Simone Ashley on Her Breakout Role in Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’

Netflix’s Bridgerton breakout Simone Ashley talks to Awards Daily about how she got in the mindset of being both an older sister as well as a woman fighting being in love. She also talks about how being on Bridgerton opened doors for her and gave her a chance to pursue a variety of projects. Finally, she reveals why Quentin Tarantino should really give her a call

Awards Daily: I read in a previous interview that your parents were very scared about you becoming an actor. Are they a little less worried now?

Simone Ashley: Yes, absolutely. I mean they were always incredibly supportive. The entertainment industry was quite alien to my family and I’m the only person in my family that decided to go down this route of a career. So there was never really anyone I could look up to or get advice from, so in that sense I very much did it on my own. So yeah, they naturally as parents, they just wanted me to be okay and make sure I was doing the right thing. I’ve always been incredibly determined and hard-working and it’s proven to help me get to where I am. I think they are happy that I got a job but have been very supportive at the same time.


Awards Daily: A lot of what works for Bridgerton is the chemistry you have with Jonathan Bailey. And one of the biggest showcases for that for me and probably for a lot of people is when he is shooing the bee away from you. What went into creating that scene?

Simone Ashley: That scene is slightly different from what we read in the book. In the books the romance shifts because they haven broken the physical barrier and they are forced to get married. Obviously in the series we wanted to slow down that pace and build the tension between both of them. I really do think Kate and Anthony mirror each other in what they have gone through in their past. The trauma in the loss of their fathers, and we could see that within Anthony. I think this was a moment for me to show who Kate is as a person and how she cares for other people, protects other people. She is very emotionally intuitive and intelligent in a very different self-realized way. She may not be as academic or formative as the other women we see in the series but I think she very much understands feelings. She is a writer, she has a younger sister, she’s around animals quite a lot. That was something I definitely made a conscious choice to project into the scene. How she was able to calm down Anthony who is quite primal, quite feral, particularly in this moment. And I think a lot of people misunderstand that and turn their backs on him. But Kate had that patience and that level of deep understanding and that’s what really bonds them and makes their stars align. That they share that sense of pain and trauma and see beneath what others do. I think the scenes are very beautiful and heightened moments when we could have a peek into that. I think it’s a scene of what happens when someone doesn’t give up on you and where it goes. They are frightened about that as soon as they realize that they felt something and it’s something they couldn’t avoid, and there was no going back from that moment. Jonathan and I work so closely throughout the whole series but that scene in particular we did our work independently. What was so beautiful about working with him was as soon as the cameras were on we were very focused and had tunnel vision and we were able to have a conversation between us two, whether it was spoken or articulated without words, it was a very special working experience.


Awards Daily: I was very impressed how it differed from the book. It was a very interesting way to change things up and really worked for the series.

Simone Ashley: I think so too. As much as physical love is entertaining to see on screen I think Jonathan and I are actors who like to explore the psychological intimacy of characters as well. I think that, paired with our working chemistry together, was a great challenge to make that a narrative throughout eight episodes until we learn the firework moments between them. So yeah, I was a big advocate of that change.


Awards Daily: You mentioned how caring Kate was to her sister. How did you and Charithra Chandran prepare to become sisters?

Simone Ashley: So when Charithra and I got the roles we really didn’t have that much time for rehearsing with each other. Then with COVID restrictions we couldn’t even socialize much outside of filming. Charithra and I shared a makeup truck and team and I think the makeup truck is a very intimate space for actors. We were in the chair from, like, 4 a.m. till wrap every single day together. For me it was just observing her as a person and as an actor seeing the way she interacted with people. I find her so endearing and everyone does, she has such energy on set. She is a people person who likes to relate to people. I think that was part of the work, just observing her as an actress and a person, that really developed this emotional attachment, and it was a really authentic feeling of her as a little sister. Someone I look up to but wanted to protect and look out for. We worked really closely together on our accent with our accents coach Jane Karen, and both Charithra and I are Tamil women of South Indian descent. So there was a lot there for us to find common cause in and have conversation in and learn from each other. It was one thing having the female romantic lead be a dark-skinned Indian woman in a series, but to have a sister to play with as well, also of the same parentage, was a first for me. I’ve worked with other Indian actors before but to see someone have the same skin tone as me from the same region as me was incredibly special and very rare for me. I think without a doubt I developed a quite authentic bond with Charithra in that sense. You also see Kate learn a lot from Edwina in the series in the second half and I felt the same with Charithra in that I learned so much from her about my heritage, my culture, and what it is to be an older sibling


Awards Daily: Will we be seeing more of her in the other seasons?

Simone Ashley: I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s confirmed, at least it hasn’t been confirmed to me. We haven’t even received scripts for the next season yet. So everything is a bit up in the air.


Awards Daily: Since you don’t know, what do you hope that your character is doing in season three?

Simone Ashley: I think what we would see is Kate and Anthony post marriage, and one of the great things we saw within Kate was her growth. She always has been a self-realized independent woman, but she was incredibly guarded and incredibly lost in her own trauma and troubles, her fear of falling in love and surrendering to love. But we see her grow and surrender to that with Anthony, and she finds love. I would really like to see a more playful side between Kate and Anthony. I would love to see her be a character that people can relate to in the sense that okay, she’s married now, maybe she wants to have children, grow a family, become a woman. And she is on that journey, and I would like to think that I’m on that journey as well, as a young actress stepping into this field and being on my own journey discovering myself, my own voice. I would also love to see her still be independent and in control and take on that responsibility of being the head of the household. She’s going to be the Viscountess and she’s going to be part of the community now. She was very much a lone wolf in season two. I think I would like to see her be part of a community and help her family as well.


Awards Daily: I read that you are a huge fan of the Kill Bill movies and that you also learned to kick box. What about the action genre is so appealing to you, and has Quentin Tarantino reached out to you yet?

Simone Ashley: He hasn’t reached out to me yet but that is a great question. One day hopefully, or maybe I’ll reach out to him. I am a massive fan of his work. I was raised on Disney movies growing up with all the classics, and I always had a deep love of music. So to walk into my living room and see a Tarantino movie was such a contrast to what I had grown up on. What he does mixing anime in that movie and his soundtracks are incredible. Uma Thurman’s character is this woman who is out to seek revenge but it comes from a place of heart because she wants to find her baby. It is all complicated with love and hate. Those fight scenes in that movie are incredible and I am quite an athletic person. I find it quite meditative, whether it’s training for a film or just exercising. I find my power and I like to see my body as an instrument in that sense. It’s fun, it’s cool, and it’s freeing. To put it simply, that’s what I love about it. There is nothing more liberating than just being a badass female on screen and the hard work that puts behind it. So yeah I love action movies. I love seeing women like Uma Thurman portraying these kinds of roles and I like the challenge. I have always loved high energy sports whether it’s horse riding, riding motorbikes, kickboxing. I find it really fun.


Awards Daily: You started your own production company to help yourself to other projects. How is that going?

Simone Ashley: It has been going really good. I look up to Margot Robbie, and I observed what she did with her career from The Wolf of Wall Street to I, Tonya—all of the amazing projects she has been producing and starring in. There was someone I worked with who always said, in this industry it’s fingers not wands, in a sense that sometimes people think it is like a magic wand and you get a role and a script will land in your lap, and you’ll get this amazing breakthrough, and work with these directors. And yes, that might happen, but also you have to make it happen. You can manifest it, you can curate your own creative projects, you can write your own narrative and be in the driver’s seat. That is what I love about producing. I have such a deep love of music and such an interest in soundtracks, and whenever I listen to music I am always, like, this would sound great in this kind of scene, or there needs to be a narrative behind this song or this album. What I’m trying to say is before it was a bit of a daydream listening to these songs in my headphones. But now Bridgerton has given me this platform where it can be a reality. I can call up my team and say I would love to have a meeting with this person. I have this idea, and how can we all work together to create something? I’ve got a community of people that I love working with within my company. It’s very early stages but when I’m not filming I’m putting a lot of work into some things that are in the background that I can’t wait to announce. There are many people I’d like to work with, from Mindy Kaling to different music artists. Lots of exciting things are happening now.

Bridgerton streams exclusively on Netflix.