Bridgerton season 4 has found its leading lady, and it’s a very surprising, but promising pick. Netflix has just announced that Yerin Ha has been cast as Sophie Baek, who will play Benedict Bridgerton’s love interest for his chapter of the saga.

It’s an interesting turn of events as the show has converted the book character’s name from Sophie Beckett to Sophia Baek, a Korean surname to reflect Ha’s Korean heritage (she hails from Australia). This exact same thing happened in season 2 where the female leads had their surname changed to Sharma to reflect their Indian heritage as the show aims to continually increase its diversity. In terms of how Ha arrived here, even more interesting is what her previous role was before this.

Ha’s biggest role to date was playing Kwan on the Halo show for two seasons, which has been cancelled by Paramount Plus, and was widely mocked by Halo game fans for two years. And in a show most fans didn’t like, Kwan’s character was probably the least-liked, given that she had no game counterpart, and while it seemed like she could have had an interesting relationship with Master Chief at the start of the series, they were immediately separated for essentially the entire duration of the show and she was given very disconnected storylines. But none of this reflected on Ha as an actress, the show’s writing was always its main problem, and they put her in that unfortunate situation. And gave her that unfortunate haircut.

Ha will also be seen in the upcoming Dune Prophecy series where she plays a “Young Kasha,” though it’s not clear how long she may be in that show, and Bridgerton is a much, much bigger role. Co-leading an entire season of one of Netflix’s most popular series is a huge deal and a giant leap forward for her career.

This season heads back to book 3 of the Bridgerton series after previously leaping ahead to book 4. It’s interesting to go to the book’s website as the three books covered have switched to their show characters on the cover. Book 3, the Benedict and Sophie story, still has a blonde white girl on the cover, so that’s certainly going to change.

So, I will look forward to seeing what Ha can do in this role compared to her unfortunate turn in Halo that was no fault of her own. We’ll know more when Bridgerton returns for season 4, which does not appear to be until 2026 with its endlessly slow schedule.