Warning: Spoilers for Queen Charlotte and Bridgerton ahead. Golda Rosheuvel, the veteran actress behind Bridgerton's elegant, cutthroat matriarch has personally been building her character’s backstory ever since the show's first season in 2020, when Netflix’s wildly-popular period romance introduced the original character inspired by the real-life 18th-century queen. Rosheuvel’s magnificent portrayal has made Charlotte one of the series' most nuanced, fan-favorite characters, as each of her scenes revealed a new facet of her being. And now that rich backstory has finally been brought to life in Bridgerton’s first spin-off, Queen Charlotte, which depicts both the early days of the titular character's marriage to King George (with India Amarteifio playing young Charlotte) and the royal’s present-day matchmaking efforts to have one of her 13 (!) children produce a royal heir.
Here, Rosheuvel chats about bringing Queen Charlotte’s family to the screen, the universal themes highlighted in showrunner Shonda Rhimes’s writing, and how the Netflix spinoff reminds her of Succession.
