Bridgerton has revealed its next series leads in a deviation from the order of the original books.
Instead of going with the continuity of the Bridgerton novels, season three of the hit Netflix show will see the love story between Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) taking centre stage.
The news was revealed at Netflix’s NYSEE panel on Sunday.
Nicola also shared the news with her followers on Instagram, writing: “Like Lady Whistledown I’ve been keeping quite a big secret for quite a long time… but I can finally tell you that @bridgertonnetflix Season Three is Colin and Penelope’s Story.”
The couple follow in the footsteps of Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Bassett (Phoebe Dynevor and Rége-Jean Page) who took the spotlight during the first run, followed by Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma (Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley) in the second.
In the Bridgerton book series, Colin and Penelope’s story is the focus of the fourth novel Romancing Mr Bridgerton.
Nicola previously said she is going to ask the makers of Bridgerton to do “the PG version” of her character’s sex scenes when she was to become series lead as she finds the prospect of shooting them “terrifying”.
“Luke and I, we used to joke about it all the time, and then it becomes progressively less funny and more intimidating as time goes on,” she said.
“I think I’m genuinely and I’m not kidding – going to ask Shondaland for a special family friendly cut. Because I just think it’s embarrassing enough watching the scenes that I am not in there like that.”
She continued: “I’m just sort of like haha, so I think I’m going to put a special request in my contract to be like, can we just get one that’s the PG version, like maybe a little kiss and then we’re good, because I’ve read the book.
“So I know that it gets extremely racy in that scene. I know already stuff that’s gonna happen. So I’m like, no, we’re good. We’re fine. It’s intense.”
The third season of Bridgerton will also see one of the Bridgerton family getting a whole new face, as one of the characters has been recast with a new actor.
Both seasons of Bridgerton are now available to watch on Netflix.