Julia Quinn gave up creative control over her 'Bridgerton' characters. Now she's revisiting them 20 years later through someone else's eyes.
Netflix sent her the Shondaland series ahead of its December release, months before COVID-19 vaccines were available in the US or the UK. So, the experience arrived without ceremony. There were no red carpets, no packed premieres, and certainly no after-parties.
Regardless, the 51-year-old was elated.
As the author of the book series and a consultant on the show, Quinn went in well-versed in the "who's who" of the Regency-era ton that she created 20 years prior.
Like her novels, the Chris Van Dusen-led series centers on London's young, wealthy singles (the most desirable of which being the Bridgertons) as they vie for advantageous marriage matches in the heat of the 1813 social season.
But when Quinn and her family reached the big reveal in episode eight, when anonymous gossip columnist Lady Whistledown removes her hooded cloak to reveal her true identity, she screamed.
She had no idea that Penelope Featherington was Whistledown.
"I immediately got on email and was emailing Shondaland being like, 'What just happened?!'" the author told Insider during a recent Zoom conversation, laughing at the memory.
In the last version of the script Quinn read, socialite Cressida Cowper served as a red herring. The writers ultimately decided on Penelope as Whistledown, reasoning that the gossip columnist's reveal in "Romancing Mister Bridgerton," Quinn's 2002 novel centered around Colin Bridgerton and Penelope's fan-favorite romance, was too Google-able to be swept under the rug.
"No one told me they changed the ending," Quinn said. "It's the ultimate twist ending, shocking me. I mean, you would think I couldn't be shocked."
Even though the "Bridgerton" writers followed Quinn's lead on Whistledown, she didn't necessarily expect them to do so. The TV series isn't a word-for-word adaptation, which is more than fine by the author. In watching her story unfold from the outside, she's getting to know her characters in an entirely new way.
The "Grey's Anatomy" creator, 51, ran out of reading material on vacation and picked up one of the novels at an airport bookstore. The kicker? Rhimes was interested in bringing the eight-book series to the screen as part of her $100 million Netflix deal.
"I practically fell off the stool 'cause nobody was adapting romance novels," Quinn, who was trying to get some writing done at a Starbucks when she received the call, previously said on "Tamron Hall."
Despite her literary success, the New York Times-bestselling author never considered auctioning off the rights to "Bridgerton." In her experience, Hollywood wasn't seeking out traditional romances. Shortly after talks with Shondaland began, Quinn willingly relinquished creative control of her story.
Sure, she spent time on set with the "Bridgerton" cast and crew (she proudly held a "favorited" photo of herself with breakout star Regé-Jean Page, who played the Duke of Hastings on season one, up to the camera during our call), but all in all, the author took a backseat approach.
"I'm not going to tell Shonda Rhimes how to make television," she said.
Her trust was well-placed. "Bridgerton" was a smash-hit, proving there was still room for glamour and romance when it felt like the reality of enduring a pandemic left no space for either.
At the time of its release, "Bridgerton" was Netflix's most-watched series ever, with 82 million households streaming it worldwide during its first month on the platform ("Squid Game" would later surpass the record). With more streams came more book sales, and, before Quinn knew it, hardcover copies of her "Bridgerton" novels were selling online for upwards of $700.
There's more coming. The show has already been renewed through season four, and Netflix announced a spin-off centered around Queen Charlotte's backstory.
Still, audiences can't get enough of the "Bridgerverse" - a term that Quinn joked her son deemed embarrassing and forbade her from using - hence her decision to revisit her early novels in "The Wit and Wisdom of Bridgerton: Lady Whistledown's Official Guide."
The HarperCollins-published book, out Tuesday, features a collection of the main characters' most memorable lines, along with brand new society pages penned by Whistledown.
Quinn rarely opens her finished novels (she's read them give-or-take "a hundred times" before they're released) but found reason to do so while pulling quotes for the project.
"It was fun to go back so many years later and find things I have no recollection of writing and sometimes being like, 'That's not bad!'" she said.
In her early days as a 20-something-year-old novelist, back when the Harvard College graduate opted out of the Yale School of Medicine to pursue a full-time writing career, Quinn didn't have a clear mental picture of her characters' faces.
That changed after she watched "Bridgerton" in her 50s.
As Quinn reread the novels, she found that the actors overrode her original character descriptions. Eloise Bridgerton now looks and carries herself like actress Claudia Jessie, and the Duke of Hastings is identical to the brooding Page.
"It doesn't matter that Simon has blue eyes in the book. I just see Regé-Jean Page," she said, adding, "You know, I'd be happy if everybody looks like Regé-Jean Page."
But once "Bridgerton" was officially out of her hands and presented to the world as, what she considers, the "first true romance novel adaptation at this scale," it dawned on her that much of the general public's previous exposure to the genre was limited, at best.
Shortly after the show's premiere, sex, rather than romance, sat at the epicenter of the media's coverage. L'Officiel ranked the "11 raunchiest 'Bridgerton' moments that will make you blush." The Mirror reported that fans were stunned by the show's "risqué" sex scenes. And women's site Tyla told the story of unsuspecting viewers left "mortified" from watching the series with their parents.
Viewers see significantly less nudity on "Bridgerton" than they do on the HBO drama, she pointed out. The shock value, in her opinion, comes from watching sex scenes created with a female viewer in mind, a style similar to the way many romance novelists convey the moments on their pages. There's more emotion, more intimacy, and, as Quinn mentioned, more male nudity than female nudity.
"I don't think it's any more explicit than a lot of what is in television and film at all. The big difference is that it's really told more from the female gaze than we've gotten before. And the other big difference is that a lot of times when we see sex scenes in film and television, it's very transactional," the author explained.
She continued, "This is very intimate, for the most part. It's very much two people who care for each other and are falling in love. It's not just some one-night stand or, again, transactional is the word I use a lot. That helps people to see it in a different way. Suddenly people are all like, 'Oh, it's so steamy.'"
Because newcomers to the genre didn't have experience with this style of intimacy, they went for the "low-hanging fruit," using words like "sexy" and "raunchy" while talking about the scenes, Quinn explained.
"We haven't been presented with this before. So we grabbed the easiest words," she said of the way publications described the adaptation. "I just think there's a lot more to it."
In many ways, the romance genre spans far and wide, but there is somewhat of a formula that must be followed in order for a story to rightfully earn a place on the shelf.
As Quinn's readers well-know, there are always two people, one conflict, and one happy ending.
When Rhimes conceived the idea for "Bridgerton," she knew it would be one of the few on-screen romance adaptations that adheres to the genre's guidelines, Quinn recalled. It made it harder for the newest "Bridgerton" fans to deal with the happily-ever-after that inevitably followed - namely, letting go of the duke ahead of season two.
"One of the hallmarks of a romance novel," Quinn explained, "is that your couple ends up happily ever after. If there's going to be another book in the series, it's not going to be about that same couple, because that would imply something happened to their happily-ever-after."
"Bridgerton" follows suit, beginning with Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset's love story, à la Quinn's 2000 novel, "The Duke and I," before shifting gears in the sophomore season to focus on Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sheffield, the couple at the forefront of book two, "The Viscount Who Loved Me," also released in 2000.
To Page's adoring fans, news that he signed a one-season contract came as a surprise. Some threatened to boycott the upcoming episodes if they arrived sans the British actor. Others hedged bets on the likelihood of a cameo.
As for Quinn, she knew the formula and promptly set her sights on the next chapter.
"He was never going to be the main character in the next one," she said, adding, "It's this ebb and flow of who gets to be the main character. I can't think of a show that does that, but that is how romance novels work."
Following fans' outcry, Page declined a personal offer from Rhimes to extend his contract, a decision both the TV producer and the author full-heartedly understand.
"It would've been great if we had a little peek of him, but I get it," Quinn said. "He's got a lot of exciting things happening."
The beauty of Shondaland's adaptation, brought to screen decades later, is that the author can witness her story evolve to reflect today's world. And in this version, those sitting at the top of the social strata look quite different.
On season one of "Bridgerton," the duke and the queen, both of whom are Black, are two of the most heralded, respected individuals in the country, delivering representation rarely seen in period pieces set in the time period. On season two, Simone Ashley, a British actress of Indian descent, will step forward as the female lead.
"Simone Ashley is perfect as Kate," Quinn said, explaining that she loves how the (originally white) character was rewritten to be an Indian woman. "It's a wonderful way to make the show more inclusive."
The decision is also rooted in real British history, Quinn noted.
"There was an incredible amount of travel between the UK and India at the time. So it makes a lot of sense," she explained. "There's quite a lot of historical background on that."
The "Bridgerton" writer's room reshaped Kate's story in a "really authentic way" by ensuring the staff members of Indian descent were able to incorporate "elements of their own stories" into the character. As a nod to the character's ethnicity, "Bridgerton" writers also changed the character's name from Kate Sheffield to Kate Sharma.
Quinn acknowledged that she wouldn't have been able to tell Kate's story as effectively on her own, so she's "grateful that they're able to take the story and expand it in that way."
"Bridgerton" still has room to expand representation on-screen. There are currently no explicitly LGBTQ characters on the show - and it's a large cast. But the absence of an overt confirmation hasn't stopped fans from speculating about middle children Eloise and Benedict's sexualities, specifically. It would be a notable divergence from the books, in which they both end up in heterosexual relationships.
Benedict an Eloise are made into somewhat of the Bridgerton family's black sheep on the show, though. The siblings band together in their shared distaste for the rigid path laid out for them and the expectations to marry well. They bump into each other on the outskirts of buttoned-up events and in the shadows of forbidden smoke breaks.
Eloise tells her older brother that she yearns to write and support herself in a life free from the constraints that come with marrying a man. In return, Benedict confesses his dreams of becoming an artist, an idea that holds increasing intrigue after a flirtatious male painter invites the bachelor to underground sex parties with London's bohemians.
"The conversation is always ongoing. I don't necessarily know what plans are, but it's certainly something that is being discussed," Quinn said with a smile, a shrug, and an apology for her "non-answer."
It's not her call, after all. She's looped into the conversations, but she's not the one behind the script.
"One of the smartest things you can do in life is recognize when other people are smart and have more expertise than you do and get out of their way," the author said, making it clear that she's not worried about the show's trajectory because of the trust she has in those shaping it.
And as she learned the first time she watched the adaptation, 20 years after publishing her very first "Bridgerton novel," sometimes letting go of the story leads it right back to where it began.