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When Yerin Ha walked onto the set of Bridgerton for the first time, she felt like she had “climbed through a TV”.
“It’s a world I had watched for years,” says Ha, who plays maid Sophie Baek in season four of the wildly popular Regency-era drama. “It felt so bizarre and surreal, but it just shows you how much work goes into preparing this detail, from the ceilings to the colours and everything. It just made it more realistic and easier for me to be able to focus on the scenes.”
The 28-year-old Australian-Korean actor, who grew up on Sydney’s north shore, is in the middle of eating breakfast during a hectic trip back to Australia for the AACTA awards. It’s a brief respite from a whirlwind few weeks, where she was unveiled – quite literally, her character first appears wearing a mask at a ball – as the new love interest of Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson).
Importantly, she is also the series’ first lead with an East Asian background. In the books, written by Julia Quinn, her character is called Sophie Beckett, but upon casting Ha, the character’s name was changed to the Korean “Baek”.
In the world of Bridgerton, this is not a big deal, as the show prides itself on its “blind casting”, where actors of colour have been chosen for roles that, historically, would have gone to white actors. The same goes for sexuality, as some characters – such as the upcoming Michaela Stirling – have been swapped from male in the book to female on screen.
“It is just an acknowledgement and a recognition of who I am,” says Ha, of the name change. “I’m not having to fit a mould that potentially was different. Yes, in the book, she’s blonde-haired, green- or blue-eyed, and I’m not, so how are they going to make the character fit me? And it was a very simple conversation. It didn’t need to be any more complicated than it needed to be.
“I think that’s what they do so well, they celebrate every individual for their own uniqueness. That’s what I love.”
Season four is adapted from An Offer from a Gentleman, the third book in Quinn’s sprawling series. It is loosely based on Cinderella – Sophie is a maid, the illegitimate daughter of Lord Penwood, and unloved stepdaughter of Lady Penwood and her two daughters – but Ha sees it as a step away from the classic fairytale.
“Yes, it’s a retelling of Cinderella,” says Ha. “But I do think ours takes that story and takes it on a bit of a spin. Sophie is so fascinating. She’s someone who’s grappling with her sense of identity. She’s been kept hidden her whole life. She’s not quite a noblewoman, but she’s not quite a maid.
“So, I tried to bring a lot of aspects of me [to the character], of understanding what it’s potentially like to be an outsider. She’s someone who obviously has a lot of walls up and struggles with trust because the one person that she truly loved, her father, she felt betrayed her.
“She goes on a journey of what it means to let love in. And there is so much strength in softness, and vulnerability is not considered weak. So I think she goes on a journey of understanding that, basically.”
That focus on class – the upstairs haves and the downstairs have-nots – is the thread that runs through season four. It stops short of going full Downton Abbey, but the servants are at least given more agency.
“That’s probably why season four feels, energetically, perhaps a bit different,” says Ha. “I like to think that, anyway. By opening up the universe of the downstairs world, which I always say is like the heartbeat of the house, you get to see how it’s all run, and you do see the class disparity.
“It’s not a privileged romance between two noble people. It’s about [what’s forbidden]. When society tells you that you can’t be with someone purely because of class, what are you going to do? Are you going to fight for it? Or are you going to surrender to what society says? So I think it immediately raises the stakes in a completely different way for our season.”
Ha and Thompson – long Bridgerton’s underappreciated MVP – have wonderfully zippy chemistry, giving the Netflix series the jolt it needed after a flatlining third season. Ha was a late pick for the role, and was catapulted into the drama with little preparation. That meant she and Thompson had to pretty much get to know each other while the cameras were rolling.
“We don’t really rehearse the scenes that much before we shoot them,” says Ha. “We like to see what happens in real time, and kind of be spontaneous in that way. “Benedict’s cottage [in episode three] will have a special place in my heart, because that’s where I got to really know Luke. And I think when you are honest and so vulnerable with someone, that’s true intimacy.”
Speaking of which, Bridgerton is, of course, known for its raunchier scenes It’s not quite Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”, but it’s very much serving the sex for its largely female audience.
For Ha, that meant a tricky conversation with her mum about when to press play and when to fast-forward certain scenes.
“I said, ‘Look, here are the episodes. Here are the timestamps. Do with that what you will,’” she says, laughing. “But you know, I don’t know if she’s going to, that’s her choice.”
Bridgerton (season four, part two) streams on Netflix from February 26.
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