According to Deadline, Sex Education actress Simone Ashley has officially been tapped for the leading role opposite Jonathan Bailey in the upcoming second season of Shonda Rhimes’ hit period romance drama series Bridgerton. Ashley will now take the mantle from Phoebe Dynevor as the new female lead and is set to portray the role of Kate Sharma, the romantic interest to Bailey’s Anthony. Newly arrived in London, Kate is a smart, headstrong young woman who suffers no fools — Anthony Bridgerton very much included.
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Based on Julia Quinn’s best-selling series of novels, spanning from 2000 to 2013, this smart feminist take on Regency England romance unveils the glittering, wealthy, sexual, painful, funny, and sometimes lonely lives of the women and men in London’s high society marriage mart as told through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family.
Pick up a copy of the Bridgerton novels here!
The series is set in the world of Regency London high society, unveiling a seductive and sumptuous world composed of intricate rules and dramatic power struggles, in which no one is ever on steady ground. At the center of it all is the funny, witting and clever Bridgerton family, comprised of eight siblings who must navigate the upper ten-thousands’ marriage mart in search of romance, adventure, and love.
Season 2 will be based on the second book of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton novels, titled The Viscount Who Loved Me which centers around the pursuit of a suitable marriage for the eldest Bridgerton sibling, Anthony.
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The series is being adapted by Scandal veteran Chris Van Dusen, who is also rhe showrunner of the project and executive producer alongside Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers of Shondaland.
The cast for Bridgerton includes Phoebe Dynevor, Regé-Jean Page, Golda Rosheuvel, Jonathan Bailey, Luke Newton, Claudia Jessie, Nicola Coughlan, Ruby Barker, Sabrina Bartlett, Ruth Gemmell, Adjoa Andoh, Polly Walker, Bessie Carter and Harriet Cains and Julie Andrews as the voice of Lady Whistledown.
