Regé-Jean Page on Bridgerton: 'We’re seeing this Regency romance through a feminist lens'

The actor reflects on the diverse casting of the Netflix period drama, facing up to British history and how the pandemic has made him find new ways to make my skills useful to other people'

As an artist, you have to constantly ask yourself: Why this story? Why now?'", says Rege-Jean Page. The 30-year-old actor is video-calling from his apartment in Los Angeles and expounding on his latest role as the rakishly debonair duke of Hastings in the Regency-era romance Bridgerton.

A frothy period drama bolstered by a lavish Netflix budget might not seem like the most pressing nor most relevant of artistic choices for Page to be making. Yet, he sees the eight-part series as a subversive act, because of its diverse cast injecting multiculturalism and a boundary-breaking sense of sexual intensity into a traditionally white, staid setting.