ELLE Exclusive: In Conversation With The Leading Stars Of 'Bridgerton' Season Four

Dearest gentle reader, Season Four of Bridgerton has arrived on Netflix, only hours ago, dipped in silver and secrecy, gloriously Cinderella-coded, complete with a masquerade ball, a vanishing heroine, and a gentleman in black struck silent by a single glance. Benedict and Sophie’s long-awaited surrender to destiny is now streaming in full, and yet this chapter for the Bridgerton family does something quieter, too. It softens its gaze, choosing yearning over haste, proving once again why the Ton continues to reign supreme in pop culture.

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To celebrate the release, we sat down with its leading stars, Luke Thompson, Yerin Ha, Hannah Dodd, Victor Alli, Masali Baduza, Katie Leung, and Isabella Wei to go behind the scenes. 

Spoiler Alert

Benedict & Sophie: Chemistry You Cannot Manufacture

We begin, as all good fairy tales must, at the ball, the very masquerade that audiences have now witnessed unfold in shimmering detail. Sitting down with Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha felt less like interviewing two leads of a global phenomenon and more like watching co-conspirators relive a secret.

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The heat, yes, the one that has already sent the internet spiralling, was not born of some grand method-acting or ice-breaking ritual. On their first Zoom chemistry read, Ha admitted she simply thought Thompson “was tired.” But meeting in person shifted everything. “I felt very warm when I met him. He’s so lovely,” she said, which had Thompson blushing on our call.

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Building Benedict and Sophie’s connection was refreshingly unforced. “We just took it day by day, scene by scene,” Ha explained. Because much of their arc was filmed chronologically, their characters discovered one another organically. Thompson added what now plays like a thesis for the season: “Chemistry is something that happens when action starts. You can’t really control it.”

That lack of control, that surrender, much like their storyline, is precisely what has made their masquerade encounter electric. She glows in silver; he is absorbed in black. A visual metaphor mirroring their first dance in secrecy.

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On screen, the two banter over literature and art, so when I asked what book Sophie might gift Benedict (anything but his French grammar book, if you know, you know), Ha laughed and suggested The Alchemist. “He’s still learning about love; he needs his love lessons,” she said.

And when asked to describe each other in one word? Thompson offered “gorgeous” without hesitation. Ha called him a “rainbow” because, according to her, he is someone who contains every emotion at once. Judging by early fan reactions, audiences would agree.

Francesca, John and Michaela: The Power of Quiet Love

If Benedict and Sophie are a spark, then Francesca, John and Michaela emerge as the season’s slow-burning flame, one that glows softly before altering the temperature of the room. Hannah Dodd, who plays Francesca, had been “really, really excited” when she first read the script. In a show synonymous with fireworks and fervour, she found her story representing a quieter love. “It’s nice that another kind of love story is given space when everyone else is very fiery or angsty,” she said. “Introverts feel like this relationship speaks to them.”

Her Francesca leans into communication and the bravery of shy people articulating their needs. “You see two shyer characters being brave enough to have those conversations,” Dodd explained, “and how important it is for a woman to express her needs.”

Victor Alli’s John Stirling has already become the Ton’s greenest flag. When told so, he laughed, almost startled. But what he hoped audiences would carry with them, especially in the wake of John’s sudden passing, was a different model of masculinity.

“Being a gentleman doesn’t always mean demanding what you want your way and trying to orchestrate every single moment of a relationship,” he said. “It’s about allowing it to breathe, to have space, and listening… creating an environment to have those hard conversations.”

With John’s absence now playing out on screen, a new emotional undercurrent begins to bloom. It is never a conventional love triangle, as the cast made clear, but something more delicate — a quiet, queer yearning emerging where grief and companionship meet.

Masali Baduza, as Michaela Stirling, described her chemistry with Dodd simply: “It’s so easy to have chemistry with this one,” she said. “It’s literally like breathing. She just makes it so easy. So my yearning on screen is really natural for the viewers to enjoy.”

What unfolds between Francesca and Michaela is neither loud nor scandalous in the traditional Bridgerton sense that Lady Whistledown might chronicle. It is softer than that — and perhaps braver.

The “Villainess” and the Whimsy

No fairy tale is complete without its formidable matriarch. Katie Leung’s Lady Araminta Gun proves as sharply dressed as she is sharp-tongued. On paper, Araminta may read as an archetypal evil stepmother, but Leung was drawn to her trauma and transition. “Being able to explore her past before she becomes ‘evil’ was such a rare opportunity,” she said. For Leung, Araminta feels less caricature and more cautionary tale.

“She’s a woman operating within a very narrow system,” she explained. “Security and status aren’t luxuries for her.” Her control stems from fear rather than cruelty. “She believes she’s preparing her daughter for the world as it is, not the world as it should be.” Her strictness towards Posy, she suggested, comes from recognition, she once was dreamy and hopeful too, before deciding softness would not sustain her.

Isabella Wei’s Posy, now fully introduced to audiences, carries quiet rebellion. “She feels everything,” Wei said. “Even when she’s being dutiful, there’s always a question, is this my choice?” Playing Posy became an exercise in restrained whimsy. “So much of it lives in what you don’t say.”

Their scenes feel less about confrontation and more about inheritance. “It’s not simply a strict mother versus rebellious daughter,” Leung said. “It’s two women at different stages of understanding the same cage.” In that framing, their relationship lands less as antagonism and more as tragedy — a portrait of parental love strained by expectation.

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