Bridgerton fans hoping to see more of Anthony Bridgerton in season 4 shouldn’t hold their breath.
Jonathan Bailey was asked whether viewers will be seeing “more” of him in season 4, to which he told Buzzfeed UK on Tuesday, July 1, “No. Because the story’s moved on and that’s what’s beautiful about Bridgerton.”
He added: “But I will be there. Of course, to support. I’m really looking forward to it and it’s going to be brilliant.”
Production wrapped on season 4 last month after Bailey, 37, confirmed he would be reprising his role as the eldest Bridgerton sibling.
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“I’ve never been someone who’s like, ‘Thanks, bye.’ It’s not in my nature,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in June when asked about his future on the hit Netflix series. “There’s a real sense of brotherly pride I feel in it.”
Bailey went on to subtly spoil his upcoming scenes in season 4, adding. “I was filming a wedding on a Monday morning. People know that people get married in Bridgerton — that’s not a spoiler, right?”
The next installment of the hit Netflix series will center on Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and his love story with Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha). Anthony’s story, meanwhile, has continued since his marriage to Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) but the fan-favorite couple hasn’t been the focus after wrapping up season 2.
Bridgerton previously received backlash for not spending as much time on Anthony and Kate. Despite their season getting wrapped up, some viewers felt that the characters didn’t get the focus they deserved after not getting together until the last few minutes of season 2.
Ahead of the show’s sophomore season, then-showrunner Chris van Dusen hinted that Bridgerton would be taking a different approach when it came to showing the passion between Anthony and Kate.
“It was never about quantity for us,” the creator told reporters in March 2022. “Our approach to intimacy on the show really is the same as season 1. And we use these intimate scenes to tell a story and to push the story forward. We’ve never done a sex scene for the sake of doing a sex scene, and I don’t think we ever will.”
Dusen added: “It all serves a larger purpose and it’s a different story this season. It’s different characters. We’re with Anthony and Kate most of the [second] season and that’s very different from Daphne and Simon. And that’s really part of the draw to me of a project like this, the ability to tell these close-ended love stories of different characters season after season.”
Ashley, 30, meanwhile, argued that the emotional intimacy between Kate and Anthony was much more important than sex, saying, “It makes sense for these characters because they’re so protective over their families and they’re so truthful to their duties and responsibilities — so for them to break that wouldn’t have made sense for the characters. And as Chris has said, they aren’t performative sex scenes or intimate scenes. They have a meaning behind them and I think it’s very earned when the fireworks happen.”
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At the time, Bailey defended Bridgerton’s decision to scale back on the sex scenes.
“What you lose in sex scenes you gain in a deeper human understanding, which hopefully enriches the world so that the future intimacy scenes won’t be the heavy feature, and [you] won’t have to lean on them as much. It’s right to surprise an audience and keep them on their toes a bit,” he told USA Today in March 2022. “It would have been wrong for Kate and Anthony to have got physical any sooner than they did. And I think the payoff is really earned.”
Anthony and Kate did get more bedroom scenes in season 3 before disappearing on another honeymoon. They returned in the second half of season 3, which premiered in 2024, to announce Kate’s pregnancy before once again making plans to leave — this time for India.
Despite their screen time being scaled back, Bailey and Ashley are expected to continue to make appearances in upcoming seasons. Netflix recently confirmed that Bridgerton, which is based on the book series by Julia Quinn, was renewed for seasons 5 and 6.
Bridgerton is currently streaming on Netflix.
