One of your favorite Bridgerton cast members, Golda Rosheuvel, was in the middle of filming episode three of Netflix’s sweeping Shondaland series when she let Glamour in on a little secret about becoming Queen Charlotte. “I’m wearing two wigs,” she revealed back in January 2021. “It’s a wig on top of a wig! And the three feathers are real hair that Adam James Phillips [the show’s principal hairstylist] crafted by hand. It’s genius. Every look is different.”
Rosheuvel may have been talking about her character’s look specifically, but “genius” can be used to describe nearly every costume on the show. Thanks to a lot of wigs, sideburns, and even fake fringe, most of the Bridgerton cast looks completely different in everyday life than they do onscreen.
That’s no surprise, considering Bridgerton on Netflix is set in Regency-era London. But now that over 63 million households have streamed the first season of the lavish series, it’s only normal that some might assume Polly Walker (Lady Featherington) has red hair IRL or Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury) walks around with a tiara. Not so!
If you happened to spot the Bridgerton cast in the wild, would you really know what they looked like? Okay, so you might be able to spot Regé-Jean Page now that he’s a household name, but what about the new cast members joining London’s high society in season two?
In the second book from Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton book series, The Viscount Who Loved Me, Kate Sheffield is the older sister of Edwina, the woman Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) is set to marry. But when she decides the head of the Bridgerton family isn’t good enough for her little sister, it kicks off an enemies-to-lovers plot that readers can’t stop tweeting about.
Back in February 2021, Netflix announced that Sex Education star Simone Ashley would be taking on the role of Kate Sheffield, who will now be known as Kate Sharma. Charithra Chandran is also joining the cast as her sister, Edwina Sharma. Sadly, with these fresh faces also comes some disappointment. Page will not be returning as the brooding Duke of Hastings. Thankfully, he’s basically the only member of the core Bridgerton cast to not be returning!
So what does everyone look like off- and onscreen? Well, consider this your cheat sheet to help you out before season two drops on Netflix on March 25. Of course, if you can’t wait one more second, there’s also a new Bridgerton book to tide you over. Lady Whistledown would definitely approve.
This story was originally published on Glamour.com