On 'Bridgerton,' Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha hard launch the #Benophie era

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This article contains spoilers for Part 1 of Season 4 of “Bridgerton.”Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha are lounging on a blue velvet couch in a swanky green room inside of Netflix’s offices in New York, bracing for the whirlwind that inevitably envelops every pair of actors who become the central couple in a season of the popular romance drama “Bridgerton.” And they’re still settling into the idea of being romantic leads.“It doesn’t feel real,” Ha says fresh into their first press day in early December.“Because for a very long time, I didn’t think that it was possible for me — maybe I should have dreamed bigger.

To keep saying that I’m the lead of a season feels really bizarre.”“But maybe that’s a way of coping with it,” Thompson says.“I remember in Season 1, I just finished a Zoom call and I just sat in my living room and it was the first time I really touched into the idea that millions of people are watching this thing.

Millions of people.And I never did it again.”“You just did it for me now,” Ha says with a smidgen of dread that launches the pair into laughter.

“That’s not really helping.”Thompson, though, isn’t feeling the pressure of keeping the romance alive and extremely meme-able as they take up the mantle of the Regency-era fairy tale.Television “Bridgerton” showrunner Jess Brownell discusses Season 3, the debate with Shonda Rhimes over Colin’s virginity, Julie Andrews’ fate as narrator and the visual changes coming to Season 4.“It’s a show that’s proven time and time again that there’s huge appetite for romance,” he says.

“It was a genre that might have been, not looked down on, but not really taken very seriously.To be able to incarnate some projection of romance for people, particularly in January and February, when people are feeling a bit miserable, maybe, it’s lovely to be part of that.” The ...