Charithra Chandran, who plays a lead role in the second “Bridgerton” season, has opened up about being “hurt” by her friends who accused her of only landing the role because of her skin color.
“I’ve even had friends say to me, ‘Oh you got that because you’re brown,’ and that really hurts,” she says. “What’s really scary is that you can start believing it and thinking, ‘The only reason I got cast as Edwina is because they were looking for an Indian family.'”
Chandran joins the series as Kate’s younger sister, Edwina Sharma, while Shelly Conn will join as their mother. The show premieres this Friday.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Chandran shared why she’s talking about the issue on a public platform.
“I remember strangers saying, ‘You would be pretty if you were light-skinned like your grandmother,’ and like, trying to blame my granddad for giving me my skin colour,” Chandran said. “Being a person of color, we’re not unitary, we’re not one thing. There are so many different communities within that umbrella term. We should be more specific about making sure we’re representing different groups of people.”
The first hugely popular season was equally as diverse as the new season. It’s a significant part of the show’s charm—being more representative of the world we live in.
In July, “Bridegerton” creator extended her deal with the streaming platform for an additional five years.
Rhimes walked away from ABC for a deal with the streaming giants worth at least $100 million with Netflix.
“Bridgerton” premiered over the Christmas holiday in 2020, became one of the most popular shows on the platform. However, the series’ male lead, the hunky Regé-Jean Page, would not be returning for season two.
“[Page] is amazing, but that’s our job and something that Betsy and I have been doing since—well, God, has it been 20 years now?—is finding guys,” Rhimes said to Variety. “I mean, hopefully, ladies too, but finding men that our audiences find devastatingly attractive and they become incredibly overly attached to, and they get enraged about when we move them about in any way.”
