Nicola Coughlan Bet on Herself—And Won

There was a moment during the Bridgerton press tour earlier this year when Nicola Coughlan forgot where she was. Looking at the food on the plate in front of her, she thought she might be in Italy. She was, in fact, in an Italian restaurant in Brazil. The global tour, during which she visited seven countries over six months, had started to take its toll. The journey marked the end of the Netflix phenomenon’s third season, in which the actor took center stage as Penelope Featherington. Coughlan’s season would go on to become the sixth most watched season of TV in Netflix’s history, beating out The Night Agent and installments of Stranger Things.

When we meet for breakfast in North London on a sunny September morning, she’s in between filming the show’s fourth season and flying out to Los Angeles to present at the Emmys. Low-key in damp hair, a baseball cap, and sweatshirt, she’s reflecting on the upside of all this: it means she’s employed. “I just feel really lucky to be working, because all of my 20s, I wasn’t,” she says. Coughlan, now 37, can be unassuming. Yet she’s confident and bold in her approach to the industry and her newfound status in the public eye.

As Coughlan landed her big break somewhat later than many of her peers, she steps into this new chapter with more life experience and a firm idea of who she is. She earned praise during the Bridgerton press tour for how she balanced pleas for humanity in the Middle East alongside her promotion of the series. At a time when celebrities are urged to speak out on various issues, only to be told to “stay in their lane” when they do, Coughlan has taught herself to drown out the noise and stand up for what she believes in. She has found her stride in the industry, but she’s far from complacent. “There’s no making it,” she says. “You just have to keep going and can’t rest on your laurels.”

Coughlan experienced more than a few false starts on her path to breaking out on the beloved Northern Irish dramedy Derry Girls, which premiered on the U.K.’s Channel 4 in 2018. She graduated from university in Ireland and then, after a demoralizing application process, attended drama school in the U.K. She moved from her birthplace in Galway to London “three or four times,” often having to trudge back home after failing to land her lucky break. “It’s a true love kind of thing,” she says of her career choice. “You have to have a level of delusion to think, I can really sustain myself pretending to be other people.”

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The tide turned when she landed the role of Clare Devlin in Derry Girls. She took part in a pivotal storyline when Clare came out, memorably identifying herself as the “wee lesbian,” no small feat at a Catholic convent school in the 1990s, amid the Troubles. The actor has since gone on to become an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. But if Derry Girls was Coughlan’s introduction, Bridgerton truly changed the trajectory of her life.

After premiering during the pandemic, the Netflix series quickly built up a loyal following, turning Coughlan into a global superstar. The third season focuses on the love story between Penelope and Luke Newton’s Colin Bridgerton, a couple affectionately coined Polin by viewers. So powerful is the fandom that Netflix moved their love story to an earlier season than the sequence of Julia Quinn’s books would have indicated. “We have no control over those decisions. And there’s a queer couple that’s coming up. I know some fans have not been happy about that,” she says. “It’s a show that’s going to embrace so many different types of love stories. And Benedict, a bisexual king? We’re so happy about that!”

Coughlan is keenly aware of how fans’ interest in Polin transcends the small screen. “A lot of people really want me to marry Luke,” she says with a laugh. “We have this gorgeous friendship. We have such a love for one another and this experience that I’ll never have with someone else again. Isn’t it gorgeous that a man and woman can have that sort of relationship with one another?”

Mutual trust between Coughlan and Newton, built on- and off-set during the first two seasons, proved key for a plot with no shortage of exposing moments. Of Penelope and Colin’s first sex scene, she says, “It was intimate, but it was also scary because of the level of nudity. We wanted to do justice to the story and this beautiful moment where he makes her feel really loved and they’re vulnerable together. I’m so proud of that scene.” The duo have more intimate moments in Season 4 and will also have something else to manage: Polin’s “crazy cute” onscreen baby.

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While Coughlan and Newton were promoting the show, there was a stark contrast in the questions they fielded. She was repeatedly asked about her body. She was called “brave” for taking on the role. She insists: “Don’t call me brave. I have a cracking pair of boobs. There’s nothing brave about that, that’s actually just me showing them off.”

But Coughlan is concerned about the impact of such narratives being upheld. “I’m a few sizes below the average size of a woman in the U.K. and I’m seen as a ‘plus-size heroine.’” Not to mention: “I worked my arse off for that show. I barely saw my family and friends, and people were just going, ‘But your body …’” She knows it can be meant as a compliment. “But I don’t take it as nice. Making it about how I look is reductive and boring. What if I was suddenly going to play a ballerina and lose a sh-t ton of weight, are you not going to like me anymore? That’s insane and so insulting.”

When I interviewed Coughlan in 2022, around the time of Derry Girls ending its hit three-season run, she was slowly getting used to the realities of fame. But the public’s curiosity has ramped up significantly since Bridgerton. “Nowadays, people have their camera phones pointed at you and they’ll post where you are in real time,” she says. She recalls an occasion when people filmed her having dinner in the hotel she was staying at. It was only later she realized that her night off had been documented. “It’s a real invasion,” she says, still shaken.

Coughlan, who considers herself a “people pleaser,” often finds herself walking a tightrope when it comes to calling out predatory behavior. “I oscillate between two things as a woman: It costs nothing to be nice, and women don’t owe you niceness. Both of those things are true,” she says.

As such, Coughlan has learned to distinguish between her public and private selves. “You have to have a private life and know who you are.” Work Coughlan excitedly points her phone in my direction, showing me a preview of her custom-made Prabal Gurung Emmys dress. Off-Duty Coughlan avidly discusses one of her favorite pastimes—watching all things Bravo. When I say “Chic C’est La Vie,” referencing a song by Real Housewives of New York original Luann de Lesseps, she doesn’t miss a beat before completing the lyrics: “C’est bonne, c’est bonne.” (She also fesses up to having DM-ed Luann—“or the young gay man who runs her social media.”)

Privacy is only one aspect of her ambivalent relationship to technology. She’s experienced firsthand the uncanny valley of AI. “As part of my brain-rot lifestyle, I do watch a lot of TikTok,” she says, laughing. “A Bridgerton thing came up, and it was my voice, but I was thinking, ‘I don’t remember saying this.’ Then I realized it was lines from the Bridgerton book which we’d not done. It was just an AI version of my voice, and it spooked me so badly. I was like, ‘I hate this.’”

When she uses her own (genuine) voice on social media, it’s with a certain level of thoughtful care. Opting to speak out about the Israel-Hamas war, she shared various fundraising efforts for the people of Gaza on her Instagram page. She says she was told, “This could really limit you,” but the matter hit too close to home to stay silent. “My dad passed away a couple of years ago, and I don’t really speak about him very much, because it’s very personal,” she says. Her father worked as a peacekeeper for the U.N., and her family lived in Jerusalem before she was born. “That was literally what he was doing—trying to broker peace in that area,” she adds.

Read More: Nicola Coughlan Calls for the U.S. to Stop Sending Arms to Israel

She was strategic, opting to utilize her Instagram platform at a time she knew the most eyes would be on it, leading to a fundraiser being shared by people like Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter and raising $2 million. “The bottom line is, I just can’t see innocent people suffer,” she says. Coughlan admits she can’t help but sometimes feel “judgy” when others with large platforms choose not to speak out in fear of what they might lose. “I live such a privileged lifestyle. I was able to buy a house, I get to travel, I get to meet my heroes,” she says. “So I’m like, ‘You just don’t want to sacrifice a little bit of that?’ But I don’t know, everyone’s different.”

If there’s one thing Coughlan’s not keen to do anytime soon, it’s repeat herself. “People often ask about Derry Girls and if I’m going to do more. I would never. To me it was three [seasons] and it was perfect. And Bridgerton—long may it continue—but when that ends, I don’t want to do another Bridgerton.”

Next up, she’ll make an appearance in homes around the world in the festive Doctor Who Christmas special, portraying the companion to former Next Generation Leaders cover star Ncuti Gatwa. She will be home in Galway when it airs over the holiday, and plans to watch it with her family, in particular her teenage nephew.

Coughlan is often reminded these days of how far she’s come. She experienced one such moment over the summer after landing a starring role in The Magic Faraway Tree, a film adaptation of Enid Blyton’s revered children’s book. She was drawn to the project largely because of the film’s writer, Simon Farnaby, known for his work on Paddington 2. (“One of the best movies ever made, genuinely,” she says.) Though her high-profile co-stars include Andrew Garfield and Rebecca Ferguson, it was Monty Python actor Michael Palin who truly made the experience meaningful. For the shoot, Coughlan traveled to Malta, a place that holds special significance for her as she spent a year studying there at 19. It was a pivotal time in her life, when she was deciding whether to pursue a career in acting.

“I was very obsessed with Monty Python, and I had a Monty Python book. I remember reading it in this garden café in Malta,” Coughlan says. “When reading that book, I made the decision to become an actor. When I went back to Malta to film Faraway Tree, my hotel was right across the street from where that café once was.” It was a clear sign that her career plan, however far-fetched it once felt, has panned out rather well.

She starts to tell me about bringing the book for Palin to sign when she pauses, her attention diverted by something happening outside the window. “Sorry! I’m always obsessed with this. It’s my favorite thing in the world.” I turn around to see a group of schoolchildren, no more than 6 years old, being led down the road, flanked by teachers. They hold a safety walking rope, ensuring nobody wanders off. Coughlan watches them until they are out of sight. She mentions later that although she only ever wanted to be an actor, she could also see herself as a Montessori teacher. The scene is a glimpse of what might have been, had she not made that decision to bet on herself all those years ago. A 19-year-old gambling her future on a wild-eyed dream? Now, that’s brave.

 

Set design by Amy Friend; styling by Aimee Croysdill; hair by Halley Brisker; make-up by Neil Young; production by artProduction

Write to Olivia-Anne Cleary at olivia-anne.cleary@time.com.