{"id":322777,"date":"2026-03-01T02:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/322777\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T02:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:32:12","slug":"bridgerton-star-katie-leung-on-playing-season-4-villain-lady-araminta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/322777\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bridgerton’ Star Katie Leung on Playing Season 4 Villain Lady Araminta"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story contains spoilers for Season 4, Part 2 of \u201cBridgerton<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Ton is no stranger to scheming mothers with an agenda.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Lady Araminta Gun in \u201cBridgerton\u201d Season 4, Scottish actress Katie Leung<\/a> has delivered one of the Shondaland universe\u2019s most compelling antagonists to date \u2014 a twice-widowed mother who is revealed to have quietly pocketed her stepdaughter Sophie Baek\u2019s (Yerin Ha) dowry to fund her own daughters\u2019 debuts. The secret comes crashing down in the finale when Sophie finally confronts Araminta in front of the whole family. A reckoning long overdue, it leaves Araminta\u2019s relationship with Sophie further fractured and her standing with the Bridgertons in ruins \u2014 and as Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Sophie ride off into their happily ever after, there is no redemption arc waiting for Lady Araminta Gun.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe role marks a triumphant pivot for Leung, known for her role as Cho Chang in the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d franchise and, more recently, as the voice of Caitlyn in Netflix\u2019s animated series \u201cArcane.\u201d In the Cinderella-inflected fourth season of \u201cBridgerton,\u201d based on Julia Quinn\u2019s novel \u201cAn Offer From a Gentleman,\u201d Leung commands every scene she\u2019s in, communicating volumes with a single (terrifying) look. The internet has taken notice: Audiences love to hate her. But Leung thinks they\u2019re hating the wrong person.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNobody blames her husband,\u201d she says of the late Lord Penwood, whose secret illegitimate daughter set the whole conflict in motion. \u201cEveryone else is just like, \u2018Araminta is terrible.\u2019 And I\u2019m like \u2014 that\u2019s really unfair.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a question worth sitting with: If a man\u2019s hidden betrayal created the crisis, why does the woman left to manage the fallout become the villain of the story?<\/p>\n

\n\tLeung spoke with Variety about embodying a woman the world is quick to villainize, why new motherhood made her a better actor and the very specific power of surrounding yourself with people who look like you.<\/p>\n

\t\tThis is \u201cBridgerton\u201d\u2018s first real season-long antagonist. Was there any pressure stepping into that?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIf anything, there was less pressure. She was always going to be unlikable from the very beginning, so I wasn\u2019t worried about whether audiences would resonate with her. I\u2019ve spent a huge part of my life and career trying to please other people, and I think that had a lot to do with me as Katie \u2014 whereas with Araminta, and where I am in my life right now, that just wasn\u2019t something I cared too much about. My main goal was to make sure she was still human in spite of playing the wicked stepmother. There\u2019s a lot of trauma and darkness in her story that we get to explore. That actually made it quite easy to step into.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve talked about Araminta being \u201cformidable\u201d \u2014 and you\u2019ve described yourself as the opposite. How did you bridge that gap?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI was maybe slightly worried about maintaining the status she carries, because people are genuinely afraid of her. I would say I\u2019m the opposite \u2014 nobody is afraid of me. So I was like, I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to do this. But whatever I was doing, I think it worked. A lot of people have mentioned the eyes. I guess there\u2019s a lot you can say with your eyes that you can\u2019t put on paper. And that probably comes from seeing women in my life who have been so repressed that the eyes become their only real means of communication.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe costume and hair clearly helped too.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tEnormously. Once I was in all of it \u2014 the wig, the gowns, everything \u2014 I just felt like I inhabited Araminta and her dominance. I didn\u2019t have to do much else. She\u2019s a classy lady, and I certainly feel that when I\u2019ve got the clothes on.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMichelle Mao as Rosamund Li, Katie Leung as Lady Araminta Gun, Isabella Wei as Posy Li<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

\t\tYou came onto set alongside Isabella Wei, Michelle Mao and Yerin Ha, who play your daughters. How did those relationships develop?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe had too much fun. Isabella and I kept talking about the fact that we were expecting to feel anxious \u2014 waiting for that moment where insecurity would crop up \u2014 and it just never came. I think part of it was that I\u2019m a new mom. When I started on this job, I had a one-year-old, and that takes up so much of your energy that I genuinely didn\u2019t have the capacity for overthinking. I had just enough to do my work to the best of my ability, and beyond that, the usual nerves just weren\u2019t an option. It really served me.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I also think a big part of it was feeling safe. Being surrounded by people who looked like me \u2014 for Asian women, not just one, but multiple in the same scene, in the same show \u2014 that\u2019s unheard of. You\u2019re not conscious of it until you look back in retrospect and ask yourself, why was that so different? And that\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tYerin Ha as Sophie Baek, Katie Leung as Lady Araminta Gun<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

\t\tLet\u2019s talk about Araminta\u2019s arc with Sophie. She keeps Sophie\u2019s dowry secret, uses it for her own daughters \u2014 and genuinely seems to believe she\u2019s justified. How did you interpret that?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s quite complex. I think she felt she deserved Sophie\u2019s portion because she was raising a child that wasn\u2019t her own. And when she originally offered to take Sophie in \u2014 at the funeral, putting her under her roof \u2014 I don\u2019t think Araminta believed she was being manipulative. She was sincere about it. In her mind, she was doing Sophie a favor.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then when the truth comes out, I think the real crack is her daughters\u2019 reactions. Up until that point, Rosamond and Posy were always at her beck and call. Seeing them \u2014 especially Posy \u2014 disagree with her, respond to the situation with their own moral compass, that\u2019s what exposes her. She felt exposed.<\/p>\n

\t\tDoes she feel shame? Does she think she was wrong?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s definitely a transition, even if nothing is concrete. The way I played that final scene is that there\u2019s something like hope, or the beginning of remorse \u2014 amplified by Sophie, who comes to her not with anger but with genuine calm and kindness. She tells Araminta: They love you, my father loved you. Araminta expected Sophie to match her energy, to blow up. And she doesn\u2019t. Sophie kills her with kindness, essentially. And Araminta is taken aback.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhere do you see her going after that \u2014 with Sophie, with her daughters, with the Bridgertons?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThere would be too much shame to stay in close proximity to any of them. She does the walk of shame on her way out. I can\u2019t imagine she\u2019d want to face them again. But I do think the relationship that would most need mending \u2014 and that she would eventually come around to \u2014 is the one with Posy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tArthur Lee as Lord Penwood, Katie Leung as Lady Araminta Gun<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve said you don\u2019t think of Araminta as a villain. Is that still your position?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Katie, her behavior was despicable. There\u2019s no excusing it. But as the actress playing her, I had to find empathy, and that was genuinely easy to find. When you think about that era \u2014 what it was like to be a woman, a single mother with two teenage daughters, and no male financial support \u2014 she was left to fend for herself. And nobody blames her husband. Nobody calls him out for what he did to her. Everyone else is just like, \u201cAraminta is terrible.\u201d And I\u2019m like \u2014 that\u2019s really unfair. Beyond Sophie being a symbol of his betrayal, if the truth had gotten out, their entire reputation in the Ton would have collapsed. Her daughters would have had no prospects. She had spent years rebuilding. The stakes were everything.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve now done \u201cHarry Potter,\u201d \u201cArcane\u201d and \u201cBridgerton\u201d \u2014 three massive universes. How has your relationship with that scale of work changed?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe more confident I\u2019ve become about who I am as a person, the more I\u2019m able to enjoy the work. That\u2019s come with age and experience. My first job \u2014 \u201cHarry Potter\u201d \u2014 I had never acted before in my life, and suddenly I was in front of 20 cameras and 100 people, completely lost, still figuring out who I was. I can\u2019t say I had the time of my life. But with \u201cArcane,\u201d with \u201cBridgerton\u201d \u2014 I felt like I deserved to be there. I never questioned it. And once you stop questioning it, you can actually focus on bringing your best work.<\/p>\n

\t\tWill we see Araminta in Season 5?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNever say never. As of now, I haven\u2019t heard anything. But as long as she makes you feel something \u2014 love her, hate her, whatever \u2014 then I\u2019ve done my job. And honestly, I love that people love to hate her. That makes me very happy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story contains spoilers for Season 4, Part 2 of \u201cBridgerton,\u201d now streaming on Netflix. The Ton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[51203,93,61,60,133450,282],"class_list":["post-322777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bridgerton","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katie-leung","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}