Long before Nicola Coughlan won the role of Penelope Featherington, the “Bridgerton” debutante with a tea-spilling empire on the side, the Irish actor had already mastered the art of moonlighting.

There were plenty of retail gigs, first and foremost, as Coughlan struggled to make ends meet in her late 20s. She also found employment as a waitress, a receptionist and a frozen yogurt scooper. At one point, when the auditions dried up and her bank account followed suit, she moved back to her hometown of Galway and became an optical assistant.

“You kind of think: ‘Oh, God, is this ever going to happen? Am I just deluding myself?’” says Coughlan, 37, during a recent Zoom call from the New York stop of “Bridgerton’s” promotional blitz. “I did have faith in myself, but I wasn’t getting in the rooms. So that was really hard. I was like, ‘I’m not failing, because I’m not even getting the chance to fail.’”

Luke Newton, the English actor who portrays the purpose-seeking globe-trotter Colin Bridgerton, did get the chance to fail — and did so, he confirms, prolifically. When he booked “Bridgerton,” it was one of a half-dozen auditions he squeezed in that week between shifts at a bar and nights spent crashing at a friend’s London flat.

“It wasn’t even a spare room,” notes Newton, 31. “It was his living-room pullout sofa bed.”

Considering “Bridgerton’s” staggering popularity, the pair’s side-hustle days are surely behind them. Behold the numbers: Netflix said viewers watched 2.3 billion minutes of the Regency-era romance in the week after Season 3’s first four episodes dropped May 16, easily outpacing any other show. And the series remained toward the top of the streamer’s charts ahead of the season’s second half, released Thursday.

Fueling the frenzy are Coughlan’s Penelope and Newton’s Colin, whose long-simmering, friends-to-lovers romance has brought the heat to Season 3 — and set social media aflame. For two actors whose love of the industry long went unrequited, the journey from out-of-work artists to the diamonds of the season has been an unlikely one indeed.

“They have poured themselves into these roles,” says “Bridgerton” showrunner Jess Brownell. “It’s been wonderful seeing them get the flowers that they deserve.”

Those not among “Bridgerton’s” mammoth viewership may be unfamiliar with the show’s season-by-season game of romantic roulette. Adapted from Julia Quinn’s novels, which each focus on one Bridgerton sibling’s love life, the Netflix series follows suit by elevating different actors to the top of the narrative hierarchy each season.

Set in early-19th-century London’s high society (a.k.a. “the ton”), the first season catapulted Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page to stardom. The second put Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley in the spotlight. All the while, Coughlan and Newton waited in the wings.

Coughlan became a fan favorite as Penelope, a put-upon wallflower and the rumormonger secretly responsible for the salacious Lady Whistledown pamphlets. Newton, meanwhile, won hearts as Colin navigated subplots involving a doomed engagement, lots of bohemian sightseeing and an obliviousness to a certain girl next door’s crush.

“As an actor, particularly when you’re starting out, you feel very privileged just to be working,” Newton says. “So I was just like: ‘Okay, I’m along for the ride. I’ll see how long this lasts. I don’t know if I’ll get to my season.’”

Newton as Colin Bridgerton and Coughlan as Penelope Featherington in Season 3 of “Bridgerton.” (Netflix)

Newton’s and Coughlan’s characters take their friends-to-lovers arc to its conclusion in Season 3. (Liam Daniel/Netflix)

“I just think their chemistry is incredible,” co-star Hannah Dodd says of Coughlan and Newton. (Liam Daniel/Netflix)

Although Penelope and Colin — or “Polin,” as the internet has branded them — don’t fall for each other until the fourth novel in Quinn’s series, the “Bridgerton” brass informed the actors during production of Season 2 that they would headline the third installment.

Coughlan’s time in the on-deck circle was nerve-racking. She readily acknowledges preferring to be “the strange girl in the corner” — a part she played to perfection as a bookish worrywart in the Troubles-set sitcom “Derry Girls” from 2018 to 2022. But becoming the ingénue in a lush period drama wasn’t exactly on Coughlan’s bucket list before her trip to Shondaland.

“The ingénue, certainly in my mind, has always felt like a cipher, and it felt like a very male-gazey-type thing and not a fully rounded woman,” Coughlan says. “So I was just like: ‘Well, that’s uninteresting to me. What’s Bette Midler doing? What’s Liza Minnelli doing?’ That was far more the kind of thing I thought I wanted to do.”

Newton’s leading-man moment was also anything but preordained. Although he booked some TV shows as a teen and made his West End debut as an understudy for Elder Price in “The Book of Mormon,” meaty roles proved hard to come by as the West Sussex native ground through the audition circuit. His dyslexia and ADHD diagnoses also posed challenges in a business that involves no small amount of script-reading. But although negotiating “Bridgerton’s” loquacious wording has been tricky, Newton points out that people with dyslexia tend to exhibit higher levels of empathy — a handy attribute when it comes to inhabiting the ever-sensitive Colin.

“As much as it felt like it was going to be a struggle,” Newton says, “it actually helped me, and it feels really appropriate to Colin.”

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Newton radiates sincerity as he opens up over Zoom from a New York hotel, gushing about the chance to travel the globe on “Bridgerton’s” press tour and sneak in some musical theater along the way. (He attended Boy George’s final show in “Moulin Rouge!” and the closing performance of “Sweeney Todd” during that New York swing.) And though Coughlan is a tad harried, speaking while being driven from one Manhattan media obligation to another, her rapid-fire thoughts remain laced with witty humility.

When the actors get together, as they have for many a promotional video or photo shoot in recent months, they have a palpable rapport. In filming Season 3, which begins with Colin casting himself as Penelope’s wing man before unleashing his own dormant infatuation, their real-life friendship helped establish a welcoming tone on set.

“I just think their chemistry is incredible,” says Hannah Dodd, who joined the “Bridgerton” cast this season as Colin’s sister Francesca. “What makes the two of them so great together is that they really care about the work, they really care about the acting, but in between takes, they can be having a chat and be in hysterics. It keeps the atmosphere really lovely.”

Coughlan booked her “Bridgerton” role after breaking out in the Troubles-set sitcom “Derry Girls.” (David Urbanke for The Washington Post)

Asked to highlight the duo’s finest moments from the season’s first half, Brownell mentions the subtle strength Coughlan exudes during a ballroom conversation between Penelope and Francesca in the first episode. For Newton, she pinpoints an Episode 4 moment in which Colin lambastes his gentleman friends — the “douche lords,” as Brownell astutely calls them — for discussing their sexual conquests so cavalierly.

Then, of course, there’s the carriage scene. As the first half of the season concludes, Colin and Penelope engage in a hot, heavy and handsy ride home that delivers a years-in-the-making moment and drives the characters toward their sudden engagement.

“The first time I watched the scene — and I had a hand, obviously, in writing it — I felt shy,” Brownell recalls. “I felt like [I was] intruding on a private moment. I think that is really to Luke and Nicola’s credit that it feels like such a genuine moment.”

Reflecting on shooting Season 3, Coughlan and Newton emphasize the sheer scale of the material as their hours on set multiplied from that of previous seasons (not to mention the uptick in costume fittings and dance rehearsals). Discussing the second half, that carriage scene was just a glimpse of the steamy intimacy the actors share on-screen.

“Now, we get to see them sort of step into adulthood,” Newton says, “and everything that comes along the way with that.”

“Now, we get to see [Colin and Penelope] sort of step into adulthood,” Newton says, “and everything that comes along the way with that.” (David Urbanke for The Washington Post)

“We didn’t leave anything unsaid, I guess, in the story of Colin and Pen,” Coughlan says. (David Urbanke for The Washington Post)

As Brownell points out, the womanizing, pretentiously rakish Colin that Newton portrayed earlier this season is a charade that gives way in the final four episodes. “For the people who are saying, ‘This isn’t Colin in the front half,’ you’re right,” the showrunner explains. “That is a big part of what his arc is this season.”

Coughlan’s story as Penelope, on the other hand, hinges on the possibility that she’ll be unmasked as Whistledown — a figure Colin happens to despise. “What’s thrilling about that plotline,” Brownell says, “is it has a modern dimension to it in terms of a woman wrestling with whether she can have it all.”

Even though this season concludes the Polin arc, it won’t end Newton’s and Coughlan’s “Bridgerton” experience. Following this season’s twists and turns, Newton says the actors have talked to Brownell about exploring more of a “rom-com” angle when they return in supporting roles for Season 4.

“In your season, it’s full of drama,” Newton says. “So to have a moment of light relief and be like, ‘Everything is well,’ would be just really nice.”

“We didn’t leave anything unsaid, I guess, in the story of Colin and Pen,” Coughlan adds. “But I’m excited to come back and hopefully have lots of fun.”

Yet the actors also understand “Bridgerton’s” knack for propelling its stars into other high-profile projects. Now that they’re the talk of the ton, Coughlan and Newton can only look back on those lean days clearing tables or pouring drinks and marvel at their move toward Hollywood’s upper class.

“We bonded over all that a lot,” Coughlan says. “I think it gives you a really strong work ethic — and also an appreciation for how lucky we are to be on a show like this.”