Bridgerton star explains why she 'went home and cried' after filming steamy sex scene

A star of the hit show Bridgerton has said that she 'went home and cried' after filming an intimate scene for the show.

Anyone who's watched the popular period drama will know that sex scenes are absolutely not a rarity, with the majority of the episodes from its four seasons featuring some pretty hot and heavy moments.

And while it's clear that the actors will most likely know what they've signed up for, it appears one of the show's leading ladies didn't.

Ruth Gemmell, who plays Lady Violet Bridgerton, also known as the Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton, in the hit show, described how she had only found out that she would be shooting a sex scene with her co-star Daniel Francis when she was in a costume fitting.

Season four of Bridgerton, which dropped last month, sees the slow-burning relationship between a widowed Violet and Lord Marcus Anderson - the brother of Lady Danbury - finally reach its climax, which (as we all know) means that some pretty steamy scenes were in the cards for the pair.

Speaking to Ciné-Télé-Revue in a February interview, she recalled that she was 'shocked' when she found out that she was set to film some intimate scenes, and that she had 'no idea' that she would be filming them before that moment.

She told the outlet: "I was a little bit shocked. I was in a costume fitting, and I realized that I was being fitted for something that I had no idea was going to happen."

Gemmell, 58, went on to say that after the scene she 'went home and cried' from the shock.

However, after the initial impact of it wore off she said that felt okay with how the scene had been handled by the Netflix show's production.

She said: "Thankfully, we tackled this one in a slightly different way to the kids of the show, because I don't think anyone would want to watch that really."

Gemmell went on to add that the show used 'a lot of low lighting' in the scene.

When she reflected on the scene, Gemmell felt that it was important to show Violet experiencing some intimacy after her husband, Edmund, died several years before.

"We don't die after a certain age," she said. "So, it's quite nice to kind of represent that."

The actor also thought about the different way that someone who has lived longer and had more experience might approach love.

She said: "It's very lovely to see young love and love for the first time, but it's also very important and lovely to see somebody who has loved and lost and grieved and comes with a myriad of baggage, because everyone can identify with that, and I think that's important to show."

It seems that this is unlikely to be the last we'll see of Violet's story, either.

Executive producer Shonda Williams has previously spoken about the possibility of a spin-off which is centered on Violet on Craig Melvin's Glass Half Full podcast.

“That's an area that we're excited about and know that that could be really rich and really mined well," she said.

"I’ve always said that I thought if we were going to do something like that, Violet would be a great person to tell the story about - the Bridgerton mom.

"So, yeah, that's a possibility."