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The first time I meet the diamond of the new season of Bridgerton, 25-year-old Charithra Chandran, we’re attending her first fashion show. It’s London Fashion Week and Victoria Beckham is sitting just a few seats down from us (“icons only,” Charithra jokes). We’re there to see Indian-British designer Supriya Lele’s new collection — “she is the epitome of cool London fashion right now,” Beckham said at the show, shortly before models took to the runway wearing sexy, sheer ensembles with gorgeous pops of color.
Charithra loves the show, and we go backstage to congratulate Supriya. They’re not dissimilar, the actress and the designer, two rising stars in their respective industries on the cusp of global fame. Charithra is wearing Supriya’s designs to the show and will later wear them while doing press for Bridgerton.
She is as charming, intelligent, and effervescent as the character she plays in the new season, Edwina Sharma. She knows where this is headed and she’s just trying to take it all in.
It’s not just anyone who can say only their second TV role is on one of the most popular shows in the world, which broke records globally in its first weekend on Netflix, earning 193 million hours watched and becoming the #1 show in 92 countries, according to the streaming platform. (Chandran actually auditioned for Bridgerton and Alex Rider, a spy thriller series, in the same week, but the latter started filming first.)
At the time of our first meeting, I’d seen the first five episodes of Bridgerton season 2, in which Edwina is named the “diamond of the season” by the Queen, making her the Ton’s most eligible bachelorette — a spot previously held by the arresting Daphne Bridgerton, played by Phoebe Dynevor. Edwina’s royal singling out earns her the eye of this season’s most eligible bachelor, the Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Daphne’s older brother and the firstborn of the sprawling Bridgerton clan).
Spoiler alert: While Edwina and Anthony may seem to make sense as a match on paper, it is actually Edwina’s older sister, Kate (the stunning Sex Education star Simone Ashley), who finds she has explosive chemistry and a growing emotional attraction with the Viscount (played by Jonathan Bailey at his most swoon-worthy). A complicated pseudo-love triangle ensues, and there is no easy part to play. All three must navigate societal expectations, familial sense of duty, and their own relationships and emotional baggage.
“I describe this season as morally ambiguous,” Chandran says. “I think good art is one that provokes conversation. And I think this season, viewers will react differently to different characters. There will be some people sympathizing and some people criticizing. And I think anything that can invoke that kind of conversation is what’s really interesting.”
Bridgerton season two premiered on Netflix on March 25, and fans have since flooded social media with reactions and reviews, including praise, sympathy, criticism, and many a mash-up and meme. Chandran knows there are moments when you want to scream at the screen with Kate and Anthony, who draw the tension out to a breaking point arguably even more intense than the romance in season one. Ultimately, it is Edwina — younger than both of them but wiser and more mature — who gives our leading couple a massive shove in the right direction.
But, dear reader, let me not get ahead of myself. There’s much more to the story first.
Charithra Chandran was born in Scotland, an only child and the daughter of Indian immigrants, both doctors. She moved around a bit before settling in Oxford City, England, with her mother. She gravitated toward acting as a young child, training with the National Youth Theatre — whose alumni include Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, David Oyelowo, and more — learning Bollywood dance, and traveling to India frequently, spending four months of the year with family there. She considers both the UK and India her home.
Before I watch episode six, Chandran tells me to listen closely for a song that plays at the beginning of the episode. It’s a beautiful string cover of “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham,” one of the most popular Bollywood songs of all time from one of the most popular Bollywood films of the same name (affectionately known as K3G). The title translates to “sometimes happiness, sometimes sorrow,” an apt description for this drama-filled season that is nonetheless peppered with moments of levity, gorgeous bonding between the Sharma sisters, and of course, a happy ending.
“I didn’t cry at any other point except hearing that [song],” Chandran says over coffee at a cozy and casual brunch spot in the London neighborhood where she lives. It is the day after our cover shoot, which featured garlands of marigolds, traditional Indian snacks like namkeen (my absolute favorite), and Thums Up (the equivalent of Coke). Things I never thought I’d see on a Teen Vogue set.
The song and the snacks may seem like small tokens, but they are representative of something much larger — something Chandran herself has come to represent via her role on Bridgerton. It is the melding of two different worlds and cultures that is so groundbreaking, especially for children of immigrants who have historically often felt like they had to keep their identities separate. We yearn for acceptance, not assimilation. Not when assimilation means erasing our own heritage.
The scene during which we hear the K3G cover is a cultural landmark for South Asian viewers: It shows a haldi ceremony, a tradition done before weddings in which the bride and groom are covered with turmeric (haldi) by their loved ones to signify their blessings. A staple of South Asian weddings, it is of course a staple of Bollywood movies as well — but we’ve never seen it quite like this.
“I was so taken with the depiction of the whole ceremony. We have literally never seen that in a show like Bridgerton or in this kind of era, and it’s just so amazing and deeply personal,” Chandran says, echoing everything I felt watching it — and judging by myriad other columns and tweets, something many, many others felt as well. One of this season’s writers, Geetika Lizardi, is also Indian, and said she cried watching the scene being filmed, describing it as “magical.” Author Aparna Verma wrote on Twitter: “So many South Asian practices have been commodified by white consumerism and/or dumbed down. What I love about the haldi ceremony in #bridgertonS2 is that the creators didn’t try to make it exotic — it simply existed without explanation.”
The representation on the show is, in a word, magical. When the first trailer introducing the Sharma family dropped in the fall, I was immediately overwhelmed. After decades of not ever seeing my name reflected back at me in popular American or Western culture, suddenly the stars of the new season of a massively popular show bore my surname. It is a special kind of delight for a kid who grew up in the U.S. searching for her name among souvenir keychains or mugs in any gift store or gas station and never, ever finding it. Sometimes it is the simplest forms of recognition that make someone feel like they belong. And the new season goes way beyond that, showing nuanced, complicated characters and relationships, moments of joy and sorrow, putting the Sharma family squarely at the center of the Ton as fully realized human beings, never mind the fringes.
But with progress comes responsibility, of which Chandran is well aware.
“I know that many young Indian women are brought up with the idea that their priority is to be a wife and a mother and a sister and a daughter. And so for me, Edwina was incredibly personal because I could see a lot of people that looked like her in that position,” she says. “And if they can get anything from this season, it’s that you are much more in control of your own life than you imagine. And even at the moment when you think it’s too late, even on your wedding day, you can still take control. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you know where you’re going to be in five years time or that you have to have a fleshed out plan, sometimes you just have to believe in yourself and take a risk on yourself, and you know, all else is limitless.”
More spoilers ahead (if you haven't watched to episodes 5-6 and care about being spoiled, please come back when you do): Anthony, terrified of a love marriage because of the grief his mother experienced after they lost his father at a young age, proposes to Edwina, who he is very much not in love with but who he sees as a suitable match to fulfill his family obligations. Despite Kate and Anthony falling further in love, their intense denial of their feelings and focus on duty alone means the engagement actually proceeds all the way to Edwina and Anthony’s wedding, where it all spectacularly falls apart.
Chandran is impressive throughout the whole season, but it is episode six where she really shines — and breaks your heart. At the altar, just about to take their vows, Edwina finally catches on to the feelings her sister and Anthony share. It is her wedding day, and she takes control, running out and leaving everyone behind. She chooses herself.
It is the question all South Asian kids in non-traditional professions ask each other. Did your parents support you not becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer?
“I was always sort of naturally academic. It wasn’t that they were supportive or not supportive [of acting at a young age], they didn’t care or mind — [theater] was something I loved, it didn’t affect my academics,” Chandran says. We are similar in what we studied: she graduated from Oxford in 2019 with a degree in politics, philosophy, and economics; I majored in political science (though definitely not at Oxford). We both took the LSAT — and didn’t end up going to law school. It was an acceptable path forward, an acceptable alternative to studying biology or going to medical school, until it wasn’t.
Chandran interned at Boston Consulting Group, a global consulting firm, and says she loved her time there. They offered her a management consulting job while still in university; she postponed her start date, wanting to take a year off for more creative pursuits in an attempt to “get it out of her system” before starting a 70-hour per week job. She’s still acting, and BCG still has the job offer out to her until December 2022, extended during the pandemic. She says her parents viewed her acting as something she’s going to do “until the job starts” — maybe even still holding out hope that she might eventually take it.
“They’re happy that I’m happy and they’re proud of what I achieved. Are they happy about my career choice? Truthfully, no,” Chandran says, continuing: “And I wouldn’t expect them to be. That doesn’t mean they’re not good parents, that doesn’t mean they’re not supportive.”
She explains that her parents, both immigrants, focused on stability and security in their lives — things an acting career doesn't promise. It’s a remarkably mature perspective, one that can take many children of immigrants decades to come to grips with.
It’s something Charithra and Edwina have in common — choosing themselves and their passions against the grain of family and cultural expectation. This kind of representation, the kind that really digs into the lived experiences of young South Asian women like Chandran, like Ashley, and like me, is the real beauty of this season of Bridgerton. (“I have been told what my future will look like more times than I now wish to admit,” Edwina says at one point.)
But Chandran and Ashley playing leading roles isn’t just a win for South Asian representation; it is specifically a win for darker-skinned South Asian women as well. Both actresses are Tamil and acknowledge the importance of seeing people like themselves onscreen.
“For me, colorism in some ways is more painful because it feels like a betrayal of your own,” Chandran says. “If someone’s racist to you, you have your community to lean back on." Unfortunately, being a global star does not exempt you from racism — in fact, the heightened fame can invite more of it. Chandran has had to deal with some racist comments on her Instagram, including derogatory references to curry, which she reposted on her Stories, responding that she's heard it all before and she wishes bigots wouldn't be so boring.
She continues on the issue of colorism: "But if someone’s attacking you from inside your own family, or trying to oppress you, or create a hierarchy within your own family, that is in some ways, so much harder to deal with.”
She did have to deal with that growing up, both from extended family and strangers.
“No one let me forget that I was dark-skinned growing up. My grandma was very light-skinned. Whenever we’d go around in India, they’d always say, ‘Oh, you’d be pretty if you had your grandmother’s coloring.’ ‘Shame about the color of her skin.’ ‘She’s pretty for being dark-skinned.’ All of these comments, all the time.”
“My grandparents — I don’t hold this against them at all, they were trying to make my life easier — I wouldn’t be allowed to play outside. I’d have to play early in the morning or in the evening [to avoid the sun].”
Sitting across from Chandran in the early afternoon light, in this now-bustling cafe — we’ve been chatting for a few hours by now — I am struck by the unfairness of it all. This young woman is beautiful, radiant by any standard, intelligent, accomplished, and ambitious. But this is understandably something that has taken up mental space for her. She once tried to wash the color off her hands when she was younger.
She’s never used the skin lightening cream Fair and Lovely (which is ubiquitous in India, and can even be found in Indian grocery stores in the U.S. and UK), but has been exposed to similar “natural” products — “and they always hide it under like, ‘it makes you glow,’ ‘brightens’ — it’s all synonyms for lighter. So I never, ever was able to forget that I was darker-skinned.”
It becomes that much more emotional that Chandran isn’t just a new ensemble member of the Bridgerton cast; she and Ashley are the leads. The most famous Bollywood actresses are very fair-skinned. In Chandran’s family, like many others, darker-skinned women are told it’s harder to find a husband in arranged marriages. But in the number one show in the world right now, in one of the most romantic stories of modern times, it is darker-skinned women who are told they deserve to be loved as they are, without any conditions. It is Chandran’s character who is crowned the most desirable woman in all of London — and that’s not even getting into the subversion of colonialism, given the imperialist legacy Britain has in India.
Chandran is incredibly conscious of the agency she has now and the influence she potentially has over other people. But sometimes the societally-taught instincts are still there.
“When the sun is shining and I tan, my instinct is like, ‘oh f*ck, I tanned.’ I’m trying to unlearn it,” she says. “It’s going to be a lifelong struggle. Or like when I’m editing a photo for Instagram, of course the temptations are there, because for most of my life I’ve been taught that that’s what is beautiful. It’s really, really traumatizing. I just desperately don’t want that for my cousins. I just pray, pray, pray that it’s not like that for them.”
When we’re speaking at the cafe, we’re still one month out from the release of the new season. Chandran is grateful for what she describes as “such a special experience,” but she’s not without nerves.
“I’m a little bit stressed, actually,” she says. "I keep thinking, ‘oh God, what if people hate it and it’s not as popular as season one’? And obviously it’s our fault because we’re the new family.”
She says she loves providing representation for young women of color, but there’s pressure because if the show doesn’t do well, she’s concerned that might send the message that Western audiences just don’t want to watch Indian stories.
“It’s this idea of ‘we have to be excellent.’ Mediocrity will just not pass,” she continues. “Like, if this doesn’t succeed, we may be sabotaging so many opportunities for other Indians. Which is not true, but that’s the way I think about it in my head. So for me, the most important opinions are from the Indian diaspora and audiences in India — I just so desperately want them to love it. My biggest concern is that they don’t.”
Now, 10 days after release, she's found the response so far “heartwarming.”
“In particular, what I love are how Desi people feel like we're breaking stereotypes. The stereotype that Indians are nerdy and insecure, shy or whatever is not at all what Kate and Edwina represent. We're expanding people's knowledge of not only our culture but also of our people."
She adds: “Plus many of the nods to Desi culture on the show are Easter eggs. Only Desi people are likely to get them. So it's been amazing to see people pick up on all the little, subtle nods to India and South Asia.”
Many have praised Chandran’s performance, including her costars. Golda Rosheuvel, who plays Bridgerton’s Queen of England, has called Chandran an “exquisite young actress,” “magnificent,” and said she has talent “beyond belief.”
Ashley also speaks glowingly of working with Chandran, how open she is, what she brought to the character of Edwina, and how she learned from her. (She also says she “particularly slayed it in episode six.”)
Chandran says Bailey has been a “fountain of knowledge,” calling him “so generous with his time and advice” about stepping into one of the biggest shows in the world. “Jonny has been so good, he checks in on me every once in a while to make sure I’m okay. And what he said was just, ‘have your comfort blankets and your safety mechanisms in place,’” to get ready for all the attention now coming her way.
So will Edwina be back? While Kate and Anthony get their happy ending, Edwina’s story ends with her remaining single, seemingly satisfied and sweetly, genuinely happy for her sister. The Queen also drops a hint about her nephew, the prince.
Ashley has confirmed that season 3 will feature “post-marriage Kanthony.” Chandran’s future in the show is so far unclear, but many fans — including Ashley — are hoping to see more of her.
Beyond Bridgerton, Chandran wants to bring more of her culture and heritage to the screen. When I ask about her dream project or role — aside from “desperately wanting” to be on even one episode of Succession (“let me have at it with Logan, please!”) or act with Robert DeNiro — Chandran brings up the Sri Lankan civil war, which lasted for decades, the effects of which are still being felt now.
“My dream production, whether I’m producing or starring in it, I’d love to make a film about the crisis in Sri Lanka with the Tamil population,” she says. “I think it is so complex and nuanced: the situation with the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, the genocide that happened. It’s something obviously near and dear to my heart because it’s my community.”
In cast interviews leading up to the release of the new season, when asked about representation, Chandran doesn’t give any boilerplate answers, instead sometimes launching into quick history lessons about the 50,000 South Asians who did live in Britain in 1814. Of course, they were hardly favored by the elites, another way in which Bridgerton is radical.
At just 25 years old, Chandran is using her quickly widening platform to educate people, to call attention to issues of colorism and discrimination while also celebrating multicultural success, and to show that, like her character, she is a fully realized human being, with varied interests and talents. Over the course of our conversations, we talk about everything from the war in Ukraine, Brexit, and Bollywood to carbon offsets and Beyoncé’s inspiring commitment to excellence. She then has to run off to another audition.
She is as multifaceted as any diamond. Perhaps best of all, she wants to shine her light on others. And she is just getting started.
Editor-in-Chief: Versha Sharma
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