Pencil the date into your social calendar: on May 4, 2023, Bridgerton fans will be heading back to the world of Regency England.
But instead of the Bridgerton family, this series – titled Queen Charlotte – will be exploring the background of fan favourite, the imperious Queen herself. And to make things even better, Netflix has also released its first teaser trailer for the show.
Played as an adult by Golda Rosheuvel, the prequel will visit Charlotte at an earlier period in her life: as a young woman, following her at the start of her marriage to King George III, and as she embarked on the love affair that followed.
For Bridgerton fans, the prospect of an expanded universe is catnip – something that its producer Shonda Rhimes is well aware of.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the romance between Charlotte and King George and wondering how that began,” she says.
“Romance stories don’t usually include women of a certain age in this sort of genre. And I really wanted to tell the stories of these women and who they are and how they came to be.”
The series itself will comprise two separate timelines: the past, and the present Bridgerton day, where Rosheuvel, Adjoa Andoh and Ruth Gemmell will be reprising their roles as the older Queen Charlotte, Lady Danbury and Violet Bridgerton.
They’re big shoes to fill for newcomer India Amarteifio, who plays a young Charlotte, but she’s adamant that there was never any pressure on her to replicate Rosheuvel’s performance – which is teased in the trailer. “They were very clear on the fact that this Charlotte is her own. I am kind of in control of how she becomes,” she says.
“It’s just nice to be able to play someone that was really free, and youthful, and going into this whole new experience, kind of a bit like myself.”
Acting alongside her will be newcomer Corey Mylchreest, who’ll be playing her on-screen husband King George – who appears briefly in the original Bridgerton series as a man who has lost his grip on reality.
“James Fleet – older King George – does such a great job of showing him when [his illness] has taken ahold of him wholly,” he says. “But we don’t know who he is when he’s younger, and that’s my job to discover. Because both of our characters are real people, I mean, there’s a lot of history to dive into.”
Despite their rocky start (one of the show’s earlier scenes shows Charlotte trying to scale a garden wall to get away from him), Mylchreest adds that their relationship becomes something “really beautiful”.
It’s not all about Charlotte and George, however: the prequel series will also seek to expand the backstory of Andoh’s Lady Danbury, who is a sort of godmother figure to Regé-Jean Page’s Duke of Hastings.
In the prequel, she’ll be played by American actress Arsema Thomas, as Lady Danbury takes on an older-sister role to the young Queen. “Arsema is just magnificent,” Andoh says of her younger counterpart. “There was a photo I found of me when I was doing Casualty in 2003. And then we stuck it next to the photo of Arsema, and it’s like matchy matchy, isn’t it?
“We’d have lovely chats on the phone. And we talked about the character and the history. And that how that person would have been in that world at that time, and Arsema asked me stuff about how I felt about Lady Danbury… as an actor, what a gift and a rare opportunity to get to talk to someone who’s playing the younger version of you.”
“To take on somebody else’s idea is really interesting. But for me, I wanted India to be authentic, right in her own skin, taking on this role,” Rosheuvel adds. “It had to come from her own truth.”
Make no mistake: this is not a straightforward Bridgerton show (though we have been promised gorgeous costumes and a fair few steamy love scenes).
“There was less structuring [in Queen Charlotte] of who’s with whom and what’s happening,” says Andoh. “It’s more about how you responded to those circumstances.
“There’s a sort of cross-fertilisation, that there’s an enriching of who you are in Bridgerton. And I hope that our audiences will really get that enrichment.”
One of the reasons that the show has become so iconic is because of the diversity in its casting – something which is also touched on during the new series.
“I think especially in the world that we are in now, to celebrate black history is really, really important. And through a female historical character, I think [it] is really cool. And beautiful,” Rosheuvel says.
It’s wonderful, adds Andoh, “as actors of colour, to be able to be in stories that are not entirely contemporary, and to be in those stories, not as enslaved people, downtrodden – because there are more stories.
“And you know, this isn’t a documentary, but it’s based on a truth.” There is a theory, argued by the historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom, that the Queen, though German, was a direct descendent of a branch of the Portuguese royal family, which is held to have included some people of colour. “To have that truth aired, it gives us space to expand and also to go, we’ve been here for an extremely long time. And we have a place in all the stories that are told, because it enriches all our history.”
Ultimately, this prequel is also something that the cast have a clear affection for – and an impatience to see on the big screen at last.
“All of us put so much love… we gave everything to this,” Amarteifio says. “And we just hope that if at least one person comes away feeling some kind of emotion, whatever it is – happiness, sadness, joy – for me, at least I’ll feel fulfilled.”
