Nicola Coughlan Had To Follow One Rule With Bridgerton Season 3 Sex Scenes
Contains spoilers for "Bridgerton" Season 3 Part 1
Nicola Coughlan has played Penelope Featherington — who writes a scandalous gossip column in the "Ton" under the pen name Lady Whistledown — on the Netflix hit "Bridgerton" since the very beginning, and her romantic story with Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) is finally taking shape in the first part of Season 3. Apparently, she was told that she had to perform her steamy scenes with Newton's Colin in a very specific way ... meaning that she had to pretend as if she was incredibly inexperienced in romance, love, and sex.
Coughlan told People Magazine in an interview that a particular challenge when it comes to playing Penelope is that, as navigates her complicated feelings for Colin in Season 3, she "doesn't know what sex is."
According to Coughlan, she looked a little too comfortable when she and Newton first kissed for the scene where Penelope and Colin share a passionate embrace — and had to be told to look way more clueless. "Even when we had the first kiss, they had to say to me, 'You can't seem like you kissed someone before,' which is like, okay, yeah, because even it's hand placement, since it looks a little too mature and you're like, okay, pull it back, she's never done this," Coughlan said while discussing her scenes alongside Penelope's friend-turned-lover Colin.
Luke Newton felt that Nicola Coughlan's faux hesitance as Penelope made their scenes even better
Luke Newton spoke to People for the same feature, and he made sure to note that, because Colin and Penelope are close friends who eventually realize their feelings for each other — though Penelope has long harbored feelings for Colin, he only takes notice of her during Season 3 after she undergoes a classic rom-com makeover — so the entire experience would be gentle, sweet, and kind.
"Ultimately, the goal was for it to seem really authentic to those two characters," Newton said of the first kiss that Colin and Penelope share in Season 3 Episode 2, "How Bright the Moon," where Penelope shyly asks Colin to kiss her and awakens unexpected feelings within him.
"We just wanted to honor that because people have a lot of love for their relationship, and we wanted to keep it really true to that," Newton continued, revealing that a lot of discussions went on about exactly how Penelope and Colin would interact intimately. "So we would have discussions about how their first encounter would be and what the intimacy would be like, and if it would be, and we talked to the intimacy coordinator of even the intensity of the scene and if it was quite...how gentle they would be with each other when it's the start of something and where we can take it from there."
Nicola Coughlan loves the friends-to-lovers arc between Colin and Penelope on Bridgerton
Fans of Julia Quinn's original "Bridgerton" novels — which were adapted for the Netflix series by Chris van Dusen and executive producer Shonda Rhimes — were thrilled to know that Season 3 would center on Colin and Penelope's love story, perhaps largely because the two characters have proven extremely popular even on the sidelines in the first two seasons. To that point, Coughlan told the outlet that the instruction she received to seem more hesitant and inexperienced really helped sell the dynamic between Colin and Penelope. The two are merely close friends before Colin realizes he loves Penelope — he even offers to help her find a desirable suitor at the beginning of the season, and he's not referring to himself — and so, as Coughlan puts it, Penelope's lack of experience feels authentic.
"The intimacy stuff feels very real," Coughlan said of her scenes with Newton. "It feels very grounded in two people that are not trying to sort of, that they're awkward in front of one another, this and that, and all of a sudden they become like Lotharios in the bedroom and whatever, they get to be intimate together in a very real and beautiful way, and I think that's what makes it so affecting."
Plus, Coughlan said that she and Newton were able to find joy in their intimate scenes. "In those intimate moments, they find moments to laugh and you see them figuring it out and doing it together, and I love it," she revealed.
Challenges await Penelope and Colin's relationship when Bridgerton Season 3 returns
Unfortunately for Colin and Penelope, the second half of Season 3, which is set to release on June 13, holds some upsetting developments for the new lovers. At the end of Season 3 Part 1, Colin and Penelope share an incredibly intimate moment in a scene known to "Bridgerton" fans as "the carriage scene," at which point he asks Penelope for her hand in marriage, disregarding her ongoing courtship with Lord Debling (Sam Phillips). So why are these plans doomed to hit a major snag? Colin doesn't know Penelope is Lady Whistledown, and he's intent on taking the anonymous gossip writer down and revealing her identity.
At the end of Season 2, Penelope overhears Colin tell his friends he'd never be interested in her, and she gets revenge by writing something nasty about him as Lady Whistledown; naturally, he apologizes without being prompted after she publishes the pamphlet with insulting gossip about him inside. Colin, furious, swears he'll bring Lady Whistledown to justice, which obviously alarms Penelope. Along the way, Penelope — who ditches her unflattering bright colors for soft pastels and her childish ringlets for glamorous waves at the start of Season 3 — fully realizes her feelings for Colin but also grapples with the fact that she'll have to confess her secret, even as Colin proposes to her. The second half of Season 3 will undoubtedly see some sort of reckoning regarding Penelope's double life ... and fans will just have to wait and see how Colin handles it.
The first part of Season 3 of "Bridgerton" is streaming on Netflix now.