Dearest gentle readers, as you may well know if you’ve been following the Bridgerton press tour, the furniture on the set of the Netflix romance series simply couldn’t withstand the show’s love scenes.
Nicola Coughlan, who portrays Penelope Featherington in the Regency-era smash hit, took to social media last week to share that she and costar Luke Newton, who portrays her love interest Colin Bridgerton on the Shondaland series, rocked the furniture so hard while filming an intimate scene that they broke it. In photos posted on Coughlan’s Instagram page, she and Newton, whose characters are commonly referred to by their portmanteau, Polin, give a thumbs-up as they smile next to a broken striped damask lounge. In the second shot, one can see that the chair’s leg snapped entirely off.
“Part Two is out now, we put our heart and souls into it, hope you love watching it as much as we loved filming it. #PolinForever,” Coughlan wrote.
In a tour of season three’s sets, Bridgerton production designer Alison Gartshore told AD that the stability of the furniture on set is a top concern for her crew. “If you know Bridgerton, you’ll know that there’s quite a lot of intimate scenes throughout the series,” Gartshore told AD. “We always have to make sure that, where we have those intimacy scenes, the furniture will stand up to the job, shall we say.”
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Newton has since confirmed to Vanity Fair that the sofa-snapping mishap took place during the filming of season three’s infamous mirror scene, a steamy interlude that had viewers’ tongues wagging.
“Our director at the time took a step back and said, ‘Right. Let’s just mix it up, this take, and let’s really sort of go for this one. Let’s up the energy basically, and up the stakes.’ Then I think we were maybe 20 seconds in, and one of the legs just completely snapped off,” shared Newton. As a result, the production team had to prop up the chaise with apple boxes.
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“Little moments like that make the days just so much more enjoyable,” Newton continued. (Incredibly enjoyable for viewers craving behind-the-scenes scoops, as well.)
