'Bridgerton' star Nicola Coughlan pushes back against attention placed on her body

Nicola Coughlan says she "doesn’t care" about body positivity amid scrutiny over her appearance since rising to global fame through Bridgerton.

The 39-year-old Irish actor, who reprised her role as Penelope Featherington in the latest season of the Netflix drama, addressed public reactions to her appearance in the April issue of Elle UK, published 5 March.

“You know what was really bizarre was, when I was shooting that series, I was exercising a lot because I knew I had to, so I had lost a bunch of weight," she began as she expressed her annoyance at her body type being widely described as plus-size while the show was filming. 

"I was probably a size 10, and one of the corsets was a size 8. And then people talked about how I was plus size, and I was like, ‘How f***** are we that I am the biggest woman you want to see on screen?’” she recalled during the interview.

Coughlan also criticised the way conversations about her performance often shift toward her appearance. She recalled an encounter with a fan who praised the show because of her body.

“I remember this really drunk girl once talking to me in a bathroom being like, ‘I loved [Bridgerton] because of your body.’ And started talking about my body, and I was like, ‘I want to die. I hate this so much,’” she recalled.

Coughlan gained particular attention during the third season of the series, which featured romantic scenes opposite Luke Newton. 

While some viewers praised the portrayal as a step forward for body representation, she said she has little interest in becoming a spokesperson for body positivity. “The thing I say sometimes that pisses people off is I have no interest in body positivity," she admitted.

She further explained that when she was younger, she did not evaluate actors based on their bodies, and she does not want that conversation to define her career.

"When I was a kid growing up, I never thought about that. I didn’t look at actors and think about their bodies. So, I actually don’t care,” she admitted. “There’s a lot of things I’m passionate about, it’s not one of them… That’s someone else’s thing. It’s not mine.”

The actor previously addressed the issue in a 2022 Instagram message, asking fans to avoid sending comments about her body directly to her. She said receiving thousands of opinions about her appearance can be difficult to process.