Luke Thompson: A Different Kind of Prince Charming
Sometimes, love is a cage. Sometimes, a fantasy. But for Luke Thompson, love can be the most heady freedom of them all
"I know exactly the moment you mean," says Luke Thompson, all the way from London, his voice too clear and warm for something that’s travelled across oceans, servers and wobbly Wi-Fi connections. It’s 10 am where Thompson is, sunlight filtering in through the windows of the Ham Yard Hotel. We’re speaking about that moment in season two when Benedict Bridgerton—the fan-favourite character he portrays with such élan in the culture-defining Netflix series Bridgerton— gives his elder brother Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) a 101 on winning a woman’s heart through the power of poetry and, well, really, by not being a dick.
This display of sensitivity stands in stark contrast to how Benedict has sometimes come to be seen: someone who skates through life on beauty, charisma and privilege, but never quite sinks his teeth into anything. Someone who learns French just enough to be able to say he knows the language, without bothering to perfect it.
And yet, perhaps through Thompson’s own personality bleeding into the role, our bias towards the actor (he's quarter-Indian after all) or simply because we desperately want to believe that even the deadliest Don Juan hides a golden heart, Benedict comes across as something else entirely. He emerges as one of the most emotionally perceptive characters in the Bridgerton universe—arguably even the least rakish of them all. After Colin, of course.
"It’s interesting and sort of funny," he says, with a laugh. "He is deep—but it’s also like he’s refusing to think of himself as deep. What’s interesting is that I think he can only access that depth when he’s talking to his brother, but can’t actually apply it to himself in a strange kind of way. That feels very true because I feel that the things we can see and deal with when it comes to other people are often the things that we really struggle to deal with in ourselves."
Thompson believes that Benedict's issue is not that he is incapable of romance but that he's too much of a fantasist. What Season 4—which he’s headlining—does is force him to confront the realities of love. "Jess (Brownell, the showrunner) has this wonderful tagline for the show, though I don't know if it's being used anymore—the idea being that true love is where fantasy and reality meet. That falling for someone is as much about romance as it is about the reality of things. And I think that’s Benedict’s problem. That is what he struggles with."
It is this contradiction—Benedict’s sensitivity paired with his inability to deal with harsher realities—that comes sharply into focus towards the end of episode four of the current season.
(spoiler alert)
Benedict, who has been drawn towards Yerin Ha’s Sophie Baek ever since he laid eyes on her, grandly offers her the role of his mistress after a titillating make-out session. You are left almost as disappointed as Baek is. Not because he has uttered something ridiculous (it wasn’t uncommon for aristocrats to take mistresses) but because you want, so badly, for dreamy, artsy Benedict to be a different kind of guy.
It is a moment that Thompson hopes will make viewers slightly pissed off at him. "It feels like such a surprise for someone who is caring and sensitive, in a lot of ways, to his family and people he’s been with. To see him be so blind and try to have his cake and eat it… I genuinely think he believes it’s a really good offer," he shares.
The reason Benedict even makes that offer is because Ha’s character serves as a maid in Bridgerton House and while he is highly attracted to her, he cannot fathom giving up his freedom. But Thompson says that his character is slowly realising that "in a strange way, you can sort of be trapped in your own freedom".
"There are times in your life when you’re really feeling your freedom. It’s a part of growing up, I think—that freedom is the most important thing. You tend to see the idea of commitment and settling down in a negative light. There is a time, later, when you realise that freedom has its limits, and that actually connecting with someone on a deeper level is its own sort of heady freedom," he says.
There is, perhaps, also the nature of their relationship that unsettles Benedict—he is, after all, the brother of a Viscount and she is not titled. Still, it does seem out of character, especially for Eloise’s favourite brother who, so far, has been one of the most palatable men in the series.
"I think the moments in life when we act out of character, those are the moments that reveal something deeper about that character. I think what’s interesting about Benedict is that he’s a traditional man turned inside out—someone who appears very relaxed on the outside but then on the inside, it feels like he is anxious. When I started playing him, I would never have thought that for someone who appears to elude categorisation and labels and all of that, his main struggle is how he tries to section out his life. It’s funny because it feels like totally the opposite of what we’ve known of him. Though, it kind of makes sense because he keeps what makes him anxious or scared very close to his heart and very far away from everyone. And the rest is this really lovely front that we’ve all got to enjoy for the last few seasons."
After spending so much time tracing where Benedict ends and Thompson begins, one wonders if that uncertainty belongs solely to the viewer—or does the character influence the actor’s daily life, far beyond his time on set?
Thompson pauses—and then smiles. "I guess, for me, Benedict is words on a page and me saying the words with my experience and my imagination creates the illusion of Benedict, you know? However, I do think you grow with a character and the character grows with you. And there is—you’re right—this strange parallel life. When I’m in the green room, having a conversation with the actor I’m doing a scene with, sometimes there is a little crossover. You find yourself asking questions of that person that your character is asking in the scene. I’m a great fan of seeing characters as very free things that belong to everyone. Benedict is as much what I feel and think about him as he is what people see and project onto him. I’m sure there are strange sort of criss-crosses but it’s really hard to untangle for me as an actor and that is what acting is about. Ask me that question in, I don’t know, 30 years’ time and it will be clear," he laughs, signing off.