‘Bridgerton’ Season 2 Finds Its Kate Sharma With Simone Ashley

Bridgerton has finally found its Kate. Sex Education star Simone Ashley has been cast as Kate Sharma, who will be romanced by the eldest Bridgerton brother, Lord Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey). The new season is expected to focus mostly on Julia Quinn’s second Bridgerton novel, The Viscount Who Loved Me, which tracked Anthony’s love life following the events in the first book, The Duke and I.

At the start of the second season, Kate has just arrived in London and will quickly catch Anthony’s attention. She is described as a “smart, headstrong young woman who suffers no fools – Anthony Bridgerton very much included.” Ashley’s casting continues the show’s trademark color-blind cast, as Kate, known as Kate Sheffield in the books, will be reimagined as coming from an Indian family, notes Deadline. In the first season, many of the main characters were played by Black actors, including Rege-Jean Page as the Duke of Hastings, Adjoa Andoh as Lady Danbury, and Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte.

The part will likely also be a breakthrough role for Ashley, especially after Page and Phoebe Dynevor became overnight superstars as the leads for Season 1. Page has even been recruited to host Saturday Night Live this weekend. Ashley’s biggest role to date was Olivia in Laurie Nunn’s Sex Education, a British series that became a smash hit for Netflix. Ashley also appeared in Broadchurch and Pokemon Detective Pikachu.

Kate is just the first of several new characters who will be introduced in Bridgerton Season 2. When showrunner Chris Van Dusen announced the show’s renewal on the Today Show last month, he confirmed there would be a “bunch of new characters” in the new episodes. “Anthony is going to have a love interest next season, and I think it’s going to be as sweeping and moving and as beautiful as viewers of the first season have come to expect from the show,” Van Dusen explained. At the end of Season 1, Anthony became determined to find a viscountess after ending his relationship with opera singer Siena (Sabrina Bartlett).

During a recent interview with British Vogue, Bailey said fans would get a “much broader sense of who Anthony is” and promised a “brilliant” second season. “It’s funny because even though Bridgerton is obviously a period drama, Anthony’s story is quite modern in the sense that he’s reached a point where he genuinely believes that love will never happen for him,” Bailey said. “That’s where he is at the end of the first series, and that’s such a common feeling right now.”