Photographed by nick thompson WORDS By HARRIET SIM
a wallflower
Seven years ago, Nicola Coughlan was sitting behind an optician’s desk in Ireland, waiting for her big break. Now the actor is rewriting the rules for success as she steps into the lead role in Bridgerton’s buzzy new season
ach year, during the crisp British summer, Kensington Palace opens its immaculate grounds to a well-heeled cohort of London’s elite. It is here, among the pruned blooms and gentle soundtrack of a string quartet, that Nicola Coughlan finds herself on the brink of her own fraudulent discovery.
On the perks of being
Tove coat, $2713; Lanvin gloves, $1800; Christian Louboutin shoes, $1895, and bag, $3395; Louise Olsen at Dinosaur Designs earrings, $425.
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Having duped the palace’s esteemed guests with her portrayal of a society debutante in Netflix’s period-drama Bridgerton, the Irish actor has yet again pulled off the part of an inconspicuous socialite.
“Bridgerton often makes people think I’m fancy. In reality, I’m just a girl from a village in the west of Ireland. I’m not really fancy at all,” the 37-year-old actor confesses to marie claire from her London hotel. It’s the start of the Easter long weekend and the actor is enjoying some downtime before commencing Bridgerton’s mammoth global press tour. “There’s something funny about your name being mentioned amongst famous people. For me, that’s the name that was read out at my primary school roll call. It sounds off to your ear.”
Schiaparelli blazer, sunglasses, earrings, and ring, all POA; Wolford bodysuit, $365.
While Coughlan’s upbringing in the small harbour city of Galway might be a far-cry from the elite echelon she now navigates both on-screen and off, if there’s one thing playing Penelope Featherington has taught her it’s the social power of being a wallflower.
After season one exposed Penelope as the mastermind behind the salacious gossip author Lady Whistledown, fans of the regency drama were pleased to discover there was more to the unassuming red-haired debutante than initially met the eye.
“When I first read the script, all I knew was that Pen was this shy, bookish girl. It wasn’t until after I landed the part that I read on a fan forum that she was in fact the Lady Whistledown,” recalls Coughlan of landing the part in Shonda Rhimes’ dazzling take on Regency England’s marriage market, which would become one of Netflix’s most-watched original series and streamed by more than 100 million households. “It’s really fun to play Pen because she’s very complex and there’s so many different sides to her that she’s battling with. In season three, Penelope starts to come into her own. She gets this physical makeover, but you see very quickly that she’s still insecure and doesn’t know how to express herself.”
With Coughlan having mastered the part of the outsider who circumstantially finds herself on the inside, it’s hard not to draw a parallel with her real life. Coughlan grew up in a modest Irish-Catholic home with an army-officer father and stay-at-home mother. At 21 she moved to England to study acting at the Oxford School of Drama. It was there Coughlan first became acquainted with privilege, an experience that would inadvertently prepare her for a crowning role in Bridgerton. “There were a lot of quite posh people at my drama school,” she says of her classmates, who would spend weekends shooting pheasants on their family estates.
You’d be forgiven for assuming that with her infectious charm and magnetic on-screen presence, Coughlan would have enjoyed a rapid rise to the top, especially after launching onto the scene in the popular sitcom Derry Girls in 2018. But her road to leading lady in a hit Netflix show was littered with countless setbacks and rejections.
Mithridate coat, POA; Wolford bodysuit, $365; Louise Olsen at Dinosaur Designs earrings, $455.
While the perks of a struggling actor are few and far between, Coughlan says that a decade of setbacks ultimately prepared her for the exposure that followed Bridgerton’s colossal success.
“I lived my whole twenties in anonymity, which there’s a lot to be said for. It would be really hard to live your twenties in the public eye, I don’t envy people. Talent shows really drove the possibility of going from zero to 100. But a lot of those people burn bright and then fade away. I don’t know why it’s seen as such a good thing. There’s so much to be said for hard work,” explains Coughlan. “You see people who get famous at 22 and expect everything. Careers don’t just go on this upward trajectory all the time. There’s lots of peaks and troughs, and you have to be prepared for those. I realise that it’s not normal to have a car that drives you to work in the morning. I remember getting the Tube and people using me as a rest for their elbow because I’m really short. And [I remember] saving my pennies. I love a fancy handbag but if I’m buying one I know I worked really hard for it and I know what it costs.”
“Self-doubt is a killer and something women struggle with relentlessly”
There’s a certain grace and gratitude that comes with appreciating fashion as an outsider, rather than being granted access by birthright. These qualities ring true when Coughlan talks about her collaborative approach to styling on the set of her marie claire cover shoot. “Before we started the press tour for season three of Bridgerton, I put together a bunch of looks that I loved, which [the marie claire team] referenced in our cover shoot. The tailoring and the colours in some of the Schiaparelli looks were mega, especially the gold Schiaparelli glasses. I just love what [the label’s creative director] Daniel Roseberry does.”
Now a favourite of the front row, having attended the Christian Louboutin show at Paris Fashion Week earlier this year, Coughlan works closely with her stylist Aimée Croysdill to add film and culture references to her sartorial looks. “The Met Gala has always been my favourite red carpet to watch. It’s the perfect meeting of fashion and performance art, where you can really let your imagination run wild,” she says. “When I was younger, I would watch it at home and critique the looks and say, ‘That’s not on theme!’ I’m a real stickler for the theme. When I first got invited to the Met in 2022, Aimée and I meticulously researched silhouettes and we worked with the incredible designer Richard Quinn to create my look. It’s funny because everyone there was so mega-famous that no-one cared about me – in the nicest way possible. It felt unreal: there were Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper on one side and I’m like, ‘Why am I here?’”
For the rest of the interview, please see the June issue of marie claire.
Season 3, part one, of Bridgerton is streaming now on Netflix. Part two is out June 13.
Photographed by nick thompson/Sauvage TV Styling by Miranda Almond/One Represents Hair by Patrick Wilson/The Wall Group
Makeup by Neil Young/Premier Hair and Makeup
Production by Robyn Fay-Perkins; Harriet Rosen/One Production
This story appears in the JUNE 2024 Issue of marie claire.
“It’s important for people to know that I wasn’t an overnight success”
In the hotly anticipated third instalment (fans have dubbed it #Polin, the couples’ “ship” name), as Penelope steps out of the shadows and into the centre of the ballroom alongside her longtime crush, Colin Bridgerton (played by Luke Newton), Coughlan admits she felt a particular pressure to perform.
“I remember reading the books and thinking, ‘Geez, these are really steamy. That’s gonna be a lot,’ but we didn’t know if the show would get picked up after the first season. Once we found it was going ahead, it was definitely daunting,” says Coughlan of preparing for her on-screen romance with Newton. “The sex scenes are revealing in many senses, but strangely they became one of my favourite parts about filming this season. It ended up being quite powerful and quite liberating. Luke and I are really good partners and we had a lot of trust in one another. I would have struggled to do it with someone else, because we could talk about it and text about it and we had a lot of say in how those scenes were done.”
LEFT Dolce and Gabbana jacket, POA; Wolford bodysuit, $365, and stockings, $98; Christian Louboutin shoes, $1325; By Pariah earrings, approx $1340; Louise Olsen at Dinosaur Designs ring (right hand), $250; Dinosaur Designs ring (left hand), $369. RIGHT Raey coat, $1115; Richard Quinn dress, Margaux Studios earrings, approx $421; Cartier ring, $76,500.
Nina Ricci dress, $1530; Cartier earrings, $38,700, and ring, $6250.
“I was 31 when Derry Girls happened,” says Coughlan. “It’s important for people to know that I wasn’t an overnight success. In my twenties, I didn’t have the money to be living in London and going to a million auditions. I had to work full-time and it was hard. I left London a couple of times [and moved home], because it just wasn’t happening.”
Throughout these years she worked in mundane retail jobs while auditioning for roles in local theatre productions, small film roles and even a gig as an extra on the reality TV series Made in Chelsea. “I was working at a restaurant when I landed that role,” she recalls. “It was 100 quid for the day, which was nothing to be sniffed at. It was the golden era of Binky, Spencer and Lucy Watson. I had so much fun watching an episode happening in front of my eyes.”
LEFT Self Portrait jacket, approx. $660; Louise Olsen at Dinosaur Designs ring (right hand), $250; Dinosaur Designs ring (left hand), $369. RIGHT Schiaparelli blazer, sunglasses, earrings, and ring, all POA; Wolford bodysuit, $365.
“The sex scenes strangely became one of my favourite parts. It ended up being quite powerful and liberating”
Raey coat, $1115; Richard Quinn dress (with belt), POA; Wolford stockings, $98; Christian Louboutin shoes, $1495; Margaux Studios earrings, approx $421; Cartier ring, $76,500.
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elite. It is here, among the pruned blooms and gentle soundtrack of a string quartet, that Nicola Coughlan finds herself on the brink of her own fraudulent discovery.
Having duped the palace’s esteemed guests with her portrayal of a society debutante in Netflix’s period-drama Bridgerton, the Irish actor has yet again pulled off the part of an inconspicuous socialite.
“Bridgerton often makes people think I’m fancy. In reality, I’m just a girl from a village in the west of Ireland. I’m not really fancy at all,” the 37-year-old actor confesses to marie claire from her London hotel. It’s the start of the Easter long weekend and the actor is enjoying some downtime before commencing Bridgerton’s mammoth global press tour. “There’s something funny about your name being mentioned amongst famous people. For me, that’s the name that was read out at my primary school roll call. It sounds off to your ear.”