Turns out, Nicola Coughlan — who plays Penelope Featherington in Bridgerton — initially tried out for a very different Netflix role.
Yup, Nicola auditioned for the role of Robin in Stranger Things. If you need a quick refresher, Robin’s character joined the show in Season 3 as Steve’s Scoops Ahoy coworker. Of course, the part ended up going to Maya Hawke.
So, when we asked Nicola over Zoom about what roles she had auditioned for but didn’t get, she replied, “I auditioned for Stranger Things a number of years ago.”
“I auditioned to play Robin, Maya Hawke got it,” Nicola told BuzzFeed. “She was far better than I ever would have been.”
“It’s a good lesson to actors: Watch the stuff you didn’t get, because you’ll totally understand how it’s not personal.”
“You’re just right for some things, and you’re not right for other things,” she continued.
If you’re interested how Maya landed the role, she was originally recommended to casting director Carmen Cuba by another actor for a different project. In the words of Maya herself, “When the new season was being written, there was a part in it and I got to audition for it. I flew to LA, and I did some chemistry reads with Joe Keery, who’s just so wonderful and hysterical and lovely — and then it was history.”
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