Jonathan Bailey, Simone Ashley Helped Coordinate Sex Scene

  • Insider spoke with “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot about her work on season two.
  • Talbot revealed that stars Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley helped choreograph their own sex scene.
  • They offered crucial tips on how the characters should take off their tricky Regency-era costumes.

After seven episodes full of painful yearning and dramatic tension, “Bridgerton” season-two couple Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) finally give in to their suppressed feelings for one another.

Insider spoke with the Netflix show’s intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot about the making of the season’s most intimate scenes. She revealed that Bailey and Ashley gave input on how the passionate moments should unfold.

“They know their characters so inside out,” Talbot told Insider of the season-two leads. “They know exactly what their character would do in this moment, and they can bring so much to the scene because of that. It’s always a gift when you’ve got actors who really understand their characters.”

Filming sex scenes for movies and TV is never an easy feat, but Talbot — who also worked on the show’s first season — said it’s even harder when you’re dealing with Regency-era costumes (and all the buttons and fastenings that come with them).

“A huge part of doing any intimacy scene in the Regency period is how to get the costumes off, because they’re not easy,” she said.

“They were often dressed by other people, so all of the fastenings are at the back,” Talbot explained of the era’s attire. “That’s always a real challenge because you’re now working with two characters who aren’t potentially used to undressing the opposite sex in that way.”

Jonathan Bailey, Simone Ashley in "Bridgerton"

Ashley and Bailey’s characters’ develop a forbidden romance in season two.

Netflix


But Talbot said Bailey and Ashley were essential when it came to figuring out how to undress their characters.

“Jonny and Simone both had really wonderful suggestions on how to get out of their own costumes, because obviously they get in and out of them all day, every day,” she said.

She continued: “It was really cool to see them suggest how gloves come off, how they wanted to very intentionally pull down stockings, and remove shoes and take off shirts.”

It took two days to film the episode-seven scene, and Talbot said Bailey and Ashley each gave so much to it.

“Johnny brings such wonderful energy, charm, and hilarity,” she said, “and Simone is so confident, cool, calm, collected. It was a really beautiful merging.”

Jonathan Bailey in "Bridgerton"

Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton.

Netflix


While there are far fewer sex scenes in the series’ second season, Talbot thinks “Bridgerton” is still just as sensual as it was in season one.

“It’s a different type of intimacy that we see, but we’re also still working in the Regency period,” Talbot said.

“We see Daphne and Simon’s relationship in far more explicit detail because they get married a lot earlier on in season one,” she went on, referring to the characters played by Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page, respectively.

Talbot explained that the dynamic between Kate and Anthony is more of a “charged forbidden want,” that eventually is “released in the final two episodes.”

“We’ve done the characters justice and have really ensured that every sex scene has been earned properly,” she said. “We’re still staying true to the female gaze and the intentional viewpoint that ‘Bridgerton’ always has, and I think we’ve stayed true to the characters’ arc of this forbidden love journey.”

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