Actor Jonathan Bailey has been answering a lot of questions about his role in season 2 of “Bridgerton.” This season, his character, Viscount Anthony Bridgerton, finally makes a love match with Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley).
However, he revealed that Harper’s Bazaar asked him a question about the season 2 Netflix period drama that he hadn’t been asked before. Take a look at what he had to say!
Jonathan Bailey Compares Anthony’s Relationship With Kate To His Relationship With Siena
Although fans knew their romance was not to last, Anthony had an ill-fated romance with Siena (Sabrina Bartlett) in season 1 of the series. When asked how he approached the difference in relationship styles, Bailey admitted that no one had ever asked him that question before!
“I think it’s a really rare opportunity to have source material—Julia Quinn’s novels—that lets you understand exactly who the character is at his endpoint and then work backwards,” he explains. “In the hands of [creator and showrunner] Chris Van Dusen, Anthony in Series 1 was more of a prologue to Anthony in his Kate Sharma years.”
Bailey admitted that he “read the second book before I accepted the role, and what drew me really to him was this sense of grief and loss—and also a comment on the patriarchy. It’s about how knotted status is in a world where men lead before women, and where the impact on the women around them is clear. I think this show really is brilliant, because there are no emotionally capable men in Bridgerton—all of the women are way ahead and far more evolved.”
Jonathan Bailey Explains That Anthony Was ‘Sabotaging Himself’ In His Relationship With Siena
Bailey admitted that he is “sort of fascinated with the idea of loss, and the distance between presentation and what’s really going on inside.”
“I think it’s always appealing—to use a Bridgerton expression—to dance the dance between those two realities, especially in the Regency period,” he continued. “These people are presenting a version of themselves, and the stakes are really high because they need to marry in order to economically secure their futures. I just sort of fell in love with the idea of playing someone who had a disconnect within him. It’s a study of how you can move on from something that’s stunted your growth.”
He concluded, “I think Siena represented another way in which Anthony was sabotaging himself, because that relationship was never going to move forward. I think his self-esteem was quite low and he knew that it wasn’t gonna work. Love is a balance, and it’s an all-seeing, all-knowing, sort of shared understanding with someone else, and I think that’s what he was always gonna find with Kate.”
Jonathan Bailey Calls His Relationship With Simone Ashley ‘So Unique’
Although fans absolutely love their chemistry on-screen, both actors also get along very well off-screen. Bailey had nothing but positive things to say about his “Bridgerton” co-star, explaining that “Simone is phenomenal and this working relationship is so unique.”
He said that their chemistry was “evident straight away” from the first table read.
“As soon as they said, ‘When you’re ready…’, we just locked in,” he explained. “We were doing it with [casting director] Kelly Hendry in the room, and all of Shondaland on Zoom. We sat facing each other on a wiped clean sofa, and it was all a bit sort of sterile in a really big room in the middle of a pandemic, and yet it immediately felt like we were at home. And I think that’s so true for Kate and Anthony—they feel at home together, and that’s why he’s so obsessed and curious about what he feels when he’s around her.”
Bailey recalled that “in the car, on the way home, I spoke to Chris Van Dusen, and he was like, ‘What do you think?’ And I just said, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s Kate.’ But I think they all well and truly knew that anyway because there were no other actresses that I read with.”
“Their search was long and extensive, but I just think they always knew that Simone was gonna be the one and they just needed to wrestle her out of her contract, which I’m sure is the first of many times that’s gonna happen in her career,” he added.
The first two seasons of “Bridgerton” are currently available to stream on Netflix.
