Nicola Coughlan on Bridgerton Season 3, Polin, and 'Funny' Age Discourse

Nicola Coughlan is 37 years old — which may be a surprise to newer fans of the actor — but she's been playing high schoolers for a decade or more. This fact has recently been at the center of an online discourse about the Bridgerton star, especially as promotions began for the series' upcoming and highly anticipated third season. Her age, though, is far from the most interesting thing to talk about with Coughlan: Just ask about when her family lived in Jerusalem, her experiences working myriad retail jobs while trying to succeed as a professional actor, or the time an earthquake struck New Jersey and rattled the World Trade Center in New York City in the middle of the cover shoot for this article.

“It’s super funny to me to see that [discourse] because I’ve never hidden my age,” Coughlan tells me via phone from Australia, where she and costar Luke Newton are promoting Bridgerton's new season, just the beginning of what will be a global press tour.

Early in Coughlan's career, before her breakout role on Derry Girls, some casting directors refused to see her because of her age. “They said I was too old, and I was in my late 20s then," she recalls, "which is so sad that that would be considered ‘too old.’ In acting it’s all about suspension of disbelief. I always use the same comparison: Ian McKellen isn’t a wizard. I’m not a 19-year-old aristocrat from the 19th century. It’s all made up.”

There’s no real need for suspension of disbelief, though, because Coughlan is very believable as a teenager. “Growing up in the west of Ireland with very little sunlight, and not being able to afford holidays to sunny places, probably did my skin a lot of good,” she says jokingly.

Nicola Coughlan was born in Galway, Ireland, and grew up in the small town of Oranmore. She struggled to break into Hollywood, toiling throughout her 20s, trying to make ends meet and find time for auditions. Having to wait for success, though, gave Coughlan a clarity not all entertainers have. She says she’s a people pleaser, but she has the stiffest backbone of any celebrity I’ve met in a long, long time. And it’s not all due to her struggle: Part of it is down to her being Irish, part is down to her family, and part, as I’ve observed, is just who she is.

Coughlan may have had to wait for the spotlight, but now is her time to shine. “I am so lucky I get to do [this career],” she says, “because pretty much my whole 20s, I didn’t get to do it.”

When Bridgerton’s third season premieres on May 16, Coughlan will be the lead in not one but two big projects. Bridgerton was Netflix’s most-watched English-language show when its last season premiered, and she’s also starring in Big Mood, a critically lauded dramedy in which she plays a completely different character in a completely different time period: a millennial with bipolar disorder struggling in modern-day London.

Coughlan, who stole scenes and the hearts of audiences as Clare Devlin in Derry Girls, went on to star in Bridgerton as Penelope Featherington, a shy wallflower with a massive crush on her good friend Colin Bridgerton, who is totally oblivious. Coughlan also plays — and this is a spoiler for the end of Bridgerton's first season — Lady Whistledown, the clever, biting author of regular gossip columns about “the Ton” that rankle the queen and the general elite. Coughlan is equally convincing in her roles as a bright-eyed young woman in love and the confident, sharp-tongued scribe who turns Regency-era London on its head.

Each Bridgerton season has followed the romance of one main couple: Daphne and the Duke in season one; Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma in season two; and now, Penelope and Colin, #Polin, in season three. Of course, the tension between the two characters has been building since the series started; when she and Newton were first told by showrunner Jess Brownell that it was their turn for the spotlight, Coughlan says it was “part exciting, part terrifying.”

“It was such a challenging experience, but one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” she says of the intense eight months it took to film season three. “It’s fun. It’s a show that’s very light and full of joy, and full of drama. But I didn’t expect it to be a profound experience, and it was.”

Profound because, Coughlan says, she identifies with Penelope’s experience of being on the sidelines, waiting for her moment. “I think a lot of Penelope’s story is about her stepping out of the shadows and into the light and taking up her space,” she explains. “I felt like I had to do that as well. It’s funny.”

Bridgerton is famous for its steamy scenes, and Coughlan delights in riling up the fan base with teasers about how that’s going to play out in Polin’s season. A mirror plays a central role in the book's romance, and Coughlan knows exactly what she’s doing when she posts things like this.

One difference from the couples in previous Bridgerton seasons, though, is that Penelope and Colin have known each other for a long time in purely platonic terms. In real life, as in the show, that foundation of friendship has proved to be an advantage.

“Having shot [romance] scenes with Nicola and with actors that I would perhaps meet on the same day, I think a lot of people think it’s better not to know the person," Newton tells me during a visit to Teen Vogue’s offices in January. "But I actually think having a really solid friendship with someone and trusting someone is a lot easier. We could support each other in whatever way we needed on set, and also just have a laugh about it. I’m really glad we got to share it together. It was like having a really close friend as you’re going through something that’s maybe quite daunting.”

There was a report that Newton and Coughlan were so comfortable together, they lounged naked between filming scenes. “Yeah, so it’s really funny,” Coughlan says with a laugh. “That is true. It is a testament to the fact that we just got to a point where we were so comfortable together. We’d just finished the big sex scene, the most intense and involved one…. and we just felt relieved.”

Plus, Coughlan continues, there was a logistical element to this lounging. They had on a tiny amount of “not even real clothes,” she notes, and they would have had to get up and be on display in front of the crew.

Speaking of the crew, the emotional payoff of Penelope and Colin finally getting together might be more meaningful for them than anything else. “They’ve been there since the beginning with Pen and Colin, and to see the big, burly camera guys getting emotional at stuff was sweet,” Coughlan recalls. A security guard came up to them at one point, she remembers, and said, "'I don’t normally say this. I've worked with lots of big stars, but this season's really special. And I'm really proud of you, and it's really touched me.' It was just pure kindness.”

Polin fans are legion, and they are passionate, especially now. At the end of Bridgerton's second season, the Polin story was left hanging in the balance after Penelope overheard Colin gossiping about her with other men in the Ton, saying that he would never court her.

“It was devastating,” Newton says. “I think we did a read-through [on Zoom]. There’s obviously that internal conversation that goes through my head that’s like, I can’t. I can’t say that because I know what the response is going to be. Does he actually feel that way? It’s weird. There was so much going through my head. When I first read it, I was like, How am I going to live this down?”

But that moment became pivotal in puncturing Penelope’s love-tinted view of Colin. “I think it needed to happen for her," says Coughlan, "because she had him on such a pedestal. And I don’t believe you can truly love someone that you idealize like that. It’s not real love. I think she has love for him, but it’s not true love, because she doesn’t show her true self to him. He’s not aware.”

Newton acknowledges: “He’s got some making up to do.”

“Now the masks are finally off,” says Coughlan of season three. “They just wrote this season so beautifully…. I also think it’s a really relatable story. Everyone’s felt like that. Everyone’s felt overlooked and not good enough.”

Coughlan knows a thing or two about audience expectations. She is, after all, part of two pop culture juggernauts: Bridgerton, of course, and Barbie. In the latter, she had a cameo as Diplomat Barbie.

“This was something that Barbie also expressed so beautifully,” she says. “It’s how women struggle to love themselves and be good enough.”

When Coughlan auditioned for that blockbuster film, she was on vacation in Hawaii and just happened to have packed a pink corduroy dress. “I remember thinking, I will never use this. Why am I bringing it? Then the audition came in. I was like, That was it, it was fate. I was meant to have a Barbie-pink dress. I did the tape, it went to [director] Greta [Gerwig], and then my agent called and said, ‘She really likes you.’”

Coughlan felt over the moon when she heard that feedback — she has adored Gerwig since Frances Ha. “She is a genius, and she’s special, and she’s kind,” Coughlan says.

Unfortunately, there was a filming conflict with Bridgerton, so Coughlan wrote to Gerwig to express her willingness to play even a tiny role. “And I sent her a picture I have of myself with my Barbie car at age six, because I was a big Barbie girl.” She told Gerwig she’d been prepping for this role since that young age.

Coughlan continues, “I would have gone and done anything in that movie, honestly. I admire Margot [Robbie] so much — she’s a phenomenal actor, but everything she’s doing as a producer and bringing women’s stories to the screen [is so valuable].”

In the case of Barbie, Coughlan notes, it’s a good thing that it wasn’t about her six-year-old stories being brought to the screen. “My Barbies' backstories were far darker. There was a lot of murder…. One of them had sparkly eyes, and I was like, ‘It happened in an accident. Someone stole her eyes and she can’t see, but she’s got superpowers.’ Much darker. I’m glad they didn't let me write that movie," she says with a laugh. "It was good for everybody.”

The Barbie press tour became known for its iconic red-carpet looks, with Robbie replicating all sorts of classic Barbie outfits. Coughlan, too, had a standout Barbie moment in a sparkling custom dress, from New York designer Jackson Wiederhoeft, that she wore to the film's London premiere in July.

That was just one of many viral fashion moments Coughlan has had over the last few years of press tours and events. With her stylist Aimée Croysdill, she’s been able to both channel and transcend her characters with some showstopping, unforgettable looks, many of which are created by up-and-coming designers or those who prioritize positive environmental and social impacts.

For Barbie's London premiere, Coughlan wanted to pay homage to her old Sparkle Eyes Barbie, which came through in the silver fabric and Swarovski crystals that were meant to reference Barbie’s diamond eyes.

During the cover shoot for this story — photographed by fellow Derry girl Deirdre Lewis — Coughlan's final look is a nod to the fashion moments she has created so far, featuring another gorgeous off-the-shoulder Wiederhoeft gown. Coughlan stands on a pedestal against a black backdrop. We’ve been bouncing all day to the recently released Beyoncé album, Cowboy Carter, and Coughlan's rep, Victoria, mentions the actor is also a big Chloe x Halle fan. We queue them up, and Coughlan takes the transformation even further — now she’s giving supermodel. The dresses are beautiful, but it’s Coughlan who carries them.

Coughlan has known she wanted to be an actor/entertainer since she was four years old, when she saw The Wizard of Oz for the first time. It was Christmas, she remembers, and her sister had taped it. “I watched it, and I didn’t really understand…. But I was like, ‘Whatever that is, I’m doing that,’” she says.

As a kid, Coughlan acted professionally, cast in small roles. “My first thing was a James Brolin movie — I was just, like, an extra. But I got to leave school for the day. I [was paid] 30 pounds and was like, ‘I’m rich! This is amazing.’”

But it wasn’t a straight shot from there to Bridgerton. Coughlan recalls her extensive history, how she went to acting school in Birmingham, then tried to find professional work, and moved back and forth between London and Ireland as she ran out of money or otherwise came up short. “It was just a washout,” she says. “I was working in retail and spending all my money on rent, having no time to go to auditions, and not really getting auditions. The ones I was getting were really bad. You feel a bit like a fool. Because it's such a dream, you're like, Am I kidding myself? And your family are worried because you've got no money and you're living off ramen noodles.”

And there was the age thing. As she neared 30, sometimes she couldn’t even get in the door to audition. Some actors might “knock a couple of years off” their age, and Coughlan says she can’t blame them: “The industry is really ageist, especially towards women.” But Coughlan wanted to remain true to herself, partly to show other women that “we shouldn’t be ashamed.”

It paid off. At age 29, she got the audition for Derry Girls. But five days before she found out she got the part, her dad died suddenly. In the space of one week, Coughlan says, she had some of the worst and best times of her life.

Her father remains an enormous influence on her to this day. He served in the Irish army, part of which Coughlan describes as a peacekeeping force because Ireland is a neutral country. “He would go into a lot of war-torn regions after the conflict and try and help rebuild. He used to work with the UN on a lot of peacekeeping missions," she explains. "My family lived in Jerusalem back in the late '70s, early ’80s, before I was born, so I heard firsthand stories about them living there. He spent so much of his life doing that. He was in Syria, he was in Honduras, he was everywhere.”

This brings us to a topic that, if it were anyone else, might have to go through several levels of approval from a talent rep or publicist: Gaza.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent bombing of much of the Gaza Strip, Coughlan has consistently posted on her Instagram, drawing attention to the humanitarian crisis in the region. She has also raised tens of thousands of pounds through Instagram fundraisers she organized, a definitive action, she says, that people with platforms like hers can take to drive change.

Many celebrities find it a difficult topic to navigate. Not Coughlan. She’s an open book, and a vocal advocate for the people, especially the children, of Palestine. “I think it’s important to me because firstly, I’m a very privileged person,” she says. “I’m so lucky I’ve gotten to this point in my career, and I’m privileged as a white woman, first off. Then the fact that I get to do the job I love and travel the world and meet amazing people, I feel a moral responsibility to give back."

She notes, “Even before I was on television, I was involved in different causes. I went campaigning door-to-door for marriage equality in Ireland, I went on marches for abortion rights. I’ve always cared about causes and social justice.”

Coughlan continues, "To me it always becomes about supporting all innocent people, which sounds oversimplified, but I think you’ve got to look at situations and just think, Are we supporting innocent people no matter where they’re from, who they are? That’s my drive.”

In addition to her family's personal connection with the area, Coughlan points out that “there's a huge connection between Ireland and Palestine that maybe a lot of people aren't aware of, and a shared history.”

She acknowledges, too, the precarious state of Hollywood when it comes to what’s happening in Gaza. “You do get told, ‘You won’t get work,’ ‘You won’t do this.’ But I also think, deep down, if you know that you’re coming from a place of ‘I don’t want any innocent people to suffer,’ then I’m not worried about people’s reactions.”

Coughlan has heard that certain agents, agencies, and studios potentially won’t want to work with her because of her advocacy, but she still proudly wears her Artists4Ceasefire pin. (Their statement says they “come together as artists and advocates, but most importantly as human beings witnessing the devastating loss of lives and unfolding horrors in Israel and Palestine,” and calls for the “safe release of hostages” as well as an “end to the bombing of Gaza.”) She’s in the midst of a global press tour — and will likely accrue millions of new followers — and she’s still posting about the crisis.

She thinks social media has boxed people into certain corners, making things seem only black or white, when we live in a world where multiple things are true at once. “More of us should be trying to understand…how upsetting and traumatizing this is for Jewish people, and how horrific it is that all these innocent people in Palestine are being murdered," she says.

Coughlan's posts have even inspired some Bridgerton fans to organize and raise their own funds on the internet. Though Coughlan left Twitter, now X, years ago, there’s an account on the platform called Polins x Care for Gaza, and the group has worked with at least four other fan accounts to raise thousands of dollars for Care for Gaza, a nonprofit that helps displaced Palestinian families. They just kicked off a second part of their fundraiser a few days ago. One way they raise money: raffling off Polin fan art. It’s the purest form of fandom, and shows how fandom can be a force for good.

“It's a testament to the people that follow me being so kind and generous,” Coughlan says. “I feel like, in the nicest way possible, my opinion on situations doesn't matter, but because I have a platform and I have a couple of million people on there, if I can raise a little bit of money, isn't that an amazing thing to do? And if you can amplify voices of anyone in the world who's going through tough situations, I just think, why would you not do that?”

What matters, Coughlan says, is that when she’s on her deathbed, thinking about her life, whether she can say she used her influence to make a positive impact on the world.

The moral clarity with which Coughlan views the world is distinctive, and admirable. It probably has to do with how she knew herself to her core before any kind of fame came along. She also credits the Irish friends and family members who keep her honest, as when Vogue named her one of the “best-dressed women in the world” and they found it “absolutely hilarious.”

For St. Patrick’s Day this year, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland visited President Joe Biden and American lawmakers. Former Irish president Mary Robinson, that country’s first woman president, used the opportunity to directly call on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to pressure Biden on a ceasefire in Gaza and hold the Israeli government accountable for blocking aid to Palestine.

Coughlan reposted to her Instagram Stories a 60-second clip of her speaking, captioned, “Mary Robinson, who makes me proud to be Irish.”

And Ireland is proud of Coughlan.

In 2021, she won the Rising Star Award from the Irish Film & TV Academy. Since then the cultural accolades have only piled up. And Coughlan is ascending amid a huge Irish wave of success in Hollywood, with Oppenheimer's Cillian Murphy taking home the Oscar for best actor, and Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott stealing hearts as the internet’s boyfriends. We can’t forget Barry Keoghan, who delivered one of the most mesmerizing performances of the year in Saltburn, and even Ayo Edebiri — “I love that we’ve adopted her,” Coughlan says with a laugh, referring to a running joke that Edebiri started about playing the donkey, Jenny, in the Irish film The Banshees of Inisherin.

An arts company painted a Derry Girls mural in Northern Ireland. When I post on Instagram from a Big Mood screening in New York, an Irish friend responds, “She’s amazing. Adored over here!”

It’s now early April. We’re at a fashionable hotel restaurant in midtown Manhattan. Coughlan, who is in town to promote Big Mood, has about 90 minutes before she needs to get hair-, makeup-, and outfit-ready to appear on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, where she impresses the crowd with her knowledge of reality TV. (Another charming thing about Coughlan: She’s extremely online.)

Later in the same week, there’s a premiere of Big Mood at Manhattan's Whitby Hotel, to celebrate the show's streaming debut on Tubi in the U.S. (in the UK, it's available on Channel 4). Coughlan is holding court after the screening, champagne glass in hand, wearing a chic black suit and her ceasefire pin. She’s chatting with friends and attendees when some reviewers approach her and say, “You’re the funniest person on TV.” Coughlan is graciously taken aback, and buoyed by the compliment.

They’re not wrong. As Maggie in Big Mood, Coughlan delivers some truly laugh-out-loud lines, while also bringing an incredible amount of pathos to the character, who has bipolar disorder and struggles with therapy and finding the right medication. The Guardian called Coughlan a “force of nature” for her performance, and the show has been lauded for its very realistic depiction of mood disorders, including manic episodes and depression.

Having experienced depression herself, Coughlan says, it was very important to her and the show’s team to be as true to life as possible. The show starts off on a fun high note, demonstrating why it's the best-reviewed millennial comedy of its kind since Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, but the six-episode run ends on a devastating, if realistic, note. Coughlan and costar Lydia West want to come back and resolve that, so they are hopeful the show will get picked up for a second season.

There were three weeks of filming when Bridgerton and Big Mood overlapped, enabling Coughlan to truly show her range. Somehow she successfully went back and forth between the two very different characters and pulled it off.

After all her hard work, now everyone is noticing Coughlan’s talent, humor, and her character. Although the cameras have stopped rolling for the moment, she’s nowhere near being idle. After our cover shoot, she rushes off to see a play. The next night, she attends a Saturday Night Live taping, when fellow blonde and comedy queen Kristen Wiig is hosting. Then it’s back to London for a week of seemingly nonstop appearances before she flies to Australia for Bridgerton’s first in-person press there.

She’s now just at the beginning of a world tour that will take her all over Europe, to South Africa, and back to Brazil — “They are incredible,” Coughlan says, having visited last year. “Brazilians make everyone feel like Beyoncé. They're so lovely.”

Perhaps most meaningfully, the Bridgerton world tour will also take her back home to Ireland. “It's exhausting, but it's so rewarding,” says Coughlan, who has dreamed of and worked for this for decades. “It's still worth it. All the tiredness, everything. It's all so worth it.”

Photo Credits

Photographer Deirdre Lewis

1st Photo Assistant Chad V. Hilliard

Lighting Director Marion Grand

Digitech Julian Lopez

Post / Retoucher Picturehouse

Set/Prop Designer Wayout Studio Co

Stylist Carolina Orrico

Stylist Assistant Radhika Patel

Tailor Toni Debuono

Assistant Fashion Editor Tascha Berkowitz

Hair Stylist Sergio Estrada

Makeup Artist Daniel Martin

Producer Hannah Kinlaw + Chelsea Moynehan of Statement Of

Production Assistant Noah Schmitz

Design Director Emily Zirimis

Designer / Production Liz Coulbourn

Visual Editor / Production Bea Oyster

BTS Video Credits

Video Director Mi-Anne Chan

Video Producer Amalie MacGowan

Social Video Director Ali Farooqui

DP Mar Alfonso

Editorial Credits

Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma

Features Director Brittney McNamara

Talent Director Eugene Shevertalov

Senior Culture Editor P. Claire Dodson

Contributing Editor Alyssa Hardy

Associate Director of Audience Development and Analytics Mandy Velez Tatti

Sr. Social Media Manager Honestine Fraser

Social Media Manager Jillian Selzer

Copy Editor Dawn Rebecky

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue

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