Sitting on the couch at home watching Paul Rudd’s romantic movies has been Luke Newton’s (Sussex, United Kingdom, 31 years old) favorite workout during the filming of the third season of The Bridgertons, where he shares the spotlight and love story with actress Nicola Coughlan. This latest installment has been divided into two parts: Netflix released the first four episodes on May 16 and the remaining chapters arrived on June 13 that culminate the romantic plot between Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington. Despite being part of the cast of the successful series since its beginning, in 2020, during these years Newton had had a minor role, relegated to the background by the male presences of Duke Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page) and the Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey). Now, finally, his time has come and during the six months of promotion in which he has been involved he has made it clear that he is not going to waste it. “I realized during the tour press release that we are not only celebrating the launch of the final season, but the last five years of our lives. The entire process together has led us to this moment,” he expressed in one of his promotional interviews.
The Netflix effect has made Luke Newton one of the most sought-after British actors, but the truth is that the first steps he took in the world of entertainment were headed in another direction. Music was his main interest, so much so that he formed a group, South 4, along with three other members. Although the band’s career was short (they disbanded shortly after starting), they released a song and, according to the local press at the time, signed a contract for one million pounds with the Eagle Music record label. This past as a member of a boy band style One Direction reached the ears of his co-star Nicola Coughlan, who played a prank on him in the middle of filming, when in one of the dance scenes the song of Newton’s teenage group began to play instead of the song planned in the script .
Luke Newton’s passion for music comes from his father, a participant in Stars in Their Eyes, a very popular musical competition broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1990 to 2006, and her aunts, musical actresses. In fact, she was as a child, watching them perform in The Miserables, when he felt interested in that profession. Music led him to acting and participating in small local productions. He was still a teenager when a theatrical agent noticed his talent after seeing him in an adaptation of Billy Elliot. It was the push he needed to take himself seriously. He enrolled at the London School of Musical Theater with the aim of carving out a career as a musical actor and in 2010 he made his professional debut outside the circuit. amateur.
Newton became one of the protagonists of the teenage drama The Cut, a BBC Two fiction. For a time he had small roles in British series until in 2016 he became a Disney boy by participating in the Disney Channel musical series The lodge: mystery at full speed. However, in the following years opportunities were scarce, castings They didn’t go out and he started working in a bar to pay the bills while taking test after test. That was his situation when in 2018 he applied for the role of Duke Simon Basset. Although he was not chosen for that character, he was offered the role of Colin Bridgerton.
Is there a (work) life beyond Netflix?
After several years working together, Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan have become good friends and that trust has worked in their favor when filming the sexual scenes, those that have contributed to becoming The Bridgertons in a global phenomenon. “You really never know how you’re going to look on camera kissing someone, because when you do it it’s usually not done for the camera, it’s love and passion. That’s why it was a somewhat terrifying moment, we wanted it to be beautiful, but at the same time believable and authentic,” he said in Harper’s Bazaar about the recording of those scenes, always carried out with the help of an intimacy coordinator. The effort of the months of filming has been rewarded with the dedication of the fans: as reported by Netflix in a press release, the first half of the season achieved the best premiere in the history of the series, earning more than 41 million of viewings in the first four days.
It was at the beginning of filming the second season when the producers informed Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan that they would star in the plot of the next installment, something that the interpreter describes as “the opportunity I had been waiting for my entire career.” “I was immediately excited about the challenge ahead. “I started looking at the last scripts of the second season looking for clues about my character’s future journey,” he said in a talk with the magazine. Number. The truth is that the series is based on the book series by the American writer Julia Quinn, but Newton himself has admitted on occasion that, for the moment, he has not read all the novels: “I haven’t read the fourth book yet. Is called Romancing Mister Bridgerton. I am dyslexic, but I have decided to read each book before its corresponding season. So it has been difficult because many on the set already knew Colin’s story,” he said in 2021.
After filming the third season and before getting involved in the intense promotion that precedes any major Netflix premiere, the actor returned to the theater. Five years after performing on stage for the last time, he returned with the romantic drama The Shape of Thingsby Neil LaBute. An experience at the antipodes of what it means to star in a fiction with a multimillion-dollar budget and thanks to which he was able, according to what he told the newspaper The Standard“interacting with people is what I like most about theater, because in recent years everything has been comments, direct messages and things on-line”.
Today, his name attracts the masses, the same ones who do not hesitate to address him when they meet him on the street: “When I am out there with my friends they usually tell me, ‘that person over there recognized you’ ( …) It’s interesting because when they recognize me they always call me by my character’s name. They ask me ‘Are you Colin Bridgerton?’ But when he is truly aware of his level of fame is when they greet him directly by his real name: “Someone once asked me if I was Luke Newton and it blew my mind. They really know me, not my character or my work. Me!”. Now, the challenge will be to not only survive that fame, but also Netflix.
