Anthony’s turn for love! After helping his younger sister Daphne find love with the Duke of Hastings in season 1 of Netflix’s Bridgerton, the upcoming second installment follows Lord Anthony Bridgerton’s chance at love. However, the road to true love is not forged without some Regency-era drama.
“You can understand why he’s drawn to both [Kate and Edwina Sharma],” Jonathan Bailey, who plays Anthony in the Netflix hit, teased to Entertainment Weekly about the trio’s love triangle in an interview published on Thursday, February 3. “And they’re both drawn to him in turn. It’s an interesting love triangle; it’s dangerous when it’s siblings.”
Bailey, 33, continued: “It’s bestial between them in a way season 1 wasn’t. They’re all animals with each other. … Enemies to lovers is extreme. They can hit each other’s buttons within a second, and it’s something that’s instinctive. Their sense of self they project to other people, they can’t do that [with one another]; they’re naked in front of each other.”
The Laurence Olivier Award winner noted that Edwina (played by Charithra Chandran) and Kate (played by Simone Ashley) are the “embodiment of [Anthony’s] approaches to love” through both his head and his heart.
“The push and pull [illustrates] how intense it is to fall in love in a society that is so rigid, where the gender roles are so specific, and how much those roles can be completely counterproductive to happiness, progression, and to love,” Bailey added.
The second season of the historical drama is inspired by Julia Quinn’s second novel in her Bridgerton series: The Viscount Who Loved Me. While Anthony is initially set on marrying the season’s diamond Edwina, her strong-willed sister gets in his way, determined to block a potential match between her sister and a “reprehensible rogue.”
“She came with one goal: to take care of her sister,” the Sex Education alum, 26, told EW of her character Kate.
During the group interview, showrunner Chris van Dusen also teased that plenty of steamy “thirsty moments” in the new season — which debuts via Netflix next month — and scenes of love.
“The main theme of season 2 is head versus heart,” the former Scandal producer teased to the outlet in Thursday’s profile. “It’s true for Anthony and Kate, and it’s also true for Penelope [Featherington, played by Nicola Coughlan]. Her heart is with Lady Whistledown, but even she has to wonder if being London’s most notorious gossip writer is the wisest thing. … The season is charged and transporting and romantic.”
New episodes of Bridgerton premiere on Netflix beginning March 25.
