As a very hot and talented band once reminded us: Words are very unnecessary. Such is the crux of Francesca Bridgerton’s pursuit of love in Bridgerton’s third season, with the six-oldest sibling (played by Hannah Dodd, who replaces Ruby Stokes in a recast) returning from her perpetual piano lessons in Bath to debut into society as an eligible woman looking for marriage. Don’t be fooled by the potential foreshadowing of Mozart’s “Funeral March†she plays upon her reintroduction, though. Francesca chooses the heart over head when she meets an eligible earl named John Kilmartin (Victor Alli) while excusing herself for fresh air at a ball, where the duo immediately bond by … standing in complete silence and admiring the lush backyard together. She’s a Bridgerton, so of course she’s an impressive contender for the queen’s favor and the perks that come along with it. (Namely, a marquis who travels from Vienna to meet her.) But it’s the understated, muted courtship between Francesca and John that propels the season forward, which Dodd likens to a “mature love†the show hasn’t seen before. Let’s just say their love language is less fucking on staircases and more reinterpreting sheet music.
Did you view this as an ultimate acting challenge, replacing someone who originated a role?
Yeah, it’s a challenge. I tried not to focus on that too much. I wanted to focus on the scripts that we had and create a fresh character. There’s so much to Francesca.
Your character puts great value on the power of a gesture. Did that at all reflect how you pursued this role? Were you sweetening the Bridgerton folks up?
Oh my God, not at all. I was terrified and didn’t really know what I was auditioning for until the last possible moment.
What did you think you were auditioning for?
I had no idea. I wish I was joking. I got a tape, which is normal for an actor. It was a secret project and nothing was attached to it. I didn’t know it was Bridgerton until the day I met with the team. They told me just before the audition what it was. It was quite a weird way to know about it.
Francesca has an interesting nesting doll of a personality. She’s demure and introspective but makes it clear that the prospect of marriage is something she welcomes. What would you say motivates her?
Part of it is staying out of the spotlight. She’s an intelligent girl and she understands that she has a duty — she has to go and marry someone, so the quicker she accepts that reality and finds a husband, it’s all done and people will stop looking at her. She’s very practical in her way of approaching the ton as a whole. She’s not fighting it in the same way Eloise is fighting, and she’s not celebrating it in the same way Daphne celebrates it. It’s duty. She doesn’t question it. It’s her turn and she knew it was going to be her turn as soon as she turned eighteen. She doesn’t romanticize the whole thing. But I wanted to give her more than just being shy. She’s introverted, but she’s got a whole inner world going on.
Tell me about the subtleties of what was in your script that wasn’t dialogue — movements, body language, all that. How was the physicality of Francesca written?
There are stage directions, but normally when we’re in rehearsals — especially in the Bridgerton family scenes — we create it all together. The lines don’t change, but sometimes the way we move our bodies does. Physicality-wise, I worked on that right at the start. I picked out some well-known introverts and looked at their body language. I worked on little things Francesca could have as her comforts, as well as ways to make her seem more confident with certain people and shyer with others.
Who were these well-known introverts?
There’s a little bit of Princess Diana with her head tilt. There’s a little bit of Belle from Beauty and the Beast and how she’s really strong-willed with certain people, but can also be seen as slightly different in her environment. I really wanted to research the lives these girls would’ve had. Would they have had dance training? Would they have had horse-riding training? And understanding what that does to your body. The costumes do a lot of the work for you as well — there’s only certain ways you can sit in them.
For Eloise, Claudia Jessie has said she always wanted her character to slouch and go against what would be expected for a young woman. Francesca is the opposite. She doesn’t want to stand out. She’s not going for these female-expected positions, but she’ll also do what she’s been taught and take her studies seriously. The one body language thing I played around with was her ring finger. That was where her attention was a lot of the time, touching and looking at it. She knew she needed to get married.
Does Francesca’s exceptional piano playing reflect how she presents herself?
Absolutely, you need to be hyper-focused and have the hours of dedication and practice to put into that. Music moves her and communicates for her. Sometimes she doesn’t have the words to express how exactly she’s feeling, but a piece of music helps it make sense for her.
There’s a great moment in the fourth episode I want to bring up, where John calls upon Francesca in her home and they sit side-by-side on the couch in silence. They just stare straight forward and they’re thrilled.
It’s their version of flirting, which is adorable. What a great callback to that ball where they meet — it was a private moment and nobody else was there but them. Getting this scene right was important, because we didn’t want them to look bored or skeptical of each other. It had to be comfortable. The buzzword was always “comfort†for them and showing that type of companionship, like not having the need to talk all the time. When Victor and I were creating the relationship, we talked about how, with a lot of the siblings, it was about fireworks and sparks and electricity. But with them, it skipped to older couples who have been together for years and years. It’s about that compatibility.
I hope we got that scene right, because it’s a lovely moment in a different way than what we’ve seen in Bridgerton. You feel like you need to do stuff all the time as an actor. I had to get used to not doing stuff and feeling like I was making sure I told the story. I got more comfortable with the stillness and the quiet. It made sense. Victor and I would sometimes have a little giggle about it or go into fits of laughter, but we would then get it together.
Francesca’s mom is confused how the two of them will get to know each other if they don’t speak. How do you interpret their silences? What are they communicating?
Safety and being seen. They’re not expecting each other to change or be anything more than who they are. I’ve got you and you’ve got me. You’re enough as you are. I think there’s a lot of expectations put on the women and men of the ton, and they’re still accepting of each other. It doesn’t need to be this big thing — it’s just companionship. It’s a really beautiful thing.
Do you view this as a love match?
I do think it’s a love match. Their love just looks slightly different to the love that we’ve seen for the other siblings.
I have to say, John’s grand gesture of rearranging sheet music for her is pretty spectacular. The bar has been raised for my personal life.
I wouldn’t know what to do if someone actually did that for me. Can you please sing it to me? It’s such a gorgeous gesture and it makes sense for him. Both of them can’t communicate with their words and they don’t necessarily understand what they’re feeling, but music helps fill that gap in.
Are you a master of the piano now or are you so over it?
I want to say yes, but as soon as I learned a piece for a scene there was always another piece to learn right after. My brain just went, Boop. And it was gone. I really thought it was going to be my party trick and I’d always be able to whip out Mozart at a moment’s notice, but that never happened. I need to get some lessons again and hopefully some stuff has stuck. It’s a beautiful and hard instrument.