Did Nicola Coughlan actually stab her ‘Bridgerton’ colleague?!

Bridgerton continues to be the balm to the soul that we all need. Or, at least, in this quarantine world, we understand more than ever the inherent sexiness of touching ungloved hands together. Either way, Bridgerton is Netflix’s best premiere show of all time, scoring that second season renewal, and still in the Netflix Top 10 well over a month after its release. 

But the best part of Bridgerton is the cast, many of whom are on social media. The behind-the-scenes pics and videos make it look like they were having a lot of fun, especially Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls) who plays Penelope Featherington in the Netflix series. She did have fun on the show, but she didn’t have the best first day on set. It got a little . . . messy.

Here’s what you need to know.

Some background first

Let’s go back to the first day of filming for Bridgerton. Nicola Coughlan was, understandably, nervous. It’s a big gig for an actor! She recalled, “It was my first day on set, and it’s quite terrifying, getting a big Shondaland Netflix job, and you think, ‘I just don’t wanna screw this up.’ They said to me, ‘You’re very tiny, let’s put you in heels’ and I thought ‘Yep, I’ll do anything you want me to do’.”

That? Probably was the first mistake. Now, no one wants to be labeled as difficult because of the acting community? It’s surprisingly small and getting a label of being hard to work with is . . . not great. Even so, you throw corsets into the mix? It can be bad. So maybe a test to make sure the heels and a corset would work for Nicola Coughlan would have been best.

Otherwise, what happened probably could have been avoided.

Parasols can be good stabbing devices

It’s best to let Nicola Coughlan say what happened next in her own words, “It became evident pretty quickly that with the corset and the heels, my balance was not so amazing. I was walking along, and I fell three times, and the third time, I was holding a parasol — which, in the wrong hands is a deadly weapon — and I fell forward and stabbed Claudia Jessie (who plays Eloise) in the hand, and she just started bleeding.”

Yikes. 

Luckily! Jessie was apparently very understanding that the whole thing was a wardrobe related accident. Nicola Coughlan assured Kelly, “But she’s still my friend! But unfortunately, there was a stabbing on the first day and I was guilty. It was not good.” She went on to add that she sends Jessie, who is not on social media, memes of their characters. Because Penelope & Eloise are friendship goals.

One more story for Nicola Coughlan being #relatable

Due to being released on Christmas, a lot of people ended up watching Bridgerton with their families if they were able to see them or quarantine with them. Given the show’s steamy sex scenes? It . . . oh boy. It could awkward watching a sex scene with your parents. It’s one of the Circles of Hell. If Dante were alive today, then we’re certain that would be included as an eternal punishment.

Speaking on the Make It Reign with Josh Smith podcast, Coughlan said, “I knew pretty well how the episodes went and the amount of sexiness in them. When I showed her the first episode and Johnny Bailey’s bum appeared very quickly into episode one, She was like, ‘What is going on?’ I had to say, ‘It’s not my fault I didn’t write it, it’s romance novels and it’s a really important part of the story,’ but I was still in trouble. 

“Then with episode six I thought, ‘oh my God what am I going to do? It’s non-stop shagging! I am going to be in so much trouble’. What I ended up doing was just fast-forwarding through all the sexy bits and at the end of the episode she said, ‘that one was very short!’”

Do what you got to, girl!