Bridgerton’s Francesca actress originally auditioned for a completely different character

Even though it’s Benedict’s season, Francesca has a massive part in Bridgerton season four, but did you the actress originally auditioned for a different role entirely?

We couldn’t imagine Hannah Dodd playing anyone else now, but she was actually going to be the diamond of the season, Daphne, in Bridgerton instead, and she almost got the role! Dodd got all the way down to the final two in auditions, but lost out to Phoebe Dynevor, who played Daphne in seasons one and two.

“I auditioned for Daphne on season one,” the actress told Business Insider. It wasn’t until three years later that she auditioned for the role of Francesca, but she didn’t actually know that was the role.

In the spring of 2022, the actress got a confidential casting call, and the title and name of the character were kept a secret. “It was a secret project and nothing was attached to it,” she told Vulture. “They told me [the role was Francesca] just before the audition what it was. It was quite a weird way to know about it.”

She took over the role of Francesca from Ruby Stokes, who played the character in season one and two, when the Bridgerton sibling was younger.

Credit: Netflix

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Speaking about the audition in another interview with Elle, Dodd said: “I had no time to prepare in any way, so I just had to listen to what it was that they wanted and respond. It meant that I didn’t go in with any sort of preconceived ideas, which is a completely different way of working. Normally, I like to prep and really be ready.”

She found out she’d got the role at a family party, the day after her dad’s wedding, and her agent actually tricked her at first.

“My agent had lied to me. He had said that I was going to go in again the week after because he knew that I was at a wedding, and I’d [otherwise] be thinking about it the whole time,” she recalled. “I had loads of family and friends there, and it was the last day before my sister went back to Australia, so it meant that we got to have that moment [together], which was really nice.”

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Featured image credit: Netflix