Mere months after Polin finally found their happy ending, Bridgerton has already set its sights on its next leading man: and it’s none other than Luke Thompson’s charming, artistic, pansexual Benedict.
Netflix made the announcement with a video which spliced together some of the second eldest Bridgerton brother’s best moments to date, before we see Thompson, dressed casually with a script in hand, opening the door of his hotel room. “I hear we’re fitting you for a suit,” he’s told. “It’s for the masquerade ball.” He grins in response.
Per the logline, “the fourth season of Bridgerton turns its focus to bohemian second son Benedict… Despite his elder and younger brothers both being happily married, Benedict is loath to settle down—until he meets a captivating Lady in Silver at his mother’s masquerade ball.”
Spearheaded by showrunner Jess Brownell and executive-producer Shonda Rhimes, the upcoming eight-part installment will be based on the third book in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, An Offer from a Gentleman. (Fans had previously assumed that Season 3 would center on Benedict’s romance, but Penelope and Colin’s love story from the fourth novel, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, was brought forward instead.) In the book, Benedict falls for Sophie Beckett, the daughter of an earl who’s been hidden away from the Ton and forced to work as a housemaid by her spiteful stepmother. After Sophie sneaks into Lady Bridgerton’s annual masquerade ball, she and Benedict have a Cinderella-meets-Romeo-&-Juliet moment, with Benedict enchanted by the masked beauty. When she later flees, he vows to track her down by any means possible.
Lacing herself into a corset to play the newly christened Sophie Baek? Australian actor Yerin Ha, who’s previously appeared in the Paramount+ adaptation of Halo and will star in HBO’s Dune prequel series, Dune: Prophecy, later this year.
And she won’t be the only series newcomer: there’s Katie Leung, the Harry Potter franchise’s Cho Chang, who’ll play Lady Araminta Gun, a fabulous and outspoken widow with two daughters debuting on the marriage mart; Michelle Mao as the beautiful Rosamund Li, Araminta’s eldest, who’s set her sights on Benedict; and Isabella Wei as Posy Li, Rosamund’s hapless younger sister. Meanwhile, Emma Naomi’s Alice Mondrich and Hugh Sachs’s Brimsley have both been promoted to series regulars.
“Benedict has always been a little lost—or free, depending on the way you want to look at it,” Thompson told the streamer, following the news. “But now he’s trying to find something a bit more solid in himself. His identity has been a little bit of a question mark, but it doesn’t ever seem to really bother him. It often feels like… ‘You’re either this, or you’re this.’ He’s finding it out.” Brownell concurs, adding, “Season three puts him in a place where he’s really exploring more sides of himself. I think he feels things very deeply. It felt important for him to explore the fullness of himself before he settles down. He is someone who has big appetites, and we wanted to see him living a big life before he goes into settle-down mode. I’m excited for where we’re going with him in season four.”
With production now underway and more plot and casting details expected to emerge over the coming weeks and months, watch this space—and consider just how much we have to look forward to, from this ravishing central romance to the birth of Kate and Anthony’s first child, Penelope and Colin’s wedded bliss, Eloise’s adventures in Scotland and Francesca’s queer plot line. We can hardly wait.
This story was originally published on Vogue.com.
