Bridgerton Season 3: Why One Penelope Costume Made Nicola Coughlan Cry
Plenty of fans get a little teary-eyed over "Bridgerton," but it appears that some elements of filming the series affected the actors in question, too. According to a recent interview, Nicola Coughlan of "Derry Girls" fame admitted she got a bit emotional over one of Penelope Featherington's costumes because of what it represents for the character's long transformation from wallflower to belle of the ball.
"When I say I tried it on in my first fitting, it literally wasn't a dress. It was reams of fabric tied around me, layered up to give this beautiful shimmering effect. I got tears in my eyes. Which sounds very silly. It's just a piece of fabric, but it meant so much about her and who she was becoming and how she's always seen herself and wanted to present herself to the world," Coughlan told TV Insider. The dress in question is the outfit that Penelope wears when she kisses Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) for the first time, and Coughlan admits to being quite attached to the outfit. "I love that first kiss. I think it's a beautiful moment. So I am very attached to that dress," she added.
Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan avoided kissing before taping their kiss
It turns out that Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan didn't rehearse their first kiss, in order to make the experience as fresh and as new for themselves as it was for their characters. "In rehearsals, they never kissed. For lighting purposes, they would get their heads closer together. So when it happened during the take, it was the first time," revealed episode director Tricia Brock to TV Insider. The goal was to keep everything fresh and spontaneous. And though they had to film the scene four different times, just as Coughlan was moved by Penelope's dress, so was Brock moved by the sight of her actors kissing. "I bore witness to it, and it was so moving and so exciting," she said.
While lips and clothing can lie, fashion can become great cinematic shorthand. Costumes have been used to tell quite a lot of Penelope's story throughout the series; between Season 1 and Season 2, for instance, her color palette changed to reflect her identity as the gossip maven Lady Whistledown, which is hinted at in the character's very first scene. But fans will have to wait until June 13 to find out what her wedding dress will tell them — that's when the second half of "Bridgerton" Season 3 will appear on Netflix.