As Francesca in 'Bridgerton,' Hannah Dodd faces grief: 'I had to stop myself from crying'

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This article contains spoilers for Season 4, Part 2 of Netflix’s “Bridgerton.”Hannah Dodd remembers auditioning “quite intensely” for the first season of “Bridgerton.” The English actress, 30, was up for the role of Daphne Bridgerton, one of the protagonists in Season 1 of the period romance series.But it was fated that Dodd lost the role to Phoebe Dynevor because a few years later Dodd was invited to film a self-tape for a “very secretive” project.“I had no idea it was ‘Bridgerton’ again,” Dodd says, speaking at London’s 180 House in mid-February.

We’ve selected a remote table at the members club to avoid anyone overhearing spoilers, but everyone is too wrapped up in their own conversations to notice what Dodd is disclosing about Part 2 of Season 4, which debuted on Netflix on Thursday.Several months went by before Dodd learned the project was, in fact, “Bridgerton.” “Part of me was like, ‘Oh, do I want to go through that again?’” she says.“But I genuinely loved the material.

A few days later I met with the team at Shondaland and a week after that I was at piano lessons.”“We had seen hundreds of people and no one had felt quite right,” explains showrunner Jess Brownell, speaking later over Zoom from Los Angeles.“We saw Hannah really late in the process and we instantly knew.

She is such a subtle actor.She’s able to play shyness without seeming weak and you sense she has an inner strength that’s waiting to blossom, which was really necessary for a character who starts out in Season 3 as quite shy and reserved.

But from this season and beyond, she’s a character who goes through quite a bit and is going to have a fierceness to her to survive it.” Television “Bridgerton” showrunner Jess Brownell discusses Season 3, the debate with Shonda Rhimes over Colin’s virginity, Julie Andrews’ fate as narrator and the visua...