Bridgerton casts Simone Ashley in second season

The Sex Education star will play Kate Sharma in the second season of Netflix’s smash period drama.

Sex Education star Simone Ashley.

Sex Education star Simone Ashley has been cast in Season 2 of Netflix’s scandalous period drama Bridgerton.

Ashley will play the female lead opposite Jonathan Bailey in the show’s anticipated second series.

She will star as Kate Sharma, a headstrong young woman who sparks the interest of the eldest Bridgerton sibling, Anthony.

Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton. Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix

As season two leads, Ashley and Bailey will succeed Regé-Jean Page, who plays the Duke of Hastings, and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton.

Best known for her role as Olivia Hanan on Netflix’s popular comedy Sex Education and her part in Neil Cross’s 2020 limited series The Sister, Ashley is one of several new cast members to feature in the show’s new chapter, which is set to start filming in London this spring.

“We will have a bunch of new characters we are going to be introducing,” creator Chris Van Dusen said while announcing the show last month.

“Anthony is going to have a love interest next season, and I think it’s going to be as sweeping and moving and as beautiful as viewers of the first season have come to expect from the show.”

Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor in Bridgerton.

Based on the Julia Quinn’s romance novels, the newest season will follow Anthony’s path to finding a suitable match to marry, as chronicled in the second book of Quinn’s Bridgerton series, The Viscount Who Loved Me.

“We left him [Anthony] at the end of the first season at a bit of a crossroads, so I’m looking forward to jumping in and discovering how he fares on the marriage market,” Van Dusen said.

Bridgerton is the first show to come from the streamer’s $150 million deal with the US showrunner Shonda Rhimes and her Shondaland production company.