The Bridgerton star on how last year’s prequel changed her approach to season 3, the importance of building community, and why she’s got her eye on Francesca.
Dearest gentle readers, it’s time to return to the ‘ton for the latest social season. But while season 3 of Bridgerton will focus on Penelope Featherington’s secret crush on her best friend Colin Bridgerton and her quest for a husband, the scene stealer this (and every) season is Golda Rosheuvel’s Queen Charlotte. Stern, intimidating, and often bored by the pomp and circumstance of a woman’s debut, Charlotte is ultimately responsible for making or breaking the social standing of just about everyone in society.
Charlotte has been a fan-favorite since the Netflix series debuted in 2020, even earning a spin-off miniseries last year that illuminated her youth and backstory. For that prequel, India Amarteifio stepped into the Queen’s shoes with little oversight from Rosheuvel. “I don’t own her,” Rosheuvel tells ELLE.com about allowing Amarteifio to define the character for herself. “India needed to bring her own experiences to it and what I did was support her in that.” The final product has since informed Rosheuvel’s portrayal of Charlotte in the forthcoming third season of Bridgerton, which airs the first half of its season on May 16 and promises to dig deeper into the sisterhood between her and Lady Danbury as well as the long-standing friendship with her right-hand man Brimsley.
The third season of Bridgerton finds the Queen once again searching for the Diamond of this year’s debutantes—a feat that proves more difficult than usual. That is, until she finds Francesca Bridgerton, whose insistence in forging her own path and focusing on her own happiness reminds the Queen of her own headstrong instincts.
Over coffee in L.A., Rosheuvel opened up about the audition process, what she believes the Queen is looking for in each season’s Diamond, and what it’s really like to wear those heavy wigs.
When the show first premiered, there was a lot of talk about the diverse casting and how Black characters populated the series—especially in higher positions, like Queen Charlotte, who is biracial like you. How did you feel when you first auditioned and learned that Shonda Rhimes and her team were constructing the show in this way?
I don’t think that was something that I thought about—as an actress, you want to work. It kind of feels weird saying that four years down the line and with everything that the show represents in the positivity, representation, inclusion, and diversity. But at the beginning, it wasn’t like that. I was an actress who got an audition. I originally auditioned for Lady Danbury and didn’t get that. Then I got Charlotte. It was about working. It was about knowing Shonda’s work and having real respect for that.
When I take on a character, most of the time I find something that I can hold onto whether that be music, art, dance, or a TV show. When I played Othello, Scandal was that show that I linked to the character. That was 2-3 years before I got Charlotte, so I had already been immersed in her genius of writing characters that really reach out of the screen. Also, Queen Charlotte is a very easy role to understand because she is my mother. That essence of Englishness and etiquette and wicked sense of humor…it’s my mother.
I read that you forgot your lines in your first Bridgerton audition. What was it about this audition that unnerved you so much?
Oh it was terrible! It’s because I’m dyslexic. There is a barrier for me sometimes when the time is not enough for the amount of work that I am given. I’m a perfectionist. When it comes to language and knowing what I’m saying, I want to be natural. When I’m talking to you now it’s just a natural flow, and I demand that of myself to do the storytelling that I want. So if I don’t have that time it can be very frustrating because I feel like I’m only half or three-quarters done. That’s what happened to me—I didn’t have that last bit completed and it’s about not being able to create the whole character.
Having said that, I only had a few hours to audition for Charlotte and that was a different ball game altogether. I knew her instantly. I knew the woman; The woman was my mother. I knew her in my gut and we did [the audition] in 45 minutes to an hour, and that was it. It just sat so easily in my body and in my thought process—the words were there. Sometimes that happens and that’s the joy.
