The stunning “Sex Education” actress Simone Ashley is the new lead actress in town, the hit Netflix show announced
The erotically charged period soap – based on Julia Quinn’s bestselling novel series, created by Chris Van Dusen and produced by “Scandal” queen Shonda Rhimes – is set in the competitive world of frilly, stylish Regency London in the 1880s.
The first season of Shondaland’s amazing mix of ‘Gossip Girl’ and Jane Austen revolved around virgin socialite Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor, 25) and her steamy love affair with the sultry spoon-eating Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page, 31).
For Season 2 – based on Quinn’s second entry in her book series, “The Viscount Who Loved Me” – sweet Daphne will have to share the spotlight a la Princess Kate and Duchess Meghan as the new episodes will focus on the wedding activities of Daphne’s elder Bridgerton bro: Anthony (Jonathan Bailey, 32).
Ashley, 25, will star Anthony’s romantic interest Kate Sharma, a new London transplant from India who is described as an intelligent, “opinionated young woman who doesn’t suffer fools” – including Anthony, according to an announcement on Shondaland TV’s Twitter.
Season 2 from “Bridgerton” will also find that the show’s producers continue to break casting conventions in the style of Broadway’s “Hamilton.”
Ashley’s Kate – originally dubbed Kate Sheffield in Quinn’s second novel – and her family are of Indian descent in a continuation of the reimagined, multiracial world of old-fashioned high society created in Season 1, featuring several great black characters, including the duke (Page), Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) who are not in the original book series, Deadline first reported.
In addition to her role as Olivia Hanan in Netflix’s critically acclaimed ‘Sex Education’, British actress Ashley was also recently featured in the British ITV mystery drama ‘The Sister’. She is reportedly one of many new faces in ‘Bridgerton,’ the most watched series in the streaming giant’s history with 82 million households tuning in in the first four weeks of Season 1.
“We have a lot of new characters that we’re going to introduce,” revealed Van Dusen, creator and showrunner, during an interview on “Today with Hoda & Jenna” in Janurary “Anthony will have a love interest next season, and I think it will be just as overwhelming and moving and as beautiful as viewers of the show’s first season have come to expect.”
The Season 2 plot twist was also plagued in the closing minutes of the Season 1 finale, when Anthony declared his goal of ‘finding my intentions and immediately communicating it to my new viscountess’, following the implosion of his illicit relationship with the proud bawdy opera singer Siena. (Sabrina Bartlett).
However, Van Dusen emphasized during the interview that he also hopes that Page and Dynevor will reprise their roles.
Note: Ashley’s previous experience with “sex education” may be helpful. Season 1 of “Bridgerton” featured nude love scenes so steamy they were infamously ripped for hardcore porn sites – much to the dismay of Page and Dynevor.