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\n \u201cNo one talks about the Earl of Penwood being an asshole. It\u2019s like, \u2018God, Araminta is evil.\u2019 But I\u2019m like, \u2018Hello?!\u2019\u201d
\n Photo: Liam Daniel\/Netflix\n <\/p>\n
Spoilers follow for the first part of Bridgerton<\/a>\u2019s fourth season, which premiered on Netflix on January 29.\u00a0<\/p>\n Katie Leung knows what Bridgerton fans think of Lady Araminta Gun, Sophie Baek\u2019s stepmother and season four<\/a>\u2019s chief antagonist. She\u2019s heard the Disney-villain comparisons. She doesn\u2019t really agree.<\/p>\n On the one hand, Lady Penwood has tormented Sophie since her father\u2019s death<\/a>, denying her parentage, forcing her into servitude, and working her to the bone. On the other hand, the Regency world of Bridgerton, for all of its post-racial politics, is still a classist hierarchy<\/a>. Since she was born out of wedlock, Sophie\u2019s existence could smear the Penwood name and diminish the marriage chances of her stepsisters, Rosamund (Michelle Mao) and Posy (Isabella Wei). For Araminta, a woman who has always lived within society\u2019s strictures, Sophie is just another rule to follow \u2014 and Leung does so with sneering menace, extravagant goth gowns, and a purposefully maternal approach.<\/p>\n \u201cHer motivation is motherhood,\u201d says Leung, who broke out in the Harry Potter films as Cho Chang and has since worked steadily in British TV and theater. \u201cAs a mother myself, it\u2019s an inexplicable need to ensure that your children live their best life. You\u2019ll do anything so that they\u2019re happy and content.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor Araminta, \u2018happy\u2019 is probably not her main thing,\u201d she adds, laughing. \u201cBut it\u2019s the same kind of drive.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ve said of<\/a> Araminta that she is \u201csomeone who has chosen to live with this scarcity mind-set, which has informed her decisions and the way she is, and it unfortunately does not bode well for her.\u201d What did you mean by that?\u00a0 For Araminta, she\u2019s had a first husband who she had two children with, and she decided that he wasn\u2019t the love of her life. It was something she had to do as a woman and something she accepted. He died and she was left as a widow and single mother to two daughters, without an heir. Then she found a second husband she adored and was in love with\u00a0\u2014 to then lose him and have this ward she was unaware of. When things happen to you in succession like that, it can put you into a really dark place. But I don\u2019t think all hope is lost in her case. There is perhaps a glimpse at the end of someone who might change.<\/p>\n There\u2019s such an insistence on a male heir in this world. When I look at Araminta in those terms, more than any other character this season, she reflects how the patriarchy is still very real, and a lot of her choices are in reaction to that. A male heir could come along and be like, \u201cI have the title now, get out,\u201d right? You come home to your new husband, and he\u2019s like, \u201cHey, by the way. I had a mistress, and here\u2019s the child.\u201d\u00a0 You said of working with Yerin Ha, who plays Sophie, \u201cYou just want to match that, when you\u2019re working with somebody that great. She made me want to try harder.\u201d Was there a scene from part one where you were really challenging each other on set?\u00a0 You get the sense in that scene that Araminta has reached a breaking point. It\u2019s more in her interest to keep Sophie around, but she\u2019s over it.\u00a0 In your audition, you were encouraged to evoke Anna Wintour. What did that mean for you at the time, and did you keep up that Anna Wintour element through your performance?\u00a0 How did Araminta\u2019s costumes affect your performance?\u00a0 The diamond shoe clips Posy gives Sophie that Araminta then accuses Sophie of stealing\u00a0\u2014\u00a0did you play it as Araminta knew they were fake? Now I sympathize with Araminta, because she probably overpaid for these shoe clips.\u00a0
I was speaking for her as a woman in that time period and everything that she\u2019d been through up until then. She hasn\u2019t lived a bad life by any means, but she\u2019s had that scarcity mind-set. Once upon a time, I was somebody with a scarcity mind-set, and I would think that people were taking things away from me and the world was unfair. It really never served me, and it\u2019s only now that I\u2019ve come out of it that I see it.<\/p>\n
Yeah, exactly. And it\u2019s funny, because no one talks about the Earl of Penwood being an asshole. [Laughs.] It\u2019s like, \u201cGod, Araminta is evil.\u201d But I\u2019m like, \u201cHello?!\u201d<\/p>\n
People are like, \u201cWhy can\u2019t she accept that?\u201d She might not have married him if she had known about it. And once you lose that trust in a relationship, it\u2019s really hard to go back to a place when it was all lovely.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t have that many scenes together in the end, but I feel like we had way more scenes because, as Araminta, she\u2019s always my focus. The sign of a good acting partner is someone who makes you feel like you can try different things and someone who\u2019s always giving you something a bit different, so then you respond differently. We had time to rehearse the scene where I fire her<\/a>. We were able to map out where we were going to be and the energies we\u2019re going to give each other. We had a great director, Jaffar Mahmood, and Jess Brownell, the writer and showrunner, was in the room when we rehearsed. It wasn\u2019t totally polished, but we had a sort of template. On the day, there was good humor and good banter in between takes. Yes, Sophie\u2019s a maid, and yes, she\u2019s inferior to Araminta, but I never felt that with Yerin as the actor. I constantly had to shift Araminta\u2019s movement or her physicality, because you can\u2019t just yell or do the normal things that you would think make you superior to somebody. It\u2019s a dance \u2014 a constant dance \u2014 and we were dancing. There were enough different dynamics and energies happening throughout the scene that it didn\u2019t feel stale.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a big decision! As much as people might view it as she\u2019s putting Sophie in her place, she was doing the opposite. Araminta actually showed her vulnerability by firing her, because it was a moment where her emotions got the better of her. She\u2019s always been very good at keeping her emotions at bay and being practical and ambitious. She perhaps even regretted making that decision afterward. She\u2019s constantly on edge, whether Sophie is in her life or not. Sophie gets fired and she\u2019s not around, but that doesn\u2019t mean that she doesn\u2019t exist in the world anymore. If anything, Araminta becomes even more anxious because she\u2019s not under her watch.<\/p>\n
It was something I let go of, because it wasn\u2019t something that I was very aware of and I felt like it might restrict me. The costumes restrict me enough on a physical level. [Laughs.] But Anna has a very iconic look: She\u2019s always got the shades on, so you never really get to look into her soul or see her eyes. That\u2019s kind of imperative when you\u2019re an actor. With Araminta, she does have something about her that is impenetrable. You don\u2019t know what she\u2019s thinking. In that sense, there\u2019s a similarity. But Araminta does have eyes! Eyes that, like, could kill.<\/p>\n
Funnily enough, they weren\u2019t as constricting as I had imagined. Everyone in the costume department did everything they could to ensure that I was as comfortable as I could be. As someone who doesn\u2019t wear dresses \u2014 I\u2019m always in sweatpants and joggies \u2014 anything they put me in is always going to be a tad constricted. [Laughs.] But I felt like a million dollars. I have really bad posture, and these dresses did not allow for bad posture, especially once I\u2019m in my heels and I have my fan and I\u2019ve got the wig and the makeup on. The minute I was dressed fully, I was 80 percent there. Every time I went in for a fitting, I\u2019d be like, \u201cThis is my favorite dress \u2026 No, this is my favorite.\u201d I definitely had the best costumes out of everybody.<\/p>\n
I played it as though she wasn\u2019t aware. I haven\u2019t read the book, so I don\u2019t know if there was more to that backstory.<\/p>\n
She definitely got f\u2019d over.<\/p>\n