Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan fans, you good?
As paparazzi photos go, these were rather innocuous: a series of snaps of Bridgerton star Luke Newton leaving the London after-party for the premiere of the second half of the show’s third season. Behind him, his rumored girlfriend, dancer Antonia Roumelioti, gives photogs a slightly wary smile.
But to some Bridgerton fans, the photo was a five-alarm fire.
“I am speechless. What a refreshing SLAP to my face this morning,” wrote one person in the comments of DeuxMoi’s Instagram post on the images. “Thanks for ruining the moment, I hope you are happy with this,” complained another. “Just breaking all of our hearts,” said a third.
The issue? Newton seemed to be making a public announcement that he’s dating Roumelioti. Again, innocuous…unless you’re one of the many who feel he’s already spoken for, hoping—or in fan parlance, shipping—a relationship with his Bridgerton costar Nicola Coughlan.
For those not in the know, the third season of Bridgerton, the second half of which premiered this week, centers on the romance between Newton’s character, Colin Bridgerton, and Coughlan’s Penelope Featherington. Just as they do in the Julia Quinn books, Colin and Penelope, a.k.a. “Polin,” are friends before finally getting together and (spoiler alert) marrying, though not without a helping of drama and hookups first. Their story is adorable and swoonworthy, a perfect example of the much-loved friends-to-lovers trope.
However, it seems shipping the two characters isn’t enough for some. Now, many Bridgerton fans have begun shipping the two actors with an unsettling amount of intensity.
It’s a phenomenon that’s becoming more common. Actors and studios trying to get attention for their movies and television shows in an increasingly crowded space have started blurring the line between fact and fiction, seemingly encouraging actors to play up their chemistry to imply the on-screen romances are also happening in real life. Just look at the frenzy that erupted between Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, whose flirtation while promoting their rom-com Anyone but You became a veritable frenzy online. (Sweeney has since admitted she came up with the flirty press tour as a marketing strategy. It worked—the film was a hit.)
For devoted and intense fandoms such as Bridgerton, this fantasy bleeding into reality has some downsides. Mainly, that people tend to start treating the actors as characters, with little to no understanding of the fact that they are, well, actors.
This has come to a head with the fervor around “Polin” shippers’ view of Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan. Many fans have latched onto the idea that their chemistry translated off screen for various reasons: the cute trope of friends to lovers, Coughlan’s charisma and amazing responses to those who claim she’s an atypical leading lady, or simply, the love of a good romance. But that’s also led to some extremes, like obsessively mining photos and videos of Coughlan and Newton on the press tour for clues that they’re actually in love.
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