When Golda Rosheuvel was 40, she came up with a plan. She had been working as an actor since her early 20s and was, she says, ‘established enough’. She’d done episodes of Coronation Street and had a storyline in Holby City; she’d played small parts in EastEnders, Casualty and Silent Witness. She’d also been in Idris Elba’s Luther.
These characters were often quite samey. ‘It was ‘doctor’ or ‘nurse’,’ says Rosheuvel. ‘Or ‘mum with wayward child who’s, you know, from Brixton’.’ And, ‘there was a point where I was like, something has to give, because I can’t be doing this. I need more’.
So: the plan. Rosheuvel decided that, from then on, when boring, secondary parts were offered to her she would simply say no. Her logic was that, if she kept accepting background roles, the industry would keep seeing her as a background person. But, she reasoned, if she said no enough times people might start to reconsider her.
‘I was out of work for a year,’ says Rosheuvel, now 55. She made money doing bar work and teaching acting workshops. She also moved in with her widowed mother, renting out the flat she owned in South London.
Jacket, Farm Rio. Sunglasses, Black Eyewear
As is obvious from the fact we are meeting in a large London studio, where Rosheuvel is being photographed for YOU magazine, the plan worked. After that first year, she got a proper part in a play at the Old Vic in London, then another proper part at the National Theatre. She was Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet at The Globe; she was Othello in Othello at the Liverpool Everyman.
By 2020, when Rosheuvel came back to the screen, it was in the Netflix period drama Bridgerton. And with a proper part, too. She plays Queen Charlotte, the monarch who decides which debutante will – to use Bridgerton-speak – ‘become the diamond of the season’; supports her husband, King George, through his ‘madness’; hosts giant balls; and wears lots and lots of bonkers, tottering wigs. The character is so popular that, in 2023, she was given her own spin-off (Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story). And this month Rosheuvel is back for her fourth Bridgerton season.
It is, frankly, a cool conclusion to what was a large risk. Not that Rosheuvel was ever too nervous about failing. When I ask if she had a back-up plan for her plan, she says no. Then, in a very casual sort of way, ‘No, I had a plan to get better parts. That was the plan.’
Rosheuvel was born in Guyana, the small South American country east of Venezuela. Her Guyanese father, Siegfried, was an Anglican priest who had met her English mother, Judith, while she was staying with her clergyman uncle in Barbados. The duo sang in a choir together and fell in love. They settled in Guyana and had Rosheuvel, then her younger brother John.
It was, she says, unusual to be the child of a white mother and a black father in 1970s Guyana. She recalls walking down the street as a toddler with her mum. ‘Somebody didn’t like the way we looked – or something like that – and cursed me.’ Shortly after, Rosheuvel’s skin turned yellow. ‘I was sent to a witch doctor, or what I suppose you would call a kind of indigenous doctor, and they prayed over me and did herbs and all that kind of stuff.’
Jacket, Farm Rio. Sunglasses, Black Eyewear. Shoes, Camper
She recovered but, years later, as a teenager living in London, ‘I remember getting a train home from college, and all of a sudden I literally watched my skin go yellow. I felt really faint, got off the train and vomited.’ It transpired that the woman who had cursed Rosheuvel had died that day; it was, she was told, the remnants of the hex leaving her body. (She clarifies that she has no idea how true all of that might be but, when I ask if Rosheuvel believes in magic, horoscopes and general ‘woo’, she says, with a big nod, ‘One hundred per cent.’)
Guyana was a British colony that became independent in 1966 and it was not a straightforward place to be an Anglican priest. In 1975 – when Rosheuvel was five – ‘My father preached against the government. We were basically told to leave [the country] with the clothes we stood in and 20 quid each.’ (Rosheuvel hasn’t returned to Guyana but she and her brother chat about going this year. ‘Backpacking through the motherland!’)
In England, they were ‘scooped up’ by her mother’s sister and husband. Her parents found jobs at a missionary society in Hertfordshire, and Rosheuvel was enrolled in the local comprehensive.
It seems like it would have been bewildering, Guyana to Hertfordshire, but her memories are gentle. She was sporty at school, captain of – she rattles this off quite proudly – ‘my netball team, my rounders team, my hockey team’. Rosheuvel was also a member of the Harlow Athletic Club and could run 100m in 13 seconds – aged 13. That was derailed by an ankle injury when she was 16 but, again, no bother: she was good at drama so she did that instead, abandoning Hertfordshire for a drama diploma in Essex and then drama school in London at 16.
‘My mum sat me down, actually, at 16, and said, ‘I think it’s time you leave home.’ It wasn’t nasty. ‘They just wanted me to do the thing that I wanted to do.’ They were, she says, the sort of people who gamely watched Rosheuvel perform in her first professional job – a touring production of the hippy musical Hair – despite the fact her character wore zero clothes. They were also the sort of people who, when a teenage Rosheuvel came out as a lesbian, were uncomplicatedly happy for her. (Today, she’s married to the Irish Mauritian playwright Shireen Mula, but more on that later.)
Jumper, YMC at Couverture & The Garbstore. Jacket (in hand) and trousers, The Fold. Earrings, Dinosaur Designs. Shoes, Kalda
It sounds, I think, like her parents’ marriage was a good one. ‘It was,’ says Rosheuvel, then she pauses. ‘I mean, you know, my father was black, my mother was white. It wasn’t all rose-tinted glasses. They had the pressures of bigotry and racism. So, in terms of that, it wasn’t an easy life, but they stuck together and made it work.’ Did they ever tell Rosheuvel and her brother about those struggles? ‘We were sheltered from it. And I don’t know whether that was a good thing to do, because obviously we felt the frustrations, but didn’t understand what was going on. But sitting here, now in my 50s, I understand, and I’m grateful.’
Bridgerton is a programme with proper Netflix money behind it – the budget is apparently around £125 million per season. At first, Rosheuvel’s ‘Queen’s rooms’ were shot on location at 16th-century Wilton House in Salisbury. But for seasons three and four, those rooms were in a studio in Uxbridge. That sounds less glamorous, I say. ‘You know, it’s not bad having your own rooms built for you,’ Rosheuvel replies. Fair enough.
And there are the wigs. In the last season, Rosheuvel wore a hairpiece that was hollowed out and, in its centre, sat a collection of motorised crystal swans. About 20 minutes into season four’s first episode, she sports a gigantic structure – part hair, part wired cage – that’s been crafted into the shape of a heart.
Jacket, Farm Rio at The Outnet. Skirt, Sideline at Couverture & The Garbstore. Bangles, Dinosaur Designs. Shoes, as before
Hair and make-up take two-and-a-half hours, and Rosheuvel wears a neck brace between takes to relieve the enormous wig weight. ‘I weighed myself one time with the whole get-up on and I’d put on two stone.’ (I ask if she’s ever kept a wig from set and she says, ‘I wouldn’t know where to put it, babe.’)
She based Queen Charlotte on her mother, who was still alive when Rosheuvel got the part. (Her father died in 2009 after suffering a stroke several years previously.) They learned her lines together in preparation. ‘I videoed a costume fitting for her to have a look at.’ But, in March 2020, a month after she finished filming, Rosheuvel’s mother died. (She does not say what of, but just that, possibly, it should not have happened.) Judith never got to see her daughter in Bridgerton. ‘And she would have loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. She would have been really proud.’
Rosheuvel continues, ‘I miss her terribly.’ But, ‘She’s here. You know? I often chat to her. And, to this day, when I’m dressed as the Queen sitting on the throne, I have a little –’ and at this she does a small salute, ‘and I say, ‘All right, girl?’ Does her mum speak back to her? ‘She doesn’t. She would be, like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Or, ‘No, dear, I’m fine here. I don’t need to come to see you. You’re OK on your own.’
Rosheuvel had ‘absolutely not’ realised how massive Bridgerton would become. The first season was watched by 113.3 million people and became the most-viewed original Netflix show ever. That power hasn’t dimmed: it was reported that Bridgerton tourism has boosted the UK economy by £275 million. More importantly, in 2025, the season two hero Jonathan Bailey was crowned ‘Sexiest Man Alive’.
Does she agree with the latter?
Golda with her wife Shireen
‘Oh, right, OK.’ There is a pause, where Rosheuvel presumably considers the diplomacy of answering this, given that a large chunk of the Bridgerton cast are also sexy men. ‘Yes.’ Another pause. ‘Yes. There we are.’ She sighs. ‘That’s going to get me into trouble!’
Anyway, ‘Johnny is a really lovely boy’. Also, ‘An openly gay man being voted the sexiest man alive? I was so pleased for him. It’s well deserved. And he’s doing it the right way, as far as I’m concerned. He’s celebrating who he is and his community – our community. It’s great.’
When she was a young actor, a director – who was also a lesbian – advised Rosheuvel not to come out, for career purposes. She ignored it. ‘I have always been able to be [who I am]. And that comes from the parenting that I had.’ (Bridgerton is yet to have a lesbian storyline and I ask if there will be one. ‘That’s above my pay grade!’ But, ‘I would champion that, of course.’)
She met her wife at a mutual friend’s birthday on the dancefloor of Dogstar, a genuinely grotty, now-closed club in Brixton. Rosheuvel was late for their first date by an amount of time she gets sheepish about disclosing. Still, it went well. They’ve since been together for 13 years and married for two. The wedding ceremony was at a register office in London. ‘I would have had 50 billion people, but my wife was like, absolutely not.’ They settled on six, including Hugh Sachs – the actor who plays Queen Charlotte’s butler. (Sachs and Rosheuvel only met filming the show but have become close. ‘He lives down the road! I see him once or twice a week.’)
Golda with Hugh Sachs in Bridgerton season four
The day before we meet, Rosheuvel picked a mound of potatoes she grew in their garden. She shows me a photo of the muddy vegetables; at the edge of the frame you can see her feet, clad in colourful striped wellies. It sounds like she lives happily and quietly, while also being in an enormous TV show. She’s pleased Bridgerton happened when she was in her 50s. ‘I knew the before and after. I’d lived enough life.’
The show has certainly taken unknown people and made them famous. And, I imagine, it’s quite a different thing being Golda Rosheuvel than it is being, say, Phoebe Dynevor – the then 24-year-old who played the heroine in season one. Before Bridgerton, Dynevor had done a few episodes of Waterloo Road; now she’s been nominated for a Bafta and has nearly four million followers on Instagram.
‘I think [Phoebe] handles it really well,’ says Rosheuvel. ‘Her parents are down to earth. She’s lucky in that respect.’
Other cast members coped less easily. In 2023, Ruby Barker – the 29-year-old who played Marina in seasons one and two – told the press she suffered three psychotic breaks while filming. Netflix, she said, did nothing to help. I ask Rosheuvel if changes, in terms of duty of care to actors, have since been made. ‘I think it was a difficult time for Ruby,’ she says, ‘I don’t want to speak about somebody else’s journey and experience, but my experience with everybody is that, 100 per cent, we were all very much supported right from the beginning.’
Jacket and skirt, The Frankie Shop. Shirt, Stine Goya. Shoes, Camper
Alongside Dynevor, the other big star of Bridgerton‘s inaugural series was Regé-Jean Page, the British Zimbabwean 37-year-old who left the show after the first season. In 2023, he posted on Instagram saying that television production companies were scared to condemn racism towards actors because, often, that racism came from ‘fans’. It was unclear whether this was directed at Bridgerton, but people on the internet thought it was. I ask Rosheuvel about it. ‘Big companies coming out and saying, ‘Yes, we need to be responsible,’ I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a very good thing. But it’s [also] on all of us. You know, you can’t just leave it to one specific community. It’s on all of us to be responsible and to support [people] and to help pave the way to a kinder, better world for the next generation. It’s important to me to live my life, to step in the world like that, because I know that my footprint will be seen by others behind me – and I want it to be clear and supportive. But I would always celebrate big companies coming out having the same mindset.’
If it was an option, would she keep doing Bridgerton forever? ‘No.’ And, besides, each season follows a Bridgerton child, so, ‘I don’t think we can! There are only eight kids!’ But, I say, they could spin it off to follow characters from different families. Rosheuvel considers the idea. ‘Well, we’ll see. Never say never. I do love playing her.’ As for Queen Charlotte, she isn’t allowed to say if there will be a second season.
I wonder if being in Bridgerton has made Rosheuvel newly cool with the younger members of her family. ‘My family are very down to earth,’ she says. ‘One of my cousins was like: ‘I started watching season one. Sorry, as soon as I saw bottoms, I thought, not my thing.’ So that was very humbling.’ Bridgerton is famously raunchy, but Rosheuvel has not done a sex scene. Still, speaking of bottoms, how many are in the new season? ‘Oh, countless.’ (Besides the fact that there will be bottoms, Rosheuvel is secretive about other spoilers. What she does say, though, which I find sweet, is that the senior cast members have a WhatsApp group they all chit-chat on between seasons. It’s called ‘The Old B*****ds’.)
This month, Rosheuvel is starring alongside Ian McKellen in a pre-recorded play that you watch through a VR headset, at a New York theatre. They filmed for three days in France and McKellen was ‘fantastic – he’s such a company man’. She wants to keep working forever (‘Yeah, why not?’) and would love to work with Bridgerton‘s creator, Shonda Rhimes, again. (She also would ‘love’ and I mean ‘love‘ to play M in the new Bond films.)
Earlier, when Rosheuvel was talking about the plan she made in her 40s to reject crummy parts, I’d said she must have had a lot of self-confidence. She thought about this for a while. ‘There is confidence. But, mostly, there is a confidence in understanding who I am.’ She means as an actor, but I think this fits for her as a person too. ‘I don’t want to be beige. I’ve never been beige.’
Part one of season four of Bridgerton is on Netflix from 29 January; part two from 26 February
GOING FOR GOLDA
What can we expect from season four of Bridgerton?
It is all about finding out who runs the Ton, so we’re going downstairs to hear from the servants, all those lovely people in the background. They get their time to shine. It’s a whole new world.
Was there anything funny that happened on set during filming?
There’s a shot where I hand one of the dogs to Brimsley (Hugh Sachs) and he shows its arse to the camera. And it stayed – it’s in the episode, so please look out for it!
What’s your favourite thing about playing Queen Charlotte?
I get to wear fabulous frocks and amazing wigs.
Who is your work wife or husband on the Bridgerton set?
Hugh Sachs, because he’s my servant on set and one of my dearest friends. He’s been beside me for four seasons, and he’s the one who makes me cry laughing.
What’s the hardest thing about being part of Bridgerton?
Not being there in the down season. We’re a huge family. When we get together, it’s loads of fun.
Best advice you’ve ever received?
I overheard one of my first directors say, ‘Golda can put her mind to anything.’ That has stayed with me in the darker moments when I feel like an imposter.
What other profession would you like to attempt?
A gardener. I love my garden. I bought my new house because of it. I’ve just harvested my potatoes. I got a good yield this year.
Have you ever asked anyone for their autograph?
No, but if I had, it would have been Ella Fitzgerald.
Is there anything you want to achieve in 2026?
More money!
Hair: Dionne Smith at Forward Artists.
Make-up: Joy Adenuga at Forward Artists.
Liam Daniel/Netflix
