All the juicy behind the scenes secrets of filming the Bridgerton carriage scene

Hands up if you’ve watched the Bridgerton carriage scene more times than you’d care to admit. Well, instead of just watching it a load of times, Luke and Nicola, alongside the episode’s director have all shared a load of juicy production secrets from the scene that has everyone getting a little flustered that are just guaranteed to make the whole thing even better. So here we go:

People were just outside shaking the carriage the whole time

Okay but how off-putting. When they were filming the carriage scene, it was filmed on a soundstage rather than on location and in an actual moving carriage. So in order to get the illusion of the carriage moving, a load of crew members had to shake it from the outside while they were doing the deed inside.

Nicola told The Today Show, “It was on a soundstage, actually. With a bunch of burly dudes shaking it on the outside.”

It was filmed over three days

The whole scene wasn’t just done in a couple of takes but actually filmed across three days, Luke Mewton told Vanity Fair.

There was apparently a ‘different energy on set that day’

Via Netflix

And one one of those three days, there was just a “different energy on set,” Luke said. “We were locked in a carriage together with cameras outside. So it felt kind of real. It did feel intimate. It’s very honest,”

The camera person couldn’t fit inside the carriage so the crew watched from monitors outside

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Because of the limited space in the carriage, there were no actual camera people inside, just cameras and the crew all watched from monitors outside, whilst others shook the carriage. “We knew what we were doing and the general choreography of it. But it started to feel really long,” Nicola said to Netflix’s Tudum.

Luke and Nicola didn’t hear the director say cut and carried on

Since it was just the two of them and they got SO into it, Luke and Nicola actually didn’t hear the director say cut and just… carried on with the sexiness. 

“We didn’t know though, they actually called ‘Cut!’ and we couldn’t hear them,” Nicola said. “So they were all looking at us in the monitors being like, ‘What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing?’

“And the director had to come over and be like, ‘WHAT WERE YOU DOING!? I told you to stop!’” Luke then added: “I think the last stop was like, ‘STOOOOP!’” In the end, episode four’s director Andrew Ahn had to run up to the carriage door to actually stop Luke and Nicola and tell them that they had cut. Crying.

They filmed multiple versions of the scene

They filmed different versions of the scene, which allows Nicola and Luke to play the scene “so many different ways”. Luke said this made it “nice to watch it back and see the final editing to find out which take they went with.”

The moment Colin fixes her dress with certain fingers was improvised by Luke

So since the carriage scene was released, everyone has been freaking out about the moment when Colin fixes Pen’s dress, using just three fingers. You know, so he didn’t use the ones he was just erm, using on her. But it turns out the moment was completely improvised by Luke Newton and I’m obsessed. The director said: “I wish I could take credit for this incredible moment of … physical authenticity, but I did not give this piece of direction. It was all Luke Newton!”

Nicola was told to ‘hold back a little’ on the kissing

Via Netflix

And finally, Nicola revealed that she had to be told to tone down the kissing a bit because “Penelope hasn’t kissed anyone before,” and they wanted to “hold it back a little” for future scenes when Pen is more experienced.

Nicola explained to Shondaland, “Especially as grown adults, you forget. Like, we would be a little more confident than they would be. Even with a kiss, they would tell us that we seemed like we’ve kissed before. And I was like, ‘Not to brag, I totally have.'”

She also said they learned how to kiss “prettier” on screen, adding, “Also, what we learned, and it was quite funny, is that sometimes what feels good for kissing in real life doesn’t look as good on-screen! So, we were smushing our faces together, and they were like, ‘No, pull back a little bit, and then it will look prettier.'”

Part one of Bridgerton season three is available on Netflix now –  For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and more on the carriage scene production secrets like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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