Nicola Coughlan is nowhere near done with “Bridgerton,” but the star of Season 3 can’t help looking down the road. After making the seamless jump from wallflower to leading lady with Penelope’s story, she recognizes that her character will move to the periphery after Parts 1 and 2 premiere this summer.
“I was talking to Luke Newton about this the other day,” Coughlan told IndieWire the day before “Bridgerton” Season 3 – Part 1 premiered. “There’s something nice about kind of going back to the drawing board thing as an actor. You’re not going back to point zero, but it’s nice to go ‘Now I’ve got to work my ass off again to get a job.’”
Coughlan was conscious of the fact that a lot of actors reach a point where they no longer accept auditions, just offers, but she feels it’s too important to test the waters with a script and director before jumping into something.
“There’s so much that I want to do, there’s so many people I want to work with, a million different great directors and actors that I admire,” Coughlan said. “I think the actors who get themselves in trouble are the ones that think they’ve made it — because you’ve never made it. You’re a freelancer.”
So what’s on the freelance wishlist? She just booked a job that we can’t talk about, but one that she “really wanted.” Though Greta Gerwig is technically already checked off on the list of collaborators, Coughlan got to work with the director only briefly on “Barbie,” and said “I would die at the chance to work with her again.” She’d love to host “Saturday Night Live,” and is quick to name one particular studio.
“I really want to work with A24,” Coughlan said. “Everything they put out just speaks to me. I am a sucker for when something just feels fresh, because it is so difficult. They say there’s no new stories, but they do feel in a sense [like] they reinvent the wheel every time — when you think of things like ‘Zola’ and ‘The Iron Claw,’ I just watched ‘Past Lives’ — there’s not really a common thread in those, but you can tell they’re A24 movies and I don’t know how they do that but they do.”
