Nicola Coughlan has demanded people stop calling her “brave”

A famous star has called-out the conversation people keep having about her body calling it “insane” and “boring”

Nicola Coughlan has called out the commentary surrounding her body, demanding that people stop calling her “brave” for doing sex scenes.

The 37-year-old who played the romantic lead in the third season of the Netflix smash Bridgeton has had a massive year but there’s one thing she’s sick of people talking about.

Coughlan, who previously found success on Derby Girls, snagged the lead role of Penelope on one of the world’s most beloved shows, known for its romantic plot lines and spicy sex scenes.

Coughlan called season three “very romantic and filled with lots of twists and turns”, but there’s also been plenty of chatter about her body.

She nabbed the lead role. Picture: nstagram/nicolacoughlan

She’s fed-up with body comments. Picture: Mattpapz / BACKGRID

In a new interview with The Times, Coughlan explained why she didn’t want to be applauded for doing sex scenes that require showing skin.

“Don’t call me brave. I have a cracking pair of boobs. There’s nothing brave about that, that’s actually just me showing them off,” she said.

Coughlan then pointed out that she’s actually a few sizes smaller than the average size woman in the U.K., which is a size 16, so she has no idea why she’s being dubbed a “plus-size heroine.”

“I worked my arse off for that show. I barely saw my family and friends, and people were just going, ‘But your body …’”

Coughlan called the chatter around her body “reductive and “boring” even when people mean it as a compliment.

“What if I was suddenly going to play a ballerina and lose a ton of weight, are you not going to like me anymore? That’s insane and so insulting,” she declared.

She said any conversation about her body was “boring”. Picture: nstagram/nicolacoughlan

She said the sex scenes were empowering.. Picture: nstagram/nicolacoughlan

During press for the show the 37-year-old told Stylist Magazine that she asked for certain lines and moments to be included during sex scenes.

 “There’s one scene where I’m very naked on camera, and that was my idea, my choice,” she said.

“It just felt like the biggest ‘f**k you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering.”

Coughlan has been begging people to stop disusing her body for years.

In 2021, she went onto X, formally known as Twitter, and said chatter about her body makes her “uncomfortable”.

“Every time I’m asked about my body in an interview, it makes me deeply uncomfortable and so sad I’m not just allowed to just talk about the job I do that I so love,” she wrote.

She added that she was writing from the point of view of being an actor and not a body positivity activist.

“I would lose or gain weight if an important role requirement. My body is the tool I use to tell stories, not what I define myself by,” she said.