{"id":241552,"date":"2026-01-19T23:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T23:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/241552\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T23:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T23:16:14","slug":"bridgerton-season-4s-leads-on-their-cinderella-story-and-steamy-river-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/241552\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridgerton season 4’s leads on their Cinderella story and steamy river scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.<\/p>\n

It is, surely, what every young actor dreams of. Not just a lead role in a beloved period drama, but an exit from a lake in a sodden shirt with a smitten belle looking on bashfully from behind a tree. Enter Luke Thompson, star of Bridgerton series four. This is your Mr Darcy moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt really excited to dive into it,\u201d says Thompson, with a wry half-smile at his own pun, clearly very pleased to be taking the lead in finding love this series having played Benedict Bridgerton since the start of the drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept saying, \u2018You look like Mr Darcy\u2019 to him,\u201d chimes in Yerin Ha who plays Sophie Baek, the below-stairs Cinderella to Thompson\u2019s Prince Charming (and hands him a towel when he emerges from his swim). \u201cIn truth, I was a little bit jealous \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t have minded a dip myself. It was a beautiful September day when we filmed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cold in the water, though,\u201d says Thompson. \u201cWe probably did it five or six times. The tricky bits were when I thought I was about to lose consciousness and then they\u2019d say reset, go again, and there wasn\u2019t time for me to get out and get dry.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Bridgerton\u2019s homage to the BBC\u2019s classic Pride and Prejudice is a little corny, it\u2019s an element of the period drama that, Thompson says, the fans both love and require. \u201cThere are a lot of romance novel tropes in the show, whether it\u2019s getting out of the water or it\u2019s love at first sight at the masquerade ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that is the central storyline in this season of the world\u2019s favourite amped-up Regency fairy tale. Based on Julia Quinn\u2019s novel An Offer from a Gentleman, Benedict Bridgerton is the bohemian second son who refuses to settle down despite protracted pleas to do so from matriarch Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell, see overleaf). Until, that is, he is poleaxed by the sight of a mysterious Lady in Silver at Lady Violet\u2019s masquerade ball \u2013 where everyone wears flimsy masks that completely conceal their identity.<\/p>\n

With the reluctant help of his sister Eloise (Claudia Jessie), Benedict sets out to uncover the identity of the mysterious stranger. What he doesn\u2019t realise is that the object of his affections is not a part of the Ton or the Marriage Mart at all. In fact, she\u2019s a resourceful maid called Sophie Baek, who soon also crosses his path.<\/p>\n

And so, Benedict has to wrestle with his affection for his fantasy Lady in Silver alongside this intriguing housemaid, unaware that they are one and the same person.<\/p>\n

What all this unrequited love really required, first and foremost, was chemistry between Thompson and newly cast Ha. They first met on that hotbed of romance, a Zoom call.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might think it\u2019s tricky to have chemistry on Zoom,\u201d says Thompson, \u201cbut it turns out you can! I found doing the readthrough that you can just feel\u2026 something. It felt quite enigmatic, our connection, like there was quite a lot to unpack. And that\u2019s what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Yerin<\/p>\n

Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in Season 4 of Bridgerton.\u00a0Liam Daniel\/Netflix<\/p>\n

Next stop on the path to true on-screen love was dinner at writer Jess Brownell\u2019s house. \u201cWe had a bit of wine, some tacos\u2026\u201d laughs Ha. \u201cIt was only two weeks before prep began so we just chatted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then we just jumped right in!\u201d laughs Thompson, delighted at the chance to drop another Darcy swimming pun. Ha, a plain-talking Aussie, looks suitably unamused.<\/p>\n

But Thompson, who is Rada-trained and likes to read Dostoevsky, wins her round: \u201cAs soon as I had the audition with Yerin \u2013 and this will look terrible because it sounds glib \u2013 I knew it was going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Work it does, with Benedict starting out very much as a latter-day Prince Harry with Sophie, like Meghan, his star-crossed lover from the wrong side of the tracks.<\/p>\n

I put it to Thompson and Ha that they are playing a version of the Sussexes and they both burst out laughing. \u201cPersonally that\u2019s not something that I\u2019ve thought about,\u201d says Thompson.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will see whatever they want to see,\u201d flat bats Ha. \u201cUltimately, this is just a story about seeing who you are on the inside. What drew me to Sophie was her moral compass: she doesn\u2019t change who she is for anybody else. It\u2019s a real push-and-pull game, because he\u2019s of a noble class and Sophie\u2019s of a lower class.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s beautiful about their relationship is that they see each other for who they are, and they start to question society\u2019s standards. Why should that matter?\u201d Ha prefers the Cinderella analogy. There\u2019s a missing shoe and Sophie even has two wicked stepsisters, Rosamund and Posy (Michelle Mao and Isabella Wei), who with their mother, Araminta Gun (Katie Leung), make Sophie\u2019s life a misery.<\/p>\n

\"Benedict<\/p>\n

Sophie (Yerin Ha) and Benedict (Luke Thompson) at his cottage.\u00a0Netflix<\/p>\n

Both characters, however, are outsiders, with Benedict experimenting with his sexuality in the demimonde while Sophie navigates her way through the prejudices of the Ton. And this Thompson and Ha understand perfectly. Ha\u2019s grandparents were actors in South Korea and, though she was born in Sydney, she studied in Korea for three years before going to Nida [The National Institute of Dramatic Art] back in Australia.<\/p>\n

Thompson was born in England but grew up in France, then moved back over when he was 20. \u201cAnd then I had the even stranger experience of being like, \u2018Well, this is where I was born, but I don\u2019t have any of the cultural references.\u2019 I think there are parallels between us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parallels are that both of them are used to concealing identities and wearing masks. \u201cYou\u2019re both at home and not at home in a character,\u201d says Thompson. \u201cYou\u2019re yourself and not yourself.\u201d Perfect, then, for a pairing that begins in disguise at a masquerade ball.<\/p>\n

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now \u2013 subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"1-SE-05-2-Cover\"<\/p>\n

Bridgerton seasons 1-3 are available to watch on Netflix<\/a> now. Season 4 will arrive on Thursday 29th January 2026. Sign up for Netflix from \u00a35.99 a month<\/a>. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass<\/a> and Virgin Media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can buy the Bridgerton book series on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Add Bridgerton to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app<\/a> \u2013 download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.<\/p>\n

Check out more of our Drama<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. It is, surely, what every young actor dreams of. Not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-241552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}