“The mess has shown” for the first time between the longtime best friends, Rosheuvel tells PEOPLE
NEED TO KNOW
- Bridgerton season 4 brings conflict for Golda Rosheuvel’s Queen Charlotte and Adjoa Andoh’s Lady Danbury
- The actresses tell PEOPLE why they loved the “juicy conflict” for their characters, as Rosheuvel says it left her “intrigued” about how the relationship would play out
- Part 2 of Bridgerton season 4 premieres Feb. 26 on Netflix
A new challenge is looming for Bridgerton’s longtime best friends Queen Charlotte and Lady Agatha Danbury.
Part 1 of season 4 saw Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) confess to the Queen (Golda Rosheuvel) that she wants to leave London after spending all her life there, but it wasn’t an idea that went over well.
For Rosheuvel, though, the twist was a “joyous” one, as she tells PEOPLE, “I was excited because we’d never seen that before.”
“We’ve never seen them scream at each other or use these cards in this way. It had always been a kind of equal relationship, an equal friendship, a friendship that was on equal par with each other,” she added.
Now, “the mess has shown” between them, and Rosheuvel is “intrigued” by it — as is Andoh.
“When you get scripts that go, look at this juicy conflict, how are they going to get out of this one, girls? It’s a delight to think, ‘Oh, we’re going to take these characters into that new space. What can we do with that? That’s interesting and exciting to play,’ ” Andoh, 63, tells PEOPLE. “That’s interesting to play, but I hope it’s interesting to watch as well, and to just kind of go, ‘Oh, wow. Okay. Where are they going with this now?’ “
“I think lots of us have long friendships, and those friendships do get tested, and how do you sustain them? If you want to hold onto that friendship, what are the compromises that you may have to make in order to sustain it?” Andoh says.
Danbury isn’t looking to flee permanently, she adds, but rather “needs to set her heart at rest by scratching the itch.”
“Even though Danbury came [to London] at 4, well, who was I before 4? What does it look like where I came [from]? I mean, what does she remember of that place?” she explains of her character’s thought process.
“I think we get to moments in our life… where you suddenly want to reflect a bit and think about stuff you maybe haven’t had time to think about — about who you are in the world.”
Both Rosheuvel and Andoh say that it helps that a lot of the audience has a built-in understanding of both of their characters’ backstories, thanks to Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.
“You can feel the Queen’s fragility because you’ve seen how fragile George is, so you can see why she wants her friend to stay put,” Andoh says. “The audience is reading all of that as well. So we don’t have to do lots of explanatory stuff.”
“It’s so marvelous not to [have to] do that,” Rosheuvel agrees. “We can [just] be truthful to those characters.”
Part 1 of Bridgerton season 4 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 2 premieres Feb. 26.
