Adjoa Andoh, who plays Lady Danbury on Netflix’s Regency-era show “Bridgerton,” says the series still doesn’t light Black skin properly, despite its diverse cast. “The continuing conversation about lighting Black skin — on every show, nothing’s changed,” she said in a recent podcast. Andoh, who also had roles in films “Invictus” and “Fractured,” expressed that and other frustrations during the latest episode of “ Stirring It Up.
” Despite playing one of the sharpest and most influential women on “Bridgerton,” Andoh said, she doesn’t feel empowered in her career. She said she feels comfortable speaking up now, but noted that the burden Black actors face to ask for what they deserve can be exhausting, especially compared with their white counterparts. “I suppose I feel powerful in that I will now go: ‘Am I blond?,’” she said.
“But I hate doing it because a bit of me is like, ‘Oh I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to make a fuss.’” “Bridgerton” and its spinoff series, “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” both have casts filled with people of all colors, with Black actors in many major roles: Danbury is a commanding widow despite having been forced into an arranged marriage in her youth; the formidable queen is played by Golda Rosheuvel, who is mixed race; and two Black men, played by Regé-Jean Page and Victor Alli, have married into the Bridgerton family, which is white.
In the second season, the eldest Bridgerto.