'The Queen is terrified of what the outcome will be for their friendship'
Ruth Gemmell, Golda Rosheuvel and Adjoa Andoh on playing Bridgerton's formidable leading ladies
Liam Daniel/Netflix
- Benji Wilson
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Ruth Gemmell plays Lady Violet Bridgerton
Daniel Francis as Lord Anderson, Ruth Gemmell as Lady Violet Bridgerton. Liam Daniel/Netflix
In its own impeccable way, Bridgerton has always pushed TV boundaries. The surprise for series four is that it’s Ruth Gemmell’s character, matriarch Lady Violet, doing some of the pushing.
“Mostly she does more of the same this year,” says Gemmell, “trying to force her children into marriage. She’s rather irritated with Benedict at the beginning because he’s not really playing ball. But she also spends a lot more time with Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis).”
“Spending a lot more time” is Gemmell’s euphemism for what becomes quite the steamy romance with Anderson.
“I was a little bit scared when I read the scripts, if I’m honest. Just because I’m pushing 60 and the idea of having the same kind of storyline as the children was not massively appealing. But it was a laugh. Daniel’s lovely and it was a bit of a chance to do something different.”
Violet’s relationship with Marcus is indeed something different. In fact, his character doesn’t actually feature in Julia Quinn’s novels and was invented entirely for the series. Quinn has stated she couldn’t imagine anyone good enough for Violet and never wrote about her remarrying.
“I felt quite strongly that I wasn’t massively open to the idea [of Violet finding a new partner],” Gemmell says. “Only because we have steered away from the books quite a lot and I don’t want to do the books or their fans a disservice. But then when you have a book, it changes dramatically when you put it onto screen. So you have to go with it.”
Which she gamely does. Violet and Marcus have, if not a torrid affair, then a simmering one, and it’s undoubtedly unusual for television to depict older people in such an intimate sexual relationship.
“We’re not dead!” says Gemmell. “As a society, we get wrapped up in the first throes of love and that is represented with youth and all of that. But I think there’s a lot of mileage to come from somebody with experience, whether that’s heartbreak, grief or life in general. Our viewer demographic is around my age anyway. So, it’s nice to be representative.”
This new storyline meant that, for the first time in four series, Gemmell worked with an intimacy coordinator.
“The first time I realised that there was going to be a bit of a foray into this area was at a costume fitting and that freaked me out. But they were very respectful about what I was and wasn’t prepared to do. You have a conversation with the intimacy adviser, it’s a closed set and you have a crew that you know well, so you feel safe. Also, it was very restrained compared to some of the younger lot. Which was a bloody relief for everyone, probably.”
Golda Rosheuvel plays Queen Charlotte and Adjoa Andoh plays Lady Danbury
Bridgerton. (L to R) Hugh Sachs as Brimsley, Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte, Adjoa Andoh as Lady Danbury in episode 401 of Bridgerton. Cr. Liam Daniel/Netflix © 2025 Liam Daniel/Netflix
"There’s a little bit of an upset with our best mate, Lady Danbury,” is Golda Rosheuvel’s description of the trouble at the top in series four. (And note the appropriate use of the regal plural – Rosheuvel has been playing a Queen for six years now and speaks fluent majesty).
“She comes into the season thinking that she has a lovely new toy in Whistledown (Nicola Coughlan), that they’re going to be best mates and she’s going to be able to control the gossip. And then she’s wrong-footed by Danbury asking to leave.”
“Danbury’s hit that time in her life,” explains Adjoa Andoh, “where she wants to know all of who she is. We have to remember that Danbury was sent over from Sierra Leone to the UK to marry an old git. As we saw from the Queen Charlotte series, she had a loveless marriage, four children and then he dies. Phew, thank goodness. Now I’m independent.”
In series three, her brother Marcus returned and the issue of her family and background re-emerges. “And at a certain point she realises there’s a piece of the jigsaw in her life that she doesn’t have available to her, and that is: ‘Who was I in Sierra Leone?’ I know from friends who have been fostered or adopted that there’s something about filling in a gap that – at a time in your life – becomes more necessary.”
Danbury’s announcement that she is off to find herself forces a schism at the top. “The Queen is lonely,” says Rosheuvel. “She needs her best friend by her side. She’s terrified of what the outcome will be for their friendship.” Predictably, the Queen doesn’t take it well.
“She says, ‘I’m the Queen, so you have to do what I say,’” say Andoh. “And Danbury goes, ‘Well, if I have to do what you say, I won’t to be your friend.’” Cue juvenile squabbling. “How they’re going to resolve that in a satisfactory way is their story arc throughout the season.”
It’s a tale of significant friendships and how they mature – and sometimes falter – over time. Something both women are familiar with. “I have a great friend who was in America and she’s just moved here,” says Rosheuvel. “Years ago, when someone asked me out, she was the person I phoned and went, ‘What do I do?’ She was like, ‘You don’t have to marry her, just enjoy what you’ve got.’ It was great advice – because I’d been on my own for five years at that point. And 12, 13 years later, I’m married to that person.”
Andoh’s closest friend is her younger brother. “He’s a musician and he lives in LA so he’s not around the corner, but we share a sense of humour being from the West Country – ‘All right poo face, you look like shit.’ ‘You don’t look much better’… that kind of thing. If I’m in LA, I go back to my brother and I’m in
a grounded place immediately. He’s always been in bands – I was a punk; I got him into it. In fact, that’s all I ever wanted to do – be a bass player in a punk band.” Which both is and isn’t very Lady Danbury, all at the same time.
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Episodes 5—8 will be released on 26 February
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Benji Wilson
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