There's A New Featherington On The Block In Bridgerton
Here's what to know about him.
Warning: Light spoilers for Bridgerton Season 2 follow. Bridgerton is not a spoiler-phobic series. Unlike some big-budget projects, the show has put its plot, love interests, and willingness to bare all front and center since Season 1. But when it came to at least one character in Season 2, Bridgerton was as secretive as Lady Whistledown, with casting notices only stating that a new character, “Jack,” would be arriving in town. As fans discovered in the Season 2 premiere, Jack turned out to be the new Lord Featherington. And if Jack Featherington looks familiar, it’s because the actor who plays him, Rupert Young, is popular on British TV.
Fans of Downton Abbey will recognize the plight the Featheringtons find themselves in when Season 2 begins. Money, titles, and wealth are passed down through the male line, so long as there is a male to pass it to. That meant, following the passing of Lord Featherington in Seaosn 1, the Featherington women were at their closest male relative’s mercy, with their futures and fortunes utterly subject to his whims. Imagine their surprise when the dour, miserly man Lady Portia told them to expect turned out to be his son, a young, handsome, eligible bachelor. Better yet, he promised to pay dowries, took them out to balls, and seemed to have endless wealth, all thanks to his ruby mines across the pond in America’s great state of Georgia.
How things panned out for the Featheringtons in the rest of the season, I will leave to you, dear reader, to find out. What I will do instead is dish on Young, the actor who plays Bridgerton’s newcomer. For two decades, Young has been a working actor, starting with the PBS staples Doc Martin and Foyle’s War before moving onto BBC hits like Merlin, on which he played the dashing Sir Leon.
Young has turned up in many period TV series over the years. He played Sir Walter Raleigh in the Shakespeare-centered drama Will and Sir William Herbert in Starz’s War of the Roses series The White Queen. He’s also done guest stints on science fiction series that air over on BBC America, like Primeval and Doctor Who. He’s also done stage work, and was even nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for the West End production of Dear Evan Hansen at the Laurence Olivier Awards.
It’s not clear if Young will be back for Bridgerton Season 3. But if he is, let’s just say Lady Featherington won’t be the only one ready for him.
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