Of her Irish Catholic family, the actress adds, “That’s just not how we vibe”


Nicola Coughlan, who stars as Penelope Featherington on the Netflix series “Bridgerton,” has a special clause written into her contract with the streamer: a PG version of the show has to be cut and delivered to her parents. Coughlan told SiriusXM Hits 1 on Thursday, “It’s literally written into my contract.”

“People think I’m like saying it as a joke. I just don’t want to. I grew up Irish Catholic. That’s just not how we vibe,” she explained.

Coughlan went on to add that her mother was surprised by the nudity in the show’s first season. “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, about two minutes into the first episode ever.”

“And she was like, ‘What is this?’ But then, now she thinks it’s fantastic and really funny, and she keeps talking about bottoms,” Coughlan said.

The actress also filmed a few “saucy” scenes of her own for the third season of the Netflix series. “I didn’t know what it was going to be like, but it’s a little bit like a stunt in which they’re like, ‘OK, we’re going do this, this, and this,’” she said. “But then they gave us freedom to like, we had a lot of say in how we did those scenes and what we wanted to do.”

“And that makes you feel quite empowered and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to do this, this, and this.’ So we felt super. They were actually really enjoyable. I didn’t think they would be. They were great. It was fun.”

Coughlan also promoted her current Channel 4 comedy “Big Mood,” which she admitted has “a saucy scene” that’s “not ‘Bridgerton’ level, but it’s in there.”

“And I had avoided showing her that,” Coughlan added. “And I did a talk show in Ireland in which she was in the audience, and they showed it on that. And I was like, ‘OK, well I can’t control that anymore.’”

You can watch that Irish talk show appearance on “The Late Late Show,” alongside Mel B from the Spice Girls, right here:


Part 1 of Season 3 of “Bridgerton” will be released on May 24. It will be followed by Part 2 on June 13.