew up. Wow, we filmed the Dani of Iniquity scene
Speaker 1: at Badminton House and when we were filming the Deniver Iniquity,
Speaker 1: filmed it in this beautiful ballroom at the back of
Speaker 1: which I took a photograph of me and the director
Speaker 1: standing in front of this painting is a painting of
Speaker 1: Queen Charlotte, and I would love to have grown up
Speaker 1: knowing that she was mixed race. I would love to
Speaker 1: have grown up knowing that she was descended from an
Speaker 1: African woman and Alfonso the third of Portugal, and that
Speaker 1: she was in a massive house five miles up the
Speaker 1: road from where I grew up as a little solitary
Speaker 1: black girl. I would have loved to have known that.
Speaker 1: So there was something really beautiful about filming that scene
Speaker 1: and feeling like I'd sort of gone full circle and
Speaker 1: there I was with mister Ulrick Riley, who is the
Speaker 1: most stunning director, and it was just very lovely for
Speaker 1: me to be doing that and doing something. It's about
Speaker 1: women being in their power and then remembering little me,
Speaker 1: Queen Charlotte and having all these women around and being fabulous.
Speaker 1: And then I drove over to my dad afterwards, and
Speaker 1: I drove past one of my best friend's houses when
Speaker 1: I used to walked from miles up hill to get
Speaker 1: to a house and long than I drove to my
Speaker 1: dad from set, and it was just so nice. It
Speaker 1: was just like, wow, look at my life. Her bazaar
Speaker 1: is that so Golden Rocheval, who plays Queen Charlotte, was
Speaker 1: in this conversation with me and Edua, no big deal.
Speaker 1: It was chill. I asked her if she felt an
Speaker 1: energy from any of these historic locations. Most definitely. They
Speaker 1: live and breathe with us, and we live and breathe
Speaker 1: with them. You know. One of the things that's really
Speaker 1: fascinating about Bridgeton that the places that we filmed in,
Speaker 1: the manor houses that we filmed in, are their own characters.
Speaker 1: We had some beautiful locations, and even Lancaster House for me,
Speaker 1: was a really special place because it's a working place
Speaker 1: for our royal family, do you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And for the dignitaries of the world and I think
Speaker 1: that scene that we were talking about earlier, Curtsy scene,
Speaker 1: I think a week or a couple of weeks before
Speaker 1: we filmed there, the Queen had a dinner party for
Speaker 1: the world dignitaries. And to have that energy and that
Speaker 1: pulse and fizz, living fizz to playoff to absorb, I
Speaker 1: think is really helpful when you're doing something like this,
Speaker 1: really helpful. It gives you extra umph, doesn't it. Golder? Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: in a kind of way in as well, because I
Speaker 1: think we all I mean, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: think this, and I know I'm an old hippie, so
Speaker 1: but I think I really do think that buildings retained energy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't you. I feel like the ghosts are in the
Speaker 1: walls of a building, you know, for good or for ill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all know those some places You're like, I'm not
Speaker 1: going in there. I went in there once, you will
Speaker 1: never get me in there again. So I do genuinely
Speaker 1: think that, as Golder says, to be in a place
Speaker 1: that is a working royal environment, the energy of that
Speaker 1: building gives you an energy that you can absorb that
Speaker 1: into your embodying of working royal in action. And that's
Speaker 1: really thrilling. You kind of think of the working life
Speaker 1: of the whole building. You know, what keeps the show
Speaker 1: on the road, because those cucumber sandwiches don't cut themselves,
Speaker 1: my friend. You know, yes, you know when we were
Speaker 1: filming some of those locations that I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm never in it. Can I'm never looking your kitchen
Speaker 1: going on in it? You know it's fascinating, isn't it.
Speaker 1: When we get back from the break, we'll hang out
Speaker 1: in Hannah's history corner to talk about the class distinctions
Speaker 1: among Bridgerton's high society, and we'll get into more production
Speaker 1: design with Chris van Dusen and Will Hugh's Jones. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Bridgeton the official podcast. So again every episode
Speaker 1: we're spartlighting the research behind Bridgeton and doctor Hannah Gregg,
Speaker 1: the auntset etiquette advisor and historian for Bridgerton, is just
Speaker 1: the person to take us through well. I mean, in
Speaker 1: Jane Austen novels, we don't often get references to dukes
Speaker 1: or to members of the royal family, or to duchesses
Speaker 1: or people with titles of lady. There's only a handful
Speaker 1: of characters who are ladies such and such we tend
Speaker 1: to have the miss Bingley, the Mister Darcy, the Missus Bennett.
Speaker 1: Those characters tell us that they are not in this
Speaker 1: world of dukes and duchesses and lords and ladies that
Speaker 1: we occupy with Bridgeton. The Jane Austen's world is what
Speaker 1: in English society we would call upper middle class, so
Speaker 1: it gets slightly complicated in terms of gradations. But they
Speaker 1: are people whose fathers and brothers maybe in business, they
Speaker 1: may be clergymen, they may be in the military. They
Speaker 1: don't necessarily own the huge country houses that we recognize
Speaker 1: that survive in England to day, like Chatsworth in Derbyshire,
Speaker 1: which was the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, or
Speaker 1: Castle Howard in Yorkshire. Those were owned by dukes and
Speaker 1: lords and viscounts and earls who don't really feature in
Speaker 1: the Jane Austen novels. The Jane Austen big houses are
Speaker 1: medium sized houses in comparison to the super rich regency London.
Speaker 1: So the Jane Austen novels give us a slightly kind
Speaker 1: of different perspective on what it is to be genteel
Speaker 1: and wealthy in the eighteenth century, because there is this
Speaker 1: whole other level of super wealth, super status which isn't
Speaker 1: touched on in Austin, which we begin to encounter in Bridgeton.
Speaker 1: So I suppose one way in which we could unto
Speaker 1: the difference is to think about the difference that we
Speaker 1: have today between high street fashion and then kind of
Speaker 1: catwalk fashion. The Jane Austin world is the high street
Speaker 1: basically that we shopping, which captures the society we live
Speaker 1: in that are inspired by that, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: catwalk take. And then the high society is the catwalk
Speaker 1: fashion world. The world that's out of reach to us,
Speaker 1: the world of these celebrity people who live in their
Speaker 1: own bubble, who know each other that we feel slightly
Speaker 1: excluded from, which is about this kind of creation of
Speaker 1: something that's cutting edge and fantastical. I see, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming this all had to do with George's golden
Speaker 1: gilded sweg versus Napoleon silver. They're trying to outbling each other.
Speaker 1: It's like, imagine them as the rappers of the regency London.
Speaker 1: I've got more blinged than you look at my right right.
Speaker 1: They were outblinging each other so extra well I think
Speaker 1: it's right that we see Regency London in Fidgeton as
Speaker 1: a place full of sparkle and success, because that is
Speaker 1: sort of how it was in its own time. George
Speaker 1: the Fourth, Prince Regent, was notorious for his kind of
Speaker 1: love of glitz and glamor. He has an incredibly ostentatious
Speaker 1: coronation when he does become king, and in the run
Speaker 1: up to that, he is spending money as fast as
Speaker 1: he can, and he's building his fancy grands palaces, and
Speaker 1: he's got his house in Brighton that's basically this huge
Speaker 1: new build palace, and he's got a place in London
Speaker 1: at Carlton House. He's got the glitziest everything. He loves
Speaker 1: glamor and sparkle and gold and diamonds. And there's also
Speaker 1: a sort of kind of culture in Europe of people
Speaker 1: trying to outdo each other. So alongside Prince Regent George
Speaker 1: the Fourth, we have Napoleon in France, who is also
Speaker 1: trying to be the most glamorous leader in Europe, you know,
Speaker 1: guilding everything and sticking huge diamonds on his swords and
Speaker 1: having the late systems, most exotic kind of goods and
Speaker 1: fabrics and there is a kind of real, fast, spending,
Speaker 1: ostentatious culture around this very very privileged, small world of
Speaker 1: the court and the aristocrats in eighteenth century London, where
Speaker 1: spending money and showing off is absolutely what everyone is
Speaker 1: trying to do. Chris spared no expense in turning up
Speaker 1: the volume on history's gilded, glitzy surroundings. Among the elements
Speaker 1: the production team brought into the already locations where fabrics,
Speaker 1: food and flowers. Like I said it is, this world
Speaker 1: of Bridgeton is a beautiful, escapist world, and I wanted
Speaker 1: the sense of nature to really be apparent on screen.
Speaker 1: And it goes to the romance. For me, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, this is a show about love
Speaker 1: and romance, and if we're going to be telling the
Speaker 1: most romantic stories of our time, we need everything else
Speaker 1: on screen that you see to be doing the same.
Speaker 1: The flowers and the fabrics were the key things to
Speaker 1: lighten the historic spaces, and always food played a big part.
Speaker 1: You can make it tall, you can make it architectural,
Speaker 1: and you can put it in full ground backgrounds. So
Speaker 1: in order to make our world come alive, flowers and
Speaker 1: food were the principal elements that we used, and anywhere
Speaker 1: that we had a window, we spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time and effort making drapes to bring the room up
Speaker 1: from being an old historic building into a beautiful Bridgeton space.
Speaker 1: There is this beautiful sense of nature in the production
Speaker 1: design of the show. I wanted the series to look
Speaker 1: like the most gorgeous, rich, aspirational English garden anybody's ever seen.
Speaker 1: And Will took that idea and he ran with it.
Speaker 1: At one point, I walked into a set and I
Speaker 1: saw him in a corner literally hand painting a custom
Speaker 1: blue color on what had to be hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of roses, just to get things right. And that, of
Speaker 1: course endeared me to him forever, and also speaks to
Speaker 1: his attention to detail. Is this the first production from
Speaker 1: shandaland that is of this scale. It was definitely the
Speaker 1: biggest thing I'd ever worked on. The amount of detail
Speaker 1: that goes into Bridgeton is incredible. I think that's the
Speaker 1: thing about everything about hair and makeup, about costume, about
Speaker 1: set dressing and all of that. There's such attention to
Speaker 1: detail that you think no one will notice this, And
Speaker 1: as you're working, you think no one will notice me
Speaker 1: doing this. Tiny thing. But if it wasn't there, people
Speaker 1: would notice that's a nice little bow. We'll end it
Speaker 1: right there. I don't know about you, but I'm blown
Speaker 1: away by all the set dressings and how this team
Speaker 1: had to trek across the country to make Bridgerton come
Speaker 1: to life. I have a new appreciation for the production team.
Speaker 1: I'm also really moved by Adua end Doe's story. I'm
Speaker 1: really happy for the little girl inside of her. Dear listener,
Speaker 1: one thing for sure, we'll hear plenty of love going
Speaker 1: around for this tight knit team. Come back next week
Speaker 1: and we'll hear some of those stories and more behind
Speaker 1: the scenes of Bridgerton. I'm Gabrielle Collins. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Bridgerton The Official Podcast is a production of shand Land
Speaker 1: Audio and iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from Shonda Land, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you subscribe to
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