Nicola Coughlan talks getting 'Bridgerton' sex scenes cut and social media being a ‘dangerously binary place’

Actress Nicola Coughlan, who is best known for her roles in ‘Derry Girls’, ‘Bridgerton’, ‘Big Mood’ and ‘Barbie’, has discussed why she insists on having a version of ‘Bridgerton’ with no sex scenes and why she’s changed her approach to social media.

The 37-year-old Galway-born star plays Penelope Featherington in sexy Netflix period drama ‘Bridgerton’, but she revealed during a recent radio appearance that she gets given a much less sexy version of the show - so that she can play that one for her parents. She said she asked for an edited version so that she didn’t have to worry about her mum and dad would will react to the more steamy or risque moments that the series has become known for. Coughlan was asked about the “PG version” of the show that she receives for her mom during a recent appearance on the radio show SiriusXM Hits 1 in Canada, as reported by Today. “It’s literally written into my contract,” the actor said “People think I’m saying it as a joke. Explaining the reasoning, she continued: “I grew up Irish Catholic. That’s just not how we vibe.”

When asked how her mum had reacted to ‘Brigerton’, Coughlan explained, “When she first saw ‘Bridgerton,’ she didn’t know it was going to be so saucy. And then you get a bottom — Jonathan Bailey’s lovely bottom (who plays Anthony Bridgerton) — about two minutes into the first episode ever. And she was like, ‘What is this?’” she added. “But then now she thinks it’s fantastic and really funny and she keeps talking about bottoms.”

Coughlan and her co-star Luke Newton are the focus of the third season of “Bridgerton,” which will follow the romance between their characters Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton.

When asked how she felt about filming sex scenes, Coughlan noted that she and Newton have appeared on the show since season one, which aired in 2020, and so they had “the advantage of knowing each other for years.” She did, however, reveal that while filming one of the season’s more intense scenes, she and Newton “did break a piece of furniture.”

In another interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, she said that fame “doesn’t come with a handbook” and is a “learning curve every day”. She added that she loves acting but “all the scrutiny isn’t easy, and fame is a very strange consequence of doing my job”.

She also said: “I have so much love and respect for the fans of things I’ve done – I want them to know that I feel grateful – but it is difficult to navigate being online when people throw their opinions of you at you like grenades.”

Coughlan went on to explain that her Instagram account can still “annoy people”, but she has changed her approach to social media to focus on sharing information from “trusted sources” or to help raise money for fundraisers. “I feel a deep responsibility, because of how privileged I am, to speak up and try to amplify voices and causes,” she said.

She concluded: “Social media has made the world a dangerously binary place; the ‘If you support X, you hate Y’ narrative is not something I am interested in, and I’ll do my best to fight against that notion. While I still get trolls who say terrible things to me, don’t forget, I used to be in a cult called Twitter. I’ve heard worse.”

“Bridgerton” returns for a third season on Netflix on May 16 with the first four episodes. After a mid-season break, the last four installments of season three then premiere on the streaming platform on June 13.

The May issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale from April 11 and the interview with Coughlan is available to read online now.