TIME Magazine recently announced Nicola Coughlan as one of their 2024 Next Generation Leaders due to her work in advocacy and her “refusal to accept the status quo”.
In her interview with TIME, Coughlan discussed the huge success that Bridgerton season 3 was and disclosed her disappointment in the types of questions she was asked during the press tour.
On multiple occasions the actress was asked about her body, was called brave for filming sex scenes and was labelled a “plus-size heroine”. In response she had this to say, “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.”
She continued by saying: “I’m a few sizes below the average size of a woman in the U.K. and I’m seen as a ‘plus-size heroine.’”
Although Coughlan knew it was meant as a compliment, it didn’t feel like one, saying “Making it about how I look is reductive and boring.” She had worked very hard on the show, barely seeing friends or family, and found it demeaning for people to be more focused on her body than her performance as the female lead of the season.
The actress has worked hard to get where she is. She started acting at 19, eventually securing her big break as Clare Devlin in Derry Girls. Obtaining her role in Bridgerton was no easy feat and excelled her career as well as her online following.
Coughlan has and continues to use her platform to advocate for different humanitarian crises and to amplify voices who struggle to be heard.
During her promotion of Bridgerton season 3, when the most eyes were on her, Coughlan posted a fundraiser for Palestine Children’s Relief Fund to her social media platforms. Her efforts raised 1.8 million euro.
The star also continually wore a red ceasefire pin through promotions for Bridgerton and on the red carpet. In an interview with USA Today she explained, “it’s very important for me because I feel like I’m a very privileged person. I’m doing my dream job, and I’m getting to travel the world, but then I’m hyper-aware of what’s happening in Rafah at the moment.”
Inspired by her father who was in the UN as a part of the Irish Peacekeeping Force in Jerusalem in the late ‘70s, she said, “I feel very passionately about it, I’m Irish also, so it’s sort of a different perspective. And I just feel, if I have this global platform, which I do at the minute, I think I can hopefully raise funds for aid organisations.”
Although warned against her activism by people in the industry and told by them that she wouldn’t get work, Coughlan refused to let that stop her, “deep down, if you know that you’re coming from a place of ‘I don’t want any innocent people to suffer,’ then I’m not worried about people’s reactions.”
By using her platform Nicola Coughlan continues to make of world of difference, rejecting status quo and pushing for better when so many others refuse to… and for that, she is brave.
