Actor Nicola Coughlan has said she finds being called “brave” for taking on her role as Penelope Featherington in Bridgerton “insane and so insulting”.
Coughlan, 37, told Time she did not like receiving questions about her weight in the wake of taking the role saying she was “seen as a plus-size heroine” despite being “a few sizes below the average size of a woman in the UK”.
The Irish actor said she knew that some people had meant their words as a compliment, but said “I don’t take it as nice”.
She told Time: “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.
“I’m a few sizes below the average size of a woman in the UK, and I’m seen as a plus-size heroine.
“I worked my arse off for that show. I barely saw my family and friends, and people were just going, ‘but your body’.
“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 shit ton of weight, are you not going to like me any more? That’s insane and so insulting.”
Coughlan also spoke about having to “keep going” in order to succeed as an actor in her 30s.
She told Time: “I just feel really lucky to be working, because all of my 20s, I wasn’t.
“There’s no making it, you just have to keep going and can’t rest on your laurels.”
Coughlan made her name as Clare Devlin in Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls and later took the role of Penelope in the Netflix period drama.
She has also featured in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film, in BBC comedy drama Dodger as Queen Victoria, and will appear in this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special Joy To The World.
