April 15, 2021 • 32 mins
Guest-host Annabelle Hood and actress Nicola Coughlan (Penelope Featherington) highlight the episode easter eggs you may have missed, while historian Dr. Hannah Greig's fascination with Regency gossip gives us a unique look into the scandal sheets of old. Plus, executive producer Shonda Rhimes and novel series author Julia Quinn share the fanfare around Julie Andrews.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But now the vehicle. Get this, They actually used an
old school printing press, Annabel, to make the whistle down.
It was not printed out of a printer. Did they Yeah,
did they build this machine for this show? I don't know,
but that looks legit. That doesn't surprise me. We were
just talking about attention to detail. Welcome to Bridgerton the
(00:28):
Official Podcast. I'm Gabby Collins and I'm Annabelhood. So let
me just set the scene. We're just sitting down over zoom,
of course, watching some behind the scenes footage, and we
stumble across in reality. Allow this props master is walking
(00:54):
us through a miniature village on the set of Bridgerton
in which the whistle Down that's being created. He's got
a roller, a huge machine behind him that looks like
it's straight out of eighteen hundreds, and as we're watching it,
he's taking pieces of paper and rolling over it with
this black ink and voila, we've got the whistle doown
(01:18):
Low behold. So that's Lady Whistledown Society paper. And then
directly under it is the date, so you have the
issue and the date that it comes out. I get
the emails where the incredible art department will write out whistledowns.
Each side is printed, and it's not just gibberish that
you see, even if we never see it on screen.
(01:40):
You could get one of these whistledowns that we use
and open it up and it has a date on it,
and it has gossip in it and it's all in
regency language and all of that. You may never see
these things on screen. That's how much detail goes into
the Lady Whistledown. So there's such an important pot of
the Bridgeton world and of the storytelling that. I mean,
(02:04):
even the Queen loves Whistledown, even the Queen needs needs
to hot goss as we say. And why are we
talking about the creation of the Whistledown scandal sheet, Because
this episode is all about the build up to the
big reveal of Lady Whistledown. Really was all along and
(02:24):
all of the incredible touches you didn't get to see
that meet the whole thing possible, and you've probably already
seen the big reveal. But just in case this is
your spoiler alert, please pause this episode, go finish watching Bridgeton,
then come back. We'll have something nice and bubbly and
(02:47):
Efforvesson for you to get back into the conversation about
all of the hot goss behind the scenes. Seriously, this
is your last chance to pose it. We're about to
get into talk thinking about Lady Whistledown. Okay, are we
in the clear? Can we say it? Can we say
who Lady Whistledown is? So let's jump into our conversation
(03:10):
with Nicola Coughlin, who played Penelope a k a. Lady Whistledown,
on what it was like to keep the secret of
Whistledown throughout filming. Brierton, I always think of Penelope is
this is this big dicostomy there where she's so shy
and so low status, but then she is taking everything
and she's so sharp, and that has to make you
(03:31):
feel like something. You know, you've got to feel a
little bit like, oh I am m m you know hmm.
That has to then I feel like affect her. And
you have not heard what people are saying. Lady Whistldown
has gone too far this time. And I thought you
her greatest admire No when she smith the name of
my greatest friend. When we uncovered Whildown's identity, we will
convince her to publish a retraction and restore your family's reputation.
(03:55):
Oh we'll be well again, I promise you. Cris Bandusin
shared the thought process as he and Nicola went through
to develop this sensibility, this kind of third eye that
Penelope has throughout the show. I remember we worked out
the dan Bray ball sequence to being over a number
of days. I think it was maybe three or four,
maybe even four or five days. And you know, Nicola,
(04:18):
as Penelope was only really supposed to be in a
small portion of the ball. You know, her work really
only totaled about a day. But she pulled me aside.
The morning of the rehearsal, Nicola and I had a
conversation about Penelope as Lady Whistledown and what she'd really
be doing at that ball. And you know what we
(04:39):
talked about was that Penelope would be up against the
wall for the entire time, watching and listening and keeping
her eyes and ears open for all the hot goss.
You know, she'd be there all night, and so that
became a thing. So if you go back and you
watch that scene, you'll see Penelope in the deep background
of a lot of those shots doing her lady whist
(05:00):
the down thing, and we ended up using Nicola for
a lot more than just that first day at the
dan bray Ball. I think she was there for the
entire you know, Dan bray Ball sequence. I would always
be aware, like, what's her life that everyone sort of sees,
and what's her you know, what's happening in the moment.
But then I was like, but what's whistledown writing? So
(05:20):
I need to be mega aware of that. And also
it couldn't be really heavily signposted. We couldn't make it
really really obvious because what's the fun. And that the
moment at which Daphne and Simon bump into each other,
I went up. It was Julianne Robinson who directed episode one,
and I said to her like, I need to be
in the vicinity. I need to see this happen. So
(05:40):
and I don't think I actually no one has sent
it to me on social media, so I don't know
that anyone spots it. But you have to be pretty eagleized.
So it's basically when they bump into each other, they
have their conversation, and then you hear Anthony Coo hastings,
I'm there right behind Anthony. Wait, now I have to
go back and watch it. I know I want people
to watch back and go there, she is that little
(06:02):
sneaky sneak, you know. Yes, I was always sort of
ticking that in my brain and being aware. And then
the other one that I can think of that people
will be able to go back and see is the
ball where Daphne dances with the Prince. I've been telling everybody,
I love your face in that whole scene. You are
(06:23):
saying everything that I am saying as a viewer. Yeah,
because I think I think she is just trying to
be an observer. Yes, there's like sort of a snarky,
witty edge to it, but I don't think that she's
trying to ruin stuff for anybody. But I think in
that scene, my thought process behind it was like, she
knows that there's this stuff going on between Daphne and
the Duke, and also she's known Daphne since she was
a kid, so she's going to go, why is Daphne behaving?
(06:45):
This is not her, This is not her real personality,
this is not And then I really wanted to mark
it out that when the Duke leaves, I'm the only
one that turns to see him leave in the whole crowd.
I love that She's a really interesting character to play
because she's such an observer and not everything is outward.
It's it's like a challenged an actor. It's really fun.
(07:07):
For the original book fans, if watching season one, they
maybe maybe maybe they were focused on Simon and Daphne,
but if they saw Penelope in the background, they would
have known she's Lady whistled down and she's doing her
whistledown thing. And then for the new fans that came along,
they can now go back and rewatch season one and
(07:28):
clock Penelope in the background. So I think it's it's
a good Easter egg to find in season one. Yeah,
it definitely is. I went back and looked for all
the places I thought I saw Penelope lurking, and I
challenge the listeners to go back and clock them because
she's there. She's in the background, just lurking, being a wallflower,
(07:50):
just being a wall flower, a very bright yellow wallflower.
Show creator Chris Van Dusen and Nicolo work together to
really craft Penelope. In fact, Nicola was the first person
cast on the show, so they had some good time
to really work out the secret that we all know.
(08:12):
But as novel series creator Julia Quinn describes how Whistledown
came to be, there's room for argument. There's this really
funny story I had written I don't know, maybe eight
chapters or so, and it was open to my computer
and my dad had come to visit, and my dad
sat down and read it without my permission, and I
litters like, I cannot believe that you read something on
(08:35):
my computer without asking me, and it was really funny,
kind of put his hand over his mouth and he's like,
I'm so sorry. But then he says to me, well,
who's Lady Whistledown. He said, I don't know. He said,
you can't do that. I like, well, clearly I can,
because I did. He says, well, you have to figure
it out. I said, well, yeah, yeah, I'll figure it out.
(08:55):
For now. She's just kind of this awesome observer and
dump an information all over the place, making it easy
for me, and she gets to be super snarchy and
it's fun. And so I kept working on it and
working on it, and I did not figure out who
I wanted Lady was allowed to be until the end
of that book. You believe Whistledown. Is Lady Danbrey, your majesty,
(09:17):
what evidence have you gathered? You would like to know
what evidence I have gathered in my investigation of Lady Whistdown.
Are you acquiring your queen to ask again? Tell me
what you know. In the books, at the start of
every chapter, there's a few lines from Lady Whistledown, and
(09:38):
then it goes into the chapter and it's it always
relates back to what Lady Whistledown said at the start
of the chapter, and that's sort of how the show goes.
A lot of the episodes will start with the Lady
Whistledown voice over, and it always teases what's going to
happen in the episode and the challenges that the characters
are going to face, and maybe sometimes will come in
(10:00):
in midway through the episode with another Lady Whistledown voice over,
and then it'll always end with a warning from Lady
Whistledown as to the trouble that people have gotten themselves into. It.
As Miss Stephne Bridgeton has kept the interest of the
newly returned Duke of Hastings, I had started this book
(10:22):
and I had all this information that I needed to
get across, and I was trying to avoid what writers
call an info dump, which is basically where you know
you're in the first chapter and you're thinking yourself, well,
I need to let the reader know this, this, this,
and this, and it's so clunky, right, And then I
suddenly got the dam like, wait a minute, if I
start this off with an excerpt from a gossip column,
(10:42):
gossip columns are info dumps, So I could do like
an info dump and it won't be awkward, because that's
what it's supposed to be. Once I wrote that column,
it kind of just made sense that that's what Daphne
and Violet would be talking about, and then the book
just kind of took off from there. Nicola approached her
performance as Penelope with Lady Whistledown in mind. Even on
(11:05):
my latest watch, I'm still finding moments of Penelope calculating
and listening in the background so that she can use
everything she hears in her scandal papers. I think with Penelope,
she never uses whistle down as a tool to get
what she wants, So I think that's what kills her
about it is that she's really manipulated and it's just
(11:26):
you know, and I think she's essentially a very good person,
but you know, just does a terrible thing. Nicola, you've
said that Penelope kind of reminds you of a writer,
sort of presenting herself as an introverted, shy young woman,
but her mind is going a mile a minute. I
always viewed her in that way. And I think even
(11:48):
someone like Shanda, who like she's such a true writer
and is so together and calm and all this, but
then has all these worlds in her head. I find
that super super fascinating. So I always out of her
in that way. And it's very different too. I think
how I am because if I have something go wrong,
I'll immediately have to go to my friends and talk
it out. And I don't believe in internalizing, and I
(12:09):
think Penelope is the queen of internalizing. You know, she's
obviously has a terrible time with her family, but just
puts that somewhere else. She has this unrequited love, she
puts that somewhere else, and I'm like, that's a lot
of stress, goo, are You're gonna need to just let
it out a little bit and it will help you
a lot. Whistle down is her release, but it's gonna
get her in trouble. At some point, I'm like, it's
you know, it's a bomb ticking mom waiting to go off.
(12:34):
You can choose anyone but him. He is my friend, Marina.
I have known him for ever and I do not
want him to be tricked and deceived into a lifelong commitment.
You must not do this to a good man. Well
should I, perhaps in troup a bad man? Then Here's
what executive producer Chanda Rhymes had to say about Penelope Featherington.
(12:56):
I also feel like there's something really special when I
look at Penelope. We talk a lot about the levels
of society, you know, in a lot of ways, but
this idea of what it means to be a Bridgton
versus being Sayeth Featherington, Penelope's like, look at who we are.
Look at how I'm dressed, look at how I'm considered unattractive,
look at how my family is, look at the climber
that my mom is. You are Bridgertin like you don't
(13:18):
have to worry about anything. And I love that sort
of rage moment that comes out because it's true, like
she's got her nose pressed to the glass of somebody
else's life, and it's very frustrating for her. I always
found that very interesting to think about. That's the thing,
that's what's quite fun. And I think it's good at
this point that I actually know pretty much nothing that's
going to happen, So whatever speculation I'm doing now is unverified.
(13:40):
It's just what I think. I'm quite interested to see her.
I would like to see her have a little bit
more self confidence because I feel like she's so down
on herself. But I feel like with being whistled down,
she also is the most powerful woman in London. After
the break, we'll get into the true power that Lady
Whistledown had and we'll learn more about the actual writers
of the original scandal paper in regency London with historian
(14:02):
Hannah Gray. Welcome back to Bridgerton the official podcast. Before
the break, we spent a little time with actress Nicola Coughlin,
who plays Penelope Featherington. The last thing Nicola hit on
was Penelope's power. That's a multifaceted and potentially hotly debated
(14:24):
view of the fiery haired muse. But the scandal papers
were sources of income, not just powerful in the way
they shaped people's perceptions In this next spotlight on Whistledown
and her pen, we're exploring the power inc gave women
during the regency era, you know, mis buying Lady Whistledown.
(14:45):
She is up in the sky, a brilliant woman of
business who fools the entire tone whilst pocketing their money.
Imagine the life she must lead independence. You can be
sure she has not stuck simpering on the out of
a ball room every night praying a man might take
a fancy in the leg. Shacklad marriage. It's quite the
life you imagine for her. Else, West meet her so
that she might be her secrets, how to avoid such
(15:06):
a wretched, uninteresting thing. This is a self funded businesswoman.
This is twenty first century entrepreneur right here. This gives
me more insight into what Eloise was trying to say.
The era of the ton gives women the opportunity to
be opportunistic, for better or for worse. She wasn't just
(15:27):
there to dance at balls were there were more important
things going on than finding a husband. It was I've
got this hot gos to collect, I've got a business
to run. You know, we're just kind of programmed in
some ways to believe women didn't have opportunities, and Hannah
reminds us that in spite of social codes and restrictions,
women actually did have aspirations and ambitions which they did
(15:52):
achieve and capitalize on. Women did become what Eloise desperately
ached to become. There's plenty of women who were publishing,
often not under their real name at the time, so
we get lots of novels and pamphlets and stories written
by someone who might just be listed as a lady
of quality, or a lady who knows, or sometimes an
(16:13):
anonymous lady. His stories have done a lot of work
now is trying to uncover who these are. Sometimes they
reveal their identities later through a kind of life of publishing.
There's a world of women writing. If Lady will Statdown
is a woman, we don't know that she is, but
she could be listed as a lady, it's absolutely true
for regency London kind of world of print and newspapers
(16:33):
and writing. I don't think I need to make a
case for how much Lady Whistledown feels like any of
the other writers of scandal papers from this era. I
finally found her, Lady Down, she is Madame de Lacoix,
Madame de Lacoix is herd Wi dow. I'm not one
and the same, and she is going to print something
(16:55):
in your family's favor pen she told me so well
that certainly is an imp as a feat running two businesses,
we should both aspire to be just like her, unmarried,
earning our own money. Happy you found her hell, but
I do not think I can ever be like that.
You know, have a duchess for a sister. That makes
achieving the life you wish for all the more easier.
(17:16):
Status of my family. However, it's an entirely different story
which will not be changing the foreseeable future. I've always
mentioned it a few times during the season about how
financial independence is almost the opposite of intimacy. In the
last episode, we got into how sex and intimacy has
woven into the story like a fine lace. Now we're
looking at the implications of sex and forbidden intimacy. Hannah
(17:39):
helps us break down the historical accuracy with those implications.
Perhaps we have a presumption that modern society is uniquely
free and kind of our ideas about sex, about sexuality,
about relationships, So it might surprise people to know that
as a historian, we would see regency London as a
time that was well into what we'd call a sexual revolution.
(18:00):
It was one of the first kind of ideas of
themissive society that we now kind of give the nineteen
sixties credit to you, but actually regency society was ahead
of that time. Historians talk about that because sixteenth century
and earlier there was a lot of kind of regulation
around extramarital sex, so there was an expectation that you
would have sex within marriage, that there was careful community
constraints about how people's behavior was modified and managed, and
(18:23):
people would be shamed for seeing this kind of sexual misconduct.
But then by the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century,
most forms of consensual adult sexual relationships are not subject
to any kind of constraint or legal regulation. So there's
a much wider cultural acceptance of sex outside marriage, of
sex within marriage, who you can have sex with and
(18:44):
where and how. No way I thought there was only
now yes, yes. So people are really surprised by this.
I'm really just shocked to hear you say that, because
while watching it, I'm like, Okay, if somebody kisses me,
we have to get married. So if sex was all
over the place, and we're in the midst of this revolution.
(19:04):
Why was the scandal sheet such ad gas. So the
women whose access to the kind of sex was carefully
pleased were elite women who were bringing money in status,
who it was really important that their kind of virtue
was intact on marriage, that the morality was intact, because
(19:25):
really inheritance and property stands on it. All of English.
Inheritance law at the regency times meant that an estate
and a title should go to the oldest son. So
if there was any question about whether or not there
might be someone to contest that estate or that inheritance
might get split up in some way, and that becomes
really problematic. So it's a particular group of women whose
(19:47):
bodies are very carefully policed and who were protected from
having any kind of sense of their reputation being tarnished.
If scandal was attached to your name back in the regency,
that was you done. If you were embroiled in scandal,
then you weren't seen as a viable prospect. And that's
a terrible way to talk about women. But let's say
(20:07):
there's the Duke of Hastings and there are five women
after him and four of those women are suddenly named
in Lady Whistledown and you're the last one standing without
scandal attached to your name, then you're you're the winner.
So that's why it's gold. Because you try to keep
out of Whistledown as much as pass the ball, but
(20:29):
you want to know if your neighbors are being are
being scandalous, like the ripple effect of being named in
the Whistledown. Yeah, it's not just you, it's your family name.
The concept of the scandal sheet is very much illigency idea.
We would find pamphlets similar to Lady Whistledown's society papers.
(20:49):
Did they survive in libraries today? These kind of publications
that reveal the private lives and kind of pierce the
reputations of this world of professhionable London. The way the
Whistledown rattles Grovenor Square is a direct nod to the
real life scandal papers of regency shade. I'm talking about
(21:11):
one hundred and fifty four tweet threads with salacious details,
breaking news in your timeline, real housewives, reads, drama, and gossip.
We'll be right back with more from behind the scenes
of bridgeton Welcome Back. We were just talking about the
(21:38):
Savage scandal sheets of Regency era and some of the
gossip that the Tom did not hold back. Remember how
I was saying there's power in the ink on the
scandal papers. Well, this ink I'm talking about, literally used
on Whistledown's papers, really excites creator and showrunner Chris Van Newson.
With Lady whistled Out, we're really explore the power of
(22:01):
the written word, and we're seeing how that has and
hasn't changed over the last two hundred years. She is
our one woman Regency tabloid, and we get to see
how she shifts public opinion and how she affects people
and changes the narrative, just as tabloids and social media
does today in a lot of ways. I feel like
(22:22):
social media today is a lot like is a modern
day corset of sorts, and the fact that people are
obsessed with it and they feel a little stifled by
social media, just like our characters do when they whenever
they related whistle Down on the show, Jess Browne says
that they don't need to look too far to really
(22:42):
tap into what Chris Van Duson is saying here. It's
a lot like social media these days in terms of
always having to look happy and always having to show
your highlight reel on Instagram, you know, especially with the
gossip calumnists from that day, there was so much concerned
about public presentation, and so I think that was something
(23:04):
we were aware of when we were writing it. In
the realm of that parallel really kind to play with. Basically,
what I'm hearing is that the only difference from what
we're doing now and what was written then is the
name dropping. We at people right now, but in the
whistle Down there was a little more nuance to it.
In regency England, he didn't always get everyone's full name
(23:27):
printed in a newspaper or in a scandal sheet. There
would be some attempt to kind of disguise someone's identity.
So instead of writing Simon, Duke of Hastings in regency
newspapers and pamphlets, it would say the Duke of h
leaving the reader to figure out who it was. But
it was never hard to find out because there's only
a handful of Dukes. There wasn't really any attempts to
(23:47):
disguise their identity or to hide their blushes. I think
It was just a way to kind of avoid libel
laws in regency England, so they just printed their initials
or gave them some kind of pseudonym which everyone knew about.
So I mean, you might refer to someone like Daphne
as just the Diamonds Society's Glittering Prize or something, and
everyone like, oh, we know who that is. I know
(24:08):
someone this child said, your mamma, not a varments the page,
I should page, your father should still want a boy?
Just a maid? Which one of your maids is married?
She's not married? How did she become a childish she's
not married? I do not know. I will find out,
(24:29):
geez Hannah, some of these rumors and does the gossip
that we get up close to in Bridgerton is heavy hitting,
Like that one scene where Penelope is telling Colin that,
you know, a baby kind of looks like somebody's maybe.
I mean, it's it gets really really shady. What was
(24:51):
your first impression of some of the scandal papers that
you came across in your research. I mean, I have
to say, like, honestly, it's one of the things that
me into this period of history in the first place.
Was like in pursuit of the gossip. Like, I was
just so fascinated by this world of newspapers and prints
and this kind of celebrity culture of fashionable society. I thought,
who are these people who are endlessly in the newspapers
(25:14):
and why have we not talked about them as historians?
And who on earth is this person who's being exposed
for some scandal? And I guess I was just like, Oh,
I just guess I was just a historian who was
kind of reading the magazines of the time, and so
I kind of came, yeah, really interested in that world
of fashionable society because they were there was so much
in the press, So yeah, I was just pursuing the
magazine culture of history. All of this history and research
(25:38):
went into creating this realistic portrayal of Lady Whistledown. Every
detail was planned out, even down to the music. Here's
Bridgetin composer Chris Bowers on writing the theme song for
Lady Whistledown and the Lady Whistledown they really came from.
Give this introduction to Lady Whistledown and how she's talking
about the community as she's talking about her opinions and
(26:01):
how much weight her opinions can carry, and we really
want to feel that in the music. And I think
the first few times I wrote something for those sections,
it just felt a little too regal and a little
too stuffy and traditional and expected, and so trying to
write something that had a little bit more for lack
about a term like swagger, you know when you think
(26:22):
of like the way that Lady Whistledown is talking. Remember
the printing press that we talked about earlier and our
prop master friend aligning up every whistledown letter. And it
wasn't just one whistledown printed over and over again and
used several times over. There were different issues for different
(26:43):
days and different episodes the whistledowns and I'd see now
hand printed and yeah, it's just incredible. And there were
so many. So not only were they principal props that
were handed to the principal cars, there were also props
handed to the background actors to be carrying whistledowns as well.
And then of course the prop team have to be like, okay,
who did we give whistledowns too? We need to collect
(27:04):
them back at the end of the day. I have
a few of those whistledowns. Actually, I was using them
to decorate Chris's office and I was like, can I
just grab a few of these, and they're like, yeah, sure,
go ahead. We've got so many of them I should
keep them. Annabelle, you have the insider info on everything
behind the scenes, so I need to know why did
chandaland go all out for this piece of paper. The
(27:25):
viewer won't get to see that. Why was that important
to the production of Bridgerton. We try not to have
inaccurate details, even in the small things, so we need
to know how this would be printed, and also how
Penelope would print whistledown how would she figure it out? So,
you know, we need to know as the production crew
(27:45):
and as the art department need to know how this
be printed back then and what would that look like.
You know, what we know would look very different to
what it was back then. We just need to know
how everything's made in that time. Wow. Chris's explanation, the
secret scenes of Penelope listening, the historical accuracy of the
(28:07):
power of ink, and all the way down to the music.
Every detail culminated into such an amazing reveal. And of
course we can't round out an episode on Lady Whistledown
without saying these two magical words. I'm gonna say a
name or start off a sentence, and you're gonna finish it.
I'm gonna try. Okay, Okay, Julie Andrews, Oh my god.
(28:32):
I mean that's enough. That's enough. That was pure honesty.
That was me not thinking at all. I mean it's
I have known now for well over a year that
she was going to be involved in the project, and
still every time I think of it, my first reaction is,
oh my god, it's Julie Andrews. And what's delightful is
I think everybody who's involved in the production still feels
(28:54):
that way, like everybody is still kind of in these days,
but like she's involved. It's just oh my god. Even
executive producer Shonda Rhymes couldn't hold it in her excitement.
I know miss Andrews from some others work that we do,
and I was not about to ask her because I
feel like I can't don't want Julie Andrews stand no
to me. I did say we should ask her, like
(29:14):
we should absolutely ask her, and then to find out
that she said yes was incredible because I just felt
like she's got to be too busy for us, But
then here, like here was it was just amazing to me.
I literally think the first time we heard her voice
over the film, I cry, well, those not in attendance
of the box whole celebration, you missed the most remarkable
(29:35):
cool of the season. I adore Julie Andrews, and I
think Julie Andrews is amazing. And I joked like, can
you imagine Julie Andrews saying some of these like curse
words like I'm Mary Pop and saying curse words like
it's gonna be crazy? But when Julie Andrews said yes,
it to me like just elevated how hard we were
going to have to work in the quality of this thing,
(29:57):
because you can't have Julie Andrews as Lady Whistledown and
not do the finest job possible. And she was so
lovely and so wonderful and we are so grateful that
she's stepped into that spot and it was so great her.
So that's why they got the printing press, wrote an
(30:17):
original score for Lady Whistledown and all that research for
Julie Andrews. Just kidding but that's one heck of a reason, right.
The truth is, it's all about the story, and every
little detail only enhances the reveal. When you watch season one,
it doesn't feel like we can top ourselves. You think
there's no way this can be bigger and more scandalous
(30:40):
and more beautiful. But I can assure you it is,
and it's going to be, and I'm so excited for it. Annabelle,
thank you again for taking us inside behind the scenes
of Bridgerton. I could be Lady Whistledown with how many
secrets I know being an assistant, you end up you're
on a lot of email chain and you know a
(31:01):
lot of things. I know a lot of secrets. You
are the Whistledown of this whole thing, Like the real
Whistledown is Annabelhood. Yeah, my accent isn't as charming as
Julie Andrews. That's the only problem. It's the only difference.
And I know, I know people are blowing you up.
I have conversations now with people that there are things
(31:25):
going on for later in season two that I know
about but can't talk about with the rest of the crew.
So now people will ask me questions and be like Annabel,
you don't need to say, but just with your eyes
tell me. But my movements and winking across podcast doesn't work,
so I wish everyone could see, like how you are
(31:48):
stretching your eyes to be like I blink rapidly to
say yes. Two blinks for yes, one blink for no.
And that's it for this episode. On the next episode,
we'll be talking with Julia Quinn to learn more about
the romance genre. So stick around with us like subscribe
and share and we'll catch you next time. Behind the
(32:10):
scenes of Bridgerton. Bridgerton the Official Podcast is executive produced
by Lauren Holman, Sandy Bailey, Molly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins.
Our producer is Chris Van Duson and our editor is
Vincent de Johnny. Thanks for listening. Bridgerton the Official Podcast
(32:33):
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you download your favorite podcasts.
But now the vehicle. Get this, They actually used an
old school printing press, Annabel, to make the whistle down.
It was not printed out of a printer. Did they Yeah,
did they build this machine for this show? I don't know,
but that looks legit. That doesn't surprise me. We were
just talking about attention to detail. Welcome to Bridgerton the
(00:28):
Official Podcast. I'm Gabby Collins and I'm Annabelhood. So let
me just set the scene. We're just sitting down over zoom,
of course, watching some behind the scenes footage, and we
stumble across in reality. Allow this props master is walking
(00:54):
us through a miniature village on the set of Bridgerton
in which the whistle Down that's being created. He's got
a roller, a huge machine behind him that looks like
it's straight out of eighteen hundreds, and as we're watching it,
he's taking pieces of paper and rolling over it with
this black ink and voila, we've got the whistle doown
(01:18):
Low behold. So that's Lady Whistledown Society paper. And then
directly under it is the date, so you have the
issue and the date that it comes out. I get
the emails where the incredible art department will write out whistledowns.
Each side is printed, and it's not just gibberish that
you see, even if we never see it on screen.
(01:40):
You could get one of these whistledowns that we use
and open it up and it has a date on it,
and it has gossip in it and it's all in
regency language and all of that. You may never see
these things on screen. That's how much detail goes into
the Lady Whistledown. So there's such an important pot of
the Bridgeton world and of the storytelling that. I mean,
(02:04):
even the Queen loves Whistledown, even the Queen needs needs
to hot goss as we say. And why are we
talking about the creation of the Whistledown scandal sheet, Because
this episode is all about the build up to the
big reveal of Lady Whistledown. Really was all along and
(02:24):
all of the incredible touches you didn't get to see
that meet the whole thing possible, and you've probably already
seen the big reveal. But just in case this is
your spoiler alert, please pause this episode, go finish watching Bridgeton,
then come back. We'll have something nice and bubbly and
(02:47):
Efforvesson for you to get back into the conversation about
all of the hot goss behind the scenes. Seriously, this
is your last chance to pose it. We're about to
get into talk thinking about Lady Whistledown. Okay, are we
in the clear? Can we say it? Can we say
who Lady Whistledown is? So let's jump into our conversation
(03:10):
with Nicola Coughlin, who played Penelope a k a. Lady Whistledown,
on what it was like to keep the secret of
Whistledown throughout filming. Brierton, I always think of Penelope is
this is this big dicostomy there where she's so shy
and so low status, but then she is taking everything
and she's so sharp, and that has to make you
(03:31):
feel like something. You know, you've got to feel a
little bit like, oh I am m m you know hmm.
That has to then I feel like affect her. And
you have not heard what people are saying. Lady Whistldown
has gone too far this time. And I thought you
her greatest admire No when she smith the name of
my greatest friend. When we uncovered Whildown's identity, we will
convince her to publish a retraction and restore your family's reputation.
(03:55):
Oh we'll be well again, I promise you. Cris Bandusin
shared the thought process as he and Nicola went through
to develop this sensibility, this kind of third eye that
Penelope has throughout the show. I remember we worked out
the dan Bray ball sequence to being over a number
of days. I think it was maybe three or four,
maybe even four or five days. And you know, Nicola,
(04:18):
as Penelope was only really supposed to be in a
small portion of the ball. You know, her work really
only totaled about a day. But she pulled me aside.
The morning of the rehearsal, Nicola and I had a
conversation about Penelope as Lady Whistledown and what she'd really
be doing at that ball. And you know what we
(04:39):
talked about was that Penelope would be up against the
wall for the entire time, watching and listening and keeping
her eyes and ears open for all the hot goss.
You know, she'd be there all night, and so that
became a thing. So if you go back and you
watch that scene, you'll see Penelope in the deep background
of a lot of those shots doing her lady whist
(05:00):
the down thing, and we ended up using Nicola for
a lot more than just that first day at the
dan bray Ball. I think she was there for the
entire you know, Dan bray Ball sequence. I would always
be aware, like, what's her life that everyone sort of sees,
and what's her you know, what's happening in the moment.
But then I was like, but what's whistledown writing? So
(05:20):
I need to be mega aware of that. And also
it couldn't be really heavily signposted. We couldn't make it
really really obvious because what's the fun. And that the
moment at which Daphne and Simon bump into each other,
I went up. It was Julianne Robinson who directed episode one,
and I said to her like, I need to be
in the vicinity. I need to see this happen. So
(05:40):
and I don't think I actually no one has sent
it to me on social media, so I don't know
that anyone spots it. But you have to be pretty eagleized.
So it's basically when they bump into each other, they
have their conversation, and then you hear Anthony Coo hastings,
I'm there right behind Anthony. Wait, now I have to
go back and watch it. I know I want people
to watch back and go there, she is that little
(06:02):
sneaky sneak, you know. Yes, I was always sort of
ticking that in my brain and being aware. And then
the other one that I can think of that people
will be able to go back and see is the
ball where Daphne dances with the Prince. I've been telling everybody,
I love your face in that whole scene. You are
(06:23):
saying everything that I am saying as a viewer. Yeah,
because I think I think she is just trying to
be an observer. Yes, there's like sort of a snarky,
witty edge to it, but I don't think that she's
trying to ruin stuff for anybody. But I think in
that scene, my thought process behind it was like, she
knows that there's this stuff going on between Daphne and
the Duke, and also she's known Daphne since she was
a kid, so she's going to go, why is Daphne behaving?
(06:45):
This is not her, This is not her real personality,
this is not And then I really wanted to mark
it out that when the Duke leaves, I'm the only
one that turns to see him leave in the whole crowd.
I love that She's a really interesting character to play
because she's such an observer and not everything is outward.
It's it's like a challenged an actor. It's really fun.
(07:07):
For the original book fans, if watching season one, they
maybe maybe maybe they were focused on Simon and Daphne,
but if they saw Penelope in the background, they would
have known she's Lady whistled down and she's doing her
whistledown thing. And then for the new fans that came along,
they can now go back and rewatch season one and
(07:28):
clock Penelope in the background. So I think it's it's
a good Easter egg to find in season one. Yeah,
it definitely is. I went back and looked for all
the places I thought I saw Penelope lurking, and I
challenge the listeners to go back and clock them because
she's there. She's in the background, just lurking, being a wallflower,
(07:50):
just being a wall flower, a very bright yellow wallflower.
Show creator Chris Van Dusen and Nicolo work together to
really craft Penelope. In fact, Nicola was the first person
cast on the show, so they had some good time
to really work out the secret that we all know.
(08:12):
But as novel series creator Julia Quinn describes how Whistledown
came to be, there's room for argument. There's this really
funny story I had written I don't know, maybe eight
chapters or so, and it was open to my computer
and my dad had come to visit, and my dad
sat down and read it without my permission, and I
litters like, I cannot believe that you read something on
(08:35):
my computer without asking me, and it was really funny,
kind of put his hand over his mouth and he's like,
I'm so sorry. But then he says to me, well,
who's Lady Whistledown. He said, I don't know. He said,
you can't do that. I like, well, clearly I can,
because I did. He says, well, you have to figure
it out. I said, well, yeah, yeah, I'll figure it out.
(08:55):
For now. She's just kind of this awesome observer and
dump an information all over the place, making it easy
for me, and she gets to be super snarchy and
it's fun. And so I kept working on it and
working on it, and I did not figure out who
I wanted Lady was allowed to be until the end
of that book. You believe Whistledown. Is Lady Danbrey, your majesty,
(09:17):
what evidence have you gathered? You would like to know
what evidence I have gathered in my investigation of Lady Whistdown.
Are you acquiring your queen to ask again? Tell me
what you know. In the books, at the start of
every chapter, there's a few lines from Lady Whistledown, and
(09:38):
then it goes into the chapter and it's it always
relates back to what Lady Whistledown said at the start
of the chapter, and that's sort of how the show goes.
A lot of the episodes will start with the Lady
Whistledown voice over, and it always teases what's going to
happen in the episode and the challenges that the characters
are going to face, and maybe sometimes will come in
(10:00):
in midway through the episode with another Lady Whistledown voice over,
and then it'll always end with a warning from Lady
Whistledown as to the trouble that people have gotten themselves into. It.
As Miss Stephne Bridgeton has kept the interest of the
newly returned Duke of Hastings, I had started this book
(10:22):
and I had all this information that I needed to
get across, and I was trying to avoid what writers
call an info dump, which is basically where you know
you're in the first chapter and you're thinking yourself, well,
I need to let the reader know this, this, this,
and this, and it's so clunky, right, And then I
suddenly got the dam like, wait a minute, if I
start this off with an excerpt from a gossip column,
(10:42):
gossip columns are info dumps, So I could do like
an info dump and it won't be awkward, because that's
what it's supposed to be. Once I wrote that column,
it kind of just made sense that that's what Daphne
and Violet would be talking about, and then the book
just kind of took off from there. Nicola approached her
performance as Penelope with Lady Whistledown in mind. Even on
(11:05):
my latest watch, I'm still finding moments of Penelope calculating
and listening in the background so that she can use
everything she hears in her scandal papers. I think with Penelope,
she never uses whistle down as a tool to get
what she wants, So I think that's what kills her
about it is that she's really manipulated and it's just
(11:26):
you know, and I think she's essentially a very good person,
but you know, just does a terrible thing. Nicola, you've
said that Penelope kind of reminds you of a writer,
sort of presenting herself as an introverted, shy young woman,
but her mind is going a mile a minute. I
always viewed her in that way. And I think even
(11:48):
someone like Shanda, who like she's such a true writer
and is so together and calm and all this, but
then has all these worlds in her head. I find
that super super fascinating. So I always out of her
in that way. And it's very different too. I think
how I am because if I have something go wrong,
I'll immediately have to go to my friends and talk
it out. And I don't believe in internalizing, and I
(12:09):
think Penelope is the queen of internalizing. You know, she's
obviously has a terrible time with her family, but just
puts that somewhere else. She has this unrequited love, she
puts that somewhere else, and I'm like, that's a lot
of stress, goo, are You're gonna need to just let
it out a little bit and it will help you
a lot. Whistle down is her release, but it's gonna
get her in trouble. At some point, I'm like, it's
you know, it's a bomb ticking mom waiting to go off.
(12:34):
You can choose anyone but him. He is my friend, Marina.
I have known him for ever and I do not
want him to be tricked and deceived into a lifelong commitment.
You must not do this to a good man. Well
should I, perhaps in troup a bad man? Then Here's
what executive producer Chanda Rhymes had to say about Penelope Featherington.
(12:56):
I also feel like there's something really special when I
look at Penelope. We talk a lot about the levels
of society, you know, in a lot of ways, but
this idea of what it means to be a Bridgton
versus being Sayeth Featherington, Penelope's like, look at who we are.
Look at how I'm dressed, look at how I'm considered unattractive,
look at how my family is, look at the climber
that my mom is. You are Bridgertin like you don't
(13:18):
have to worry about anything. And I love that sort
of rage moment that comes out because it's true, like
she's got her nose pressed to the glass of somebody
else's life, and it's very frustrating for her. I always
found that very interesting to think about. That's the thing,
that's what's quite fun. And I think it's good at
this point that I actually know pretty much nothing that's
going to happen, So whatever speculation I'm doing now is unverified.
(13:40):
It's just what I think. I'm quite interested to see her.
I would like to see her have a little bit
more self confidence because I feel like she's so down
on herself. But I feel like with being whistled down,
she also is the most powerful woman in London. After
the break, we'll get into the true power that Lady
Whistledown had and we'll learn more about the actual writers
of the original scandal paper in regency London with historian
(14:02):
Hannah Gray. Welcome back to Bridgerton the official podcast. Before
the break, we spent a little time with actress Nicola Coughlin,
who plays Penelope Featherington. The last thing Nicola hit on
was Penelope's power. That's a multifaceted and potentially hotly debated
(14:24):
view of the fiery haired muse. But the scandal papers
were sources of income, not just powerful in the way
they shaped people's perceptions In this next spotlight on Whistledown
and her pen, we're exploring the power inc gave women
during the regency era, you know, mis buying Lady Whistledown.
(14:45):
She is up in the sky, a brilliant woman of
business who fools the entire tone whilst pocketing their money.
Imagine the life she must lead independence. You can be
sure she has not stuck simpering on the out of
a ball room every night praying a man might take
a fancy in the leg. Shacklad marriage. It's quite the
life you imagine for her. Else, West meet her so
that she might be her secrets, how to avoid such
(15:06):
a wretched, uninteresting thing. This is a self funded businesswoman.
This is twenty first century entrepreneur right here. This gives
me more insight into what Eloise was trying to say.
The era of the ton gives women the opportunity to
be opportunistic, for better or for worse. She wasn't just
(15:27):
there to dance at balls were there were more important
things going on than finding a husband. It was I've
got this hot gos to collect, I've got a business
to run. You know, we're just kind of programmed in
some ways to believe women didn't have opportunities, and Hannah
reminds us that in spite of social codes and restrictions,
women actually did have aspirations and ambitions which they did
(15:52):
achieve and capitalize on. Women did become what Eloise desperately
ached to become. There's plenty of women who were publishing,
often not under their real name at the time, so
we get lots of novels and pamphlets and stories written
by someone who might just be listed as a lady
of quality, or a lady who knows, or sometimes an
(16:13):
anonymous lady. His stories have done a lot of work
now is trying to uncover who these are. Sometimes they
reveal their identities later through a kind of life of publishing.
There's a world of women writing. If Lady will Statdown
is a woman, we don't know that she is, but
she could be listed as a lady, it's absolutely true
for regency London kind of world of print and newspapers
(16:33):
and writing. I don't think I need to make a
case for how much Lady Whistledown feels like any of
the other writers of scandal papers from this era. I
finally found her, Lady Down, she is Madame de Lacoix,
Madame de Lacoix is herd Wi dow. I'm not one
and the same, and she is going to print something
(16:55):
in your family's favor pen she told me so well
that certainly is an imp as a feat running two businesses,
we should both aspire to be just like her, unmarried,
earning our own money. Happy you found her hell, but
I do not think I can ever be like that.
You know, have a duchess for a sister. That makes
achieving the life you wish for all the more easier.
(17:16):
Status of my family. However, it's an entirely different story
which will not be changing the foreseeable future. I've always
mentioned it a few times during the season about how
financial independence is almost the opposite of intimacy. In the
last episode, we got into how sex and intimacy has
woven into the story like a fine lace. Now we're
looking at the implications of sex and forbidden intimacy. Hannah
(17:39):
helps us break down the historical accuracy with those implications.
Perhaps we have a presumption that modern society is uniquely
free and kind of our ideas about sex, about sexuality,
about relationships, So it might surprise people to know that
as a historian, we would see regency London as a
time that was well into what we'd call a sexual revolution.
(18:00):
It was one of the first kind of ideas of
themissive society that we now kind of give the nineteen
sixties credit to you, but actually regency society was ahead
of that time. Historians talk about that because sixteenth century
and earlier there was a lot of kind of regulation
around extramarital sex, so there was an expectation that you
would have sex within marriage, that there was careful community
constraints about how people's behavior was modified and managed, and
(18:23):
people would be shamed for seeing this kind of sexual misconduct.
But then by the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century,
most forms of consensual adult sexual relationships are not subject
to any kind of constraint or legal regulation. So there's
a much wider cultural acceptance of sex outside marriage, of
sex within marriage, who you can have sex with and
(18:44):
where and how. No way I thought there was only
now yes, yes. So people are really surprised by this.
I'm really just shocked to hear you say that, because
while watching it, I'm like, Okay, if somebody kisses me,
we have to get married. So if sex was all
over the place, and we're in the midst of this revolution.
(19:04):
Why was the scandal sheet such ad gas. So the
women whose access to the kind of sex was carefully
pleased were elite women who were bringing money in status,
who it was really important that their kind of virtue
was intact on marriage, that the morality was intact, because
(19:25):
really inheritance and property stands on it. All of English.
Inheritance law at the regency times meant that an estate
and a title should go to the oldest son. So
if there was any question about whether or not there
might be someone to contest that estate or that inheritance
might get split up in some way, and that becomes
really problematic. So it's a particular group of women whose
(19:47):
bodies are very carefully policed and who were protected from
having any kind of sense of their reputation being tarnished.
If scandal was attached to your name back in the regency,
that was you done. If you were embroiled in scandal,
then you weren't seen as a viable prospect. And that's
a terrible way to talk about women. But let's say
(20:07):
there's the Duke of Hastings and there are five women
after him and four of those women are suddenly named
in Lady Whistledown and you're the last one standing without
scandal attached to your name, then you're you're the winner.
So that's why it's gold. Because you try to keep
out of Whistledown as much as pass the ball, but
(20:29):
you want to know if your neighbors are being are
being scandalous, like the ripple effect of being named in
the Whistledown. Yeah, it's not just you, it's your family name.
The concept of the scandal sheet is very much illigency idea.
We would find pamphlets similar to Lady Whistledown's society papers.
(20:49):
Did they survive in libraries today? These kind of publications
that reveal the private lives and kind of pierce the
reputations of this world of professhionable London. The way the
Whistledown rattles Grovenor Square is a direct nod to the
real life scandal papers of regency shade. I'm talking about
(21:11):
one hundred and fifty four tweet threads with salacious details,
breaking news in your timeline, real housewives, reads, drama, and gossip.
We'll be right back with more from behind the scenes
of bridgeton Welcome Back. We were just talking about the
(21:38):
Savage scandal sheets of Regency era and some of the
gossip that the Tom did not hold back. Remember how
I was saying there's power in the ink on the
scandal papers. Well, this ink I'm talking about, literally used
on Whistledown's papers, really excites creator and showrunner Chris Van Newson.
With Lady whistled Out, we're really explore the power of
(22:01):
the written word, and we're seeing how that has and
hasn't changed over the last two hundred years. She is
our one woman Regency tabloid, and we get to see
how she shifts public opinion and how she affects people
and changes the narrative, just as tabloids and social media
does today in a lot of ways. I feel like
(22:22):
social media today is a lot like is a modern
day corset of sorts, and the fact that people are
obsessed with it and they feel a little stifled by
social media, just like our characters do when they whenever
they related whistle Down on the show, Jess Browne says
that they don't need to look too far to really
(22:42):
tap into what Chris Van Duson is saying here. It's
a lot like social media these days in terms of
always having to look happy and always having to show
your highlight reel on Instagram, you know, especially with the
gossip calumnists from that day, there was so much concerned
about public presentation, and so I think that was something
(23:04):
we were aware of when we were writing it. In
the realm of that parallel really kind to play with. Basically,
what I'm hearing is that the only difference from what
we're doing now and what was written then is the
name dropping. We at people right now, but in the
whistle Down there was a little more nuance to it.
In regency England, he didn't always get everyone's full name
(23:27):
printed in a newspaper or in a scandal sheet. There
would be some attempt to kind of disguise someone's identity.
So instead of writing Simon, Duke of Hastings in regency
newspapers and pamphlets, it would say the Duke of h
leaving the reader to figure out who it was. But
it was never hard to find out because there's only
a handful of Dukes. There wasn't really any attempts to
(23:47):
disguise their identity or to hide their blushes. I think
It was just a way to kind of avoid libel
laws in regency England, so they just printed their initials
or gave them some kind of pseudonym which everyone knew about.
So I mean, you might refer to someone like Daphne
as just the Diamonds Society's Glittering Prize or something, and
everyone like, oh, we know who that is. I know
(24:08):
someone this child said, your mamma, not a varments the page,
I should page, your father should still want a boy?
Just a maid? Which one of your maids is married?
She's not married? How did she become a childish she's
not married? I do not know. I will find out,
(24:29):
geez Hannah, some of these rumors and does the gossip
that we get up close to in Bridgerton is heavy hitting,
Like that one scene where Penelope is telling Colin that,
you know, a baby kind of looks like somebody's maybe.
I mean, it's it gets really really shady. What was
(24:51):
your first impression of some of the scandal papers that
you came across in your research. I mean, I have
to say, like, honestly, it's one of the things that
me into this period of history in the first place.
Was like in pursuit of the gossip. Like, I was
just so fascinated by this world of newspapers and prints
and this kind of celebrity culture of fashionable society. I thought,
who are these people who are endlessly in the newspapers
(25:14):
and why have we not talked about them as historians?
And who on earth is this person who's being exposed
for some scandal? And I guess I was just like, Oh,
I just guess I was just a historian who was
kind of reading the magazines of the time, and so
I kind of came, yeah, really interested in that world
of fashionable society because they were there was so much
in the press, So yeah, I was just pursuing the
magazine culture of history. All of this history and research
(25:38):
went into creating this realistic portrayal of Lady Whistledown. Every
detail was planned out, even down to the music. Here's
Bridgetin composer Chris Bowers on writing the theme song for
Lady Whistledown and the Lady Whistledown they really came from.
Give this introduction to Lady Whistledown and how she's talking
about the community as she's talking about her opinions and
(26:01):
how much weight her opinions can carry, and we really
want to feel that in the music. And I think
the first few times I wrote something for those sections,
it just felt a little too regal and a little
too stuffy and traditional and expected, and so trying to
write something that had a little bit more for lack
about a term like swagger, you know when you think
(26:22):
of like the way that Lady Whistledown is talking. Remember
the printing press that we talked about earlier and our
prop master friend aligning up every whistledown letter. And it
wasn't just one whistledown printed over and over again and
used several times over. There were different issues for different
(26:43):
days and different episodes the whistledowns and I'd see now
hand printed and yeah, it's just incredible. And there were
so many. So not only were they principal props that
were handed to the principal cars, there were also props
handed to the background actors to be carrying whistledowns as well.
And then of course the prop team have to be like, okay,
who did we give whistledowns too? We need to collect
(27:04):
them back at the end of the day. I have
a few of those whistledowns. Actually, I was using them
to decorate Chris's office and I was like, can I
just grab a few of these, and they're like, yeah, sure,
go ahead. We've got so many of them I should
keep them. Annabelle, you have the insider info on everything
behind the scenes, so I need to know why did
chandaland go all out for this piece of paper. The
(27:25):
viewer won't get to see that. Why was that important
to the production of Bridgerton. We try not to have
inaccurate details, even in the small things, so we need
to know how this would be printed, and also how
Penelope would print whistledown how would she figure it out? So,
you know, we need to know as the production crew
(27:45):
and as the art department need to know how this
be printed back then and what would that look like.
You know, what we know would look very different to
what it was back then. We just need to know
how everything's made in that time. Wow. Chris's explanation, the
secret scenes of Penelope listening, the historical accuracy of the
(28:07):
power of ink, and all the way down to the music.
Every detail culminated into such an amazing reveal. And of
course we can't round out an episode on Lady Whistledown
without saying these two magical words. I'm gonna say a
name or start off a sentence, and you're gonna finish it.
I'm gonna try. Okay, Okay, Julie Andrews, Oh my god.
(28:32):
I mean that's enough. That's enough. That was pure honesty.
That was me not thinking at all. I mean it's
I have known now for well over a year that
she was going to be involved in the project, and
still every time I think of it, my first reaction is,
oh my god, it's Julie Andrews. And what's delightful is
I think everybody who's involved in the production still feels
(28:54):
that way, like everybody is still kind of in these days,
but like she's involved. It's just oh my god. Even
executive producer Shonda Rhymes couldn't hold it in her excitement.
I know miss Andrews from some others work that we do,
and I was not about to ask her because I
feel like I can't don't want Julie Andrews stand no
to me. I did say we should ask her, like
(29:14):
we should absolutely ask her, and then to find out
that she said yes was incredible because I just felt
like she's got to be too busy for us, But
then here, like here was it was just amazing to me.
I literally think the first time we heard her voice
over the film, I cry, well, those not in attendance
of the box whole celebration, you missed the most remarkable
(29:35):
cool of the season. I adore Julie Andrews, and I
think Julie Andrews is amazing. And I joked like, can
you imagine Julie Andrews saying some of these like curse
words like I'm Mary Pop and saying curse words like
it's gonna be crazy? But when Julie Andrews said yes,
it to me like just elevated how hard we were
going to have to work in the quality of this thing,
(29:57):
because you can't have Julie Andrews as Lady Whistledown and
not do the finest job possible. And she was so
lovely and so wonderful and we are so grateful that
she's stepped into that spot and it was so great her.
So that's why they got the printing press, wrote an
(30:17):
original score for Lady Whistledown and all that research for
Julie Andrews. Just kidding but that's one heck of a reason, right.
The truth is, it's all about the story, and every
little detail only enhances the reveal. When you watch season one,
it doesn't feel like we can top ourselves. You think
there's no way this can be bigger and more scandalous
(30:40):
and more beautiful. But I can assure you it is,
and it's going to be, and I'm so excited for it. Annabelle,
thank you again for taking us inside behind the scenes
of Bridgerton. I could be Lady Whistledown with how many
secrets I know being an assistant, you end up you're
on a lot of email chain and you know a
(31:01):
lot of things. I know a lot of secrets. You
are the Whistledown of this whole thing, Like the real
Whistledown is Annabelhood. Yeah, my accent isn't as charming as
Julie Andrews. That's the only problem. It's the only difference.
And I know, I know people are blowing you up.
I have conversations now with people that there are things
(31:25):
going on for later in season two that I know
about but can't talk about with the rest of the crew.
So now people will ask me questions and be like Annabel,
you don't need to say, but just with your eyes
tell me. But my movements and winking across podcast doesn't work,
so I wish everyone could see, like how you are
(31:48):
stretching your eyes to be like I blink rapidly to
say yes. Two blinks for yes, one blink for no.
And that's it for this episode. On the next episode,
we'll be talking with Julia Quinn to learn more about
the romance genre. So stick around with us like subscribe
and share and we'll catch you next time. Behind the
(32:10):
scenes of Bridgerton. Bridgerton the Official Podcast is executive produced
by Lauren Holman, Sandy Bailey, Molly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins.
Our producer is Chris Van Duson and our editor is
Vincent de Johnny. Thanks for listening. Bridgerton the Official Podcast
(32:33):
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you download your favorite podcasts.
Host
Gabrielle Collins
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