Romance fans got a true treat on Christmas day when Bridgerton was released on Netflix. The period drama, which is based on a supremely popular series of novels by Julia Quinn, focuses (mostly) on the romantic lives of the eight Bridgerton siblings, and features a lot of scandalous behavior, secrets, lies, and, of course, good old fashioned romance. And, along with that romance comes some serious sexytimes which are very uncommon for TV shows / movies set in Regency era England. If you were at all shocked, though, star Phoebe Dynevor has now revealed why she thinks Bridgerton's steamy sex scenes were actually "important" for the show.
A bit over half of the first part of Bridgerton Season 1 follows the main couple, Daphne and Simon, as they go from being enemies to friends to, well, more than friends but still not anywhere near doing real horizontal things. That is, until Daphne finally convinces the stubborn duke to marry her. Once they're a few hours into their newly wedded bliss, they get down with the getting down and rarely come up for air through a few episodes. So, why does Phoebe Dynevor think that so much smokin' hot bedchamber boogie was needed on Bridgerton? Here's what she told E!:
It's so important for the journey of the characters to see those scenes. They're not just there to be there. They're there to tell this story of this sort of sexual awakening that Daphne is having and I think that's so important for her story particularly… I feel really proud of those scenes honestly. We worked really hard at making them feel real.
Phoebe Dynevor makes some very good points about how those scenes help show the audience how Simon and Daphne's relationship grows. A lot of the fun of watching them make the journey from enemies to lovers is in seeing each of them slowly come to respect, care for and enjoy spending time with the other, and having little moments where you can see that they're falling in love. But, after several episodes of watching them dance around each other (literally sometimes), viewers want to see them finally get together, and, yes, that includes in the dirty ways.
As Dynevor also noted, though, her character has been raised to be a "proper" lady, so a large part of those sex scenes is to show how Daphne comes into her own sexually. She was brought up in a time when it was generally thought improper to tell high society girls / women anything about sex. They were just supposed to wait and see what was up (tee hee) once they got married. So, when Daphne begins her serious flirtation with Simon, she really has no idea what's coming.
That all changes in a big way with their wedding night, and eventually leads to some major complications for the couple when Simon underestimates his new wife's desire to understand the full picture of what goes on in the marital bed.
Despite all of the drama surrounding Daphne, Simon and their steamy sexytimes, Phoebe Dynevor is correct that Bridgerton does a very good job of making those scenes feel deeply romantic (and hot), but also seem very realistic (and, yes, hot).
If you'd like to relive, or catch up on, all of the steamy times on Bridgerton, all of Season 1 is on Netflix right now. While we await word on Season 2, if you'd like more to watch, be sure to check out our guide to winter / spring TV premieres!
