A deep dive into the epic 'Bridgerton' season 2 pall-mall scene with the cast and crew

• The pall-mall game in "Bridgerton" season two was one of the adaptation's most anticipated moments.
• The scene is based on a chapter in Julia Quinn's novel "The Viscount Who Loved Me."

Much of the conversation surrounding "Bridgerton" revolves around the Netflix series' Regency-era romances, women-centric sex scenes, and ornate costumery. But it was the Bridgerton family's pall-mall game — with its wickets, mallets, and wooden balls — that was at the top of many fans' minds going into season two.

The scene was inspired by one of the most beloved chapters in Julia Quinn's "Bridgerton" novels. The game first appears in the 2000 novel "The Viscount Who Loved Me," the second of her eight books that serve as source material for the show.

"I am very hands-off, but one of the few things where I have made my opinion well known was that scene had to be in there," Quinn recently told Town & Country. "I basically said this needs to be [in the show], and they're like, oh yeah, we're on it."

Insider spoke with members of the cast and crew about their experience bringing the iconic moment to the screen in the show's second season, which premiered on March 25.

But first, what is pall-mall?

The field sport — inspired by a 16th-century French game called jeu de mail and loosely resembling modern-day croquet — served as a rare opportunity for the crème de la crème of Regency society to let their guard down. In briefly relinquishing their stringent roles during the competition, the characters showcase their true dynamics.

The Shondaland series uses Quinn's chapters as more of a general guide than a detailed road map, mainly because the real rules were too complicated.

According to Netflix's production notes, a "Bridgerton" team member visited the Museum of London to learn about pall-mall ahead of filming — but by the time the researcher left the museum, they realized that taking a historically accurate approach to the scene would be nearly impossible.

"The actual game is very complex," Alex Pillai, the director of the two episodes, told Insider. "At the end of it, you have to actually get a ball through a hoop. Now, anyone looking very, very carefully, I think there's a hoop somewhere in the ground, but we thought that was going to be beyond us even trying to tell that story."

So he came up with a different strategy. Pillai drafted his own set of rules, compiled them into a one-page guide, and handed out copies to the cast members.

The director told Insider he had an endgame in mind while crafting this "Bridgerton" version of pall-mall: Kate's (Simone Ashley) black ball had to land in the wooded area right next to Anthony's (Jonathan Bailey) pink one. It's there, removed from their families' gazes as they retrieve the balls, that they have one of their first heartfelt conversations.

"I don't know whether the rules stand up when you do watch it, but that was really the only mechanism to get both of their balls out into the mud," he said.

Finding the perfect location was a hurdle

Rules in hand, the "Bridgerton" team set out to find the perfect pall-mall pitch.

For the Bridgertons, pall-mall is a long-standing tradition. The titular family grew up playing the sport, and their matches always took place at their ancestral home, Aubrey Hall.

The "Bridgerton" audience visits the countryside estate for the first time in episodes three and four, when the family host members of the ton for a weeklong respite from the city's hustle and bustle.

"We knew that Aubrey Hall, which was introduced for the first time, had to be something spectacular," Pillai told Insider.

Pillai and Will Hughes-Jones, the "Bridgerton" production designer, landed on Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire, England, about an hour north of London. The Palladian-style house is a popular shooting location for British period pieces including the "Kingsman" film series, Netflix's "The Crown," and the 2019 "Downton Abbey" movie.

Between its proximity to the series' main studio in London and its malleability (Pillai said he "knew they could dress it and use visual effects and flowers and make it a 'Bridgerton'-style home"), the manor was the perfect locale. Plus, it sits on 2,500 acres — ample space for pall-mall.

The scene came to life as the actors nailed the characters' in-game dynamics

"What a shame," Colin Bridgerton says as he sends Kate Sharma's pall-mall ball into the woods, whizzing in the same direction that Anthony's ball had landed moments prior. "You two better go fetch them."

Colin's tactics may have come straight from the episode-three script, but the actor Luke Newton told Insider he wanted them to convey a subtle callback to "The Viscount Who Loved Me."

In Quinn's novel, the third-eldest Bridgerton child is one of the first to pick up on the charged animosity — and the magnetic draw — between his older brother Anthony and Kate, a newcomer. He repeatedly pushes them together for his own amusement.

"I really tried to play that a little bit, but it's not really in there," Newton said of the script, adding, "I tried to play it in that scene when he hits the ball and he thinks he's setting it up, but in truth it's only Daphne out of the siblings that sees what's going on."

Newton was one of seven contenders vying for victory in the fan-favorite scene. As the actors sent balls soaring through the English countryside, they carefully balanced their characters' histories, desires, and secrets.

From the moment Kate and Anthony set foot on the grass, they're at each other's throats. Anthony's eldest sister, Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), now a self-assured duchess, is the game master. Eloise (Claudia Jessie), a fiery and well-read feminist, is the clever player determined to take down her brothers. Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Colin, the middle children each searching for their sense of self, take the back seat to their siblings. Edwina (Charithra Chandran), the delicate diamond of the 1814 season, is hopelessly out of place.

"The thing is to bring it all out," Pillai told Insider. "You want to see those Bridgerton sons and daughters shining or not shining."

Pillai had in-depth conversations with each actor about their character's role in the pall-mall game before the 2 1/2 days they spent capturing the scene in summer 2021.

"The job became about keeping them within character within the sequence so that they knew really what they were doing, what they were playing out. Then it's about just finding moments for that to shine," he said, adding, "They're all fantastic actors, so it wasn't so hard."

The actors became quite competitive on set

At certain points, the director encouraged the cast members to act on their own instincts. The dialogue stayed true to the script, but the competition — specifically the Bridgertons' scramble for mallets — was organic.

"Once they went for it, it was a free-for-all. I had to say, 'OK, we'll do another take, but a bit calmer,'" Pillai said. "Because they were almost elbowing each other out of the way for that one." Pillai recalled that Thompson hit the ball with such vigor that he broke two mallets.

Despite his on-set destruction, Thompson was the victor of one of the cast's off-camera competitions. They took turns attempting to chip their ball through a propped-up ring.

"We were like, 'That's never going to happen! That's a gold shot. We'll never get that,'" Newton recalled, adding that Thompson "put it between his feet, flicked it up, and it went straight through the hole."

He was promptly crowned the cast's pall-mall champion.

"It was one fluky shot, and you get to take the title!" Newton said with a laugh.

"You began to see everyone's competitive side," the actor told Insider. "Everyone actually wanted to be quite good at it."

Even Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), the well-connected dowager sponsoring the Sharmas for the 1814 season, had some skin in the game. While the matriarchs Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Mary Sharma (Shelley Conn) sipped tea on the lawn, she was on her feet, egging on the players from the sidelines.

"Lady Danbury wants pall-mall to be something where we all get together: You kids play together. You don't have to worry about what you're thinking, what you're saying, because there is a structure available," Andoh told Insider.

Andoh said that to get into Danbury's "incredibly competitive" headspace, she channeled her own mother, who was the game mistress at her school.

"Mother would be shouting, 'Andoh! Run up that wing, girl!' I just suddenly had a little flash of me as my mother barked at people on the pitch, and really just relishing it and enjoying it," she said.

"They're very lucky she just doesn't get up and grab the mallet of death herself and start swinging," Andoh went on. "I bet she was a mean pall-mall player in her youth."

The 'Bridgerton' team walked off the pall-mall pitch proud of their performances

The "Bridgerton" season-two premiere was still days away when Insider spoke with Pillai, who had yet to see the final cut of his episodes.

Given the massive fandom surrounding Quinn's books and the success of the show's first season (which became Netflix's biggest original-series debut following its release in 2020), he knew expectations were high.

"We do talk about fandom when we're making the show," Pillai told Insider. "The fans are absolutely in our world of understanding and a part of who we want to please."

He added, "Then I have to throw that away."

Netflix said the week after the eight new episodes premiered that they'd garnered 251.7 million hours of viewership, setting the platform's record for an English-language series' opening week. Clearly, interest in Shondaland's Regency-era world had not waned.

But viewership numbers and fans' reactions aside, it was the cast's reaction at the end of the final summer day of filming the pall-mall sequence that stuck with Pillai. As soon as the actors put their mallets down, the director heard one of them say, "God, we've had so much fun today."