It’s Bridgerton season, baby! After two years, the show is back with Season 3, which focuses on Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) as he finally realizes his feelings for Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan).
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The friends-to-lovers story between Colin and Pen is so juicy, and it all culminates in the infamous carriage scene from the books, where Colin finally acts on his feelings for Penelope after they shared a kiss a few episodes prior.
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Episode 4, which features the carriage moment, was directed by Andrew Ahn, who previously directed Fire Island, and written by Lauren Gamble, who worked on Inventing Annaand How to Get Away with Murder.
The carriage scene is one of the moments from Julia Quinn’s novel Romancing Mister Bridgerton that fans were eagerly awaiting to see adapted, and Luke, Nicola, and the entire team knocked it out of the park.
So, here are just 13 behind-the-scenes facts about the making of this iconic Bridgerton moment:
1. First, the carriage scene was filmed over the course of three days. Luke said, “There was a different energy on set that day,” as everyone was anticipating finally filming such a memorable moment from Julia Quinn’s book.
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Luke added to Vanity Fair, “We were locked in a carriage together with cameras outside. So it felt kind of real. It did feel intimate. It’s very honest.”
2. The moment was filmed on one of the many soundstages Bridgerton uses. In order to get the illusion of the carriage moving, a bunch of crew members were simply shaking it from the outside.
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Nicola told The Today Show, “It was on a soundstage, actually. With a bunch of burly dudes shaking it on the outside.”
3. Due to the confines of the carriage, a cameraperson couldn’t fit inside the vehicle, so the camera was set up, and then Luke and Nicola were left alone, with the director and crew watching on monitors from outside.
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“We knew what we were doing and the general choreography of it. But it started to feel really long,” Nicola said to Netflix’s Tudum.
4. As a result, while filming the scene, Nicola revealed that she and Luke didn’t hear the director yell “cut” at one point, so they just kept making out and going for it. “So [the crew] were all looking at us in the monitors, being like, ‘What are they doing? What are they doing?'” she added.
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Nicola continued, telling The Today Show, “And the director had to come over and be like, ‘WHAT WERE YOU DOING!? I told you to stop!'”
5. Nicola said there was a lot of trust between her and Luke during the filming. She said, “We had so much control, we felt really empowered. We knew what points we had to hit, but it didn’t feel stilted or choreographed.”
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She continued, telling The Today Show, “We just were like, I trust you, you trust me, let’s do this. Let’s make it the best it can be.”
6. They filmed “multiple versions” of the carriage scene, which allowed Luke and Nicola to play the scene “so many different ways,” according to Luke. He added, “Which made it nice to watch it back and see the final editing to find out which take they went with.”
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Nicola added to Shondaland that watching back the carriage scene she feels it “flows so well,” and it was great to see how director Andrew Ahn and the editors put different takes together for the final version.
7. The now-viral moment when Colin fixes Penelope’s dress using only certain fingers after touching her was improvised by Luke during filming.
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In response to a viral tweet about the small gesture, director Andrew Ahn tweeted, “I wish I could take credit for this incredible moment of… physical authenticity, but I did not give this piece of direction. It was all Luke Newton!”
8. For Nicola, it was very important for Penelope to give Colin consent to touch her because she wanted to show that just because Pen is a virgin doesn’t mean she isn’t “aware of her body and where she wants him to touch her.”
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Nicola told Vanity Fair, “It’s lovely because it’s so easy to see virgins on TV portrayed in a way that they’re, like, terrified and have no agency, but that’s not the case. The consent is managed so beautifully, and that’s down to the writing and the brilliant Lizzy Talbot, the intimacy coordinator, because we want it to seem like it’s not teacher-student anymore. We’re in this together. It’s the first time that they completely see each other, and they’re on a level, and it’s like, Let’s go.”
9. Nicola said when she read Romancing Mister Bridgerton years ago, the moment in the carriage scene that always stuck out to her was when Colin and Pen laugh together because it’s “really magic because that’s true intimacy.” She wanted to make sure that came across in the adaptation, too.
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Speaking about the adorable moment when Colin says, “Could the carriage driver not keep on driving?” and the duo laugh, Luke said to Shondaland, “That’s what we really loved about this season, diving into the comedy side of things, the rom-com element of their relationship.”
10. Nicola revealed she had to be told to tone down the kissing a bit because “Penelope hasn’t kissed anyone before,” and they wanted to “hold it back a little” for future scenes when Pen is more experienced.
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Nicola explained to Shondaland, “Especially as grown adults, you forget. Like, we would be a little more confident than they would be. Even with a kiss, they would tell us that we seemed like we’ve kissed before. And I was like, ‘Not to brag, I totally have.'”
She also said they learned how to kiss “prettier” on screen, adding, “Also, what we learned, and it was quite funny, is that sometimes what feels good for kissing in real life doesn’t look as good on-screen! So, we were smushing our faces together, and they were like, ‘No, pull back a little bit, and then it will look prettier.'”
11. Out of all the songs featured in Season 3, showrunner Jess Brownell said the only one she specifically picked was “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull. After music supervisor Justin Kamps sent Jess a playlist of stringed quartet covers of popular songs, this one immediately stuck out. She said, “The second I heard it, I thought, This is a really sexy adaptation of the song.”
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“I never thought I would pick a Pitbull song for a sexy moment, but the build of it just works perfectly,” she added to Vanity Fair.
12. Luke and Nicola said this scene was “big pressure” because they knew how important it was to fans and because it was “early on in the series as well.”
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Since Bridgerton began, Luke and Nicola have heard about fans anticipating the carriage scene. “And the fans are horny little devils,” Nicola hilariously said in an interview with Netflix. “And they used to send us pictures of carriages constantly and carriages rocking. So this has to be both beautiful, touching, romantic, and sexy, which is a lot of things.”
13. And finally, one of Nicola’s favorite moments from the whole sequence is when Colin proposes to Penelope after getting out of the carriage. Luke recalled, “She always says that to me, whenever we’ve watched it, ‘I love that [moment] when you decide [to propose].'”
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Luke continued, telling Vanity Fair, “One of my favorite things about the proposal is the way that it’s written because it just represents their relationship. He’s done the declaration of love. He’s been open and honest about it. And then the comedy of it is just brilliant.”
