Warning: This post contains spoilers for Bridgerton season 4, part 1
NEED TO KNOW
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The first installment of Bridgerton season 4 leaves off with a major moment for love interests Sophie (Yerin Ha) and Benedict (Luke Thompson)
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Ha tells PEOPLE why the upstairs-downstairs moment is symbolic for this season’s Cinderella story
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Bridgerton sex scenes, she says, are “actually an extension of the storytelling, and it is quite poetic, and they’re there for an actual purpose”
Sophie and Benedict’s steamy staircase hookup was a long time coming in Bridgerton season 4.
After a lot of tension building between them in the first four episodes, Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Sophie (Yerin Ha) shared an intimate moment in the most unlikely of places: on the servant’s staircase in Bridgerton house.
As Ha, 28, tells PEOPLE, there’s symbolism to the scene. “It is upstairs, downstairs, and they meet in the middle, and it’s like, what does that represent? And what story are we trying to say in that moment exactly?”
Season 4, which has been dubbed a Cinderella story, tackles socioeconomic class for the first time in the Netflix series, as Sophie’s status as a maid makes her an ineligible partner for Benedict in high society.
The significance of Sophie and Benedict meeting in the middle of the staircase symbolizes the two very different worlds they’re traversing — and all of the possible complications that a relationship between them would involve.
Yerin Ha as Sophie Beckett, Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in “Bridgerton” season 4
Liam Daniel/Netflix
Filming the steamy moment was “quite seamless,” Ha says, thanks to both the show’s “incredible intimacy coordinator, Lizzie Talbot,” and, of course, Thompson.
“When you have trust with a great scene partner like Luke, it always just comes together quite naturally,” the Australian newcomer says of her costar, 37.
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek in ‘Bridgerton’
Liam Daniel/Netflix
Ha reveals that she and Thompson were originally supposed to film the staircase hookup earlier on in production, but it had to be moved. “What was so funny was, actually, that scene was supposed to be shot a while back, but then I got the flu, so we had to reschedule it,” she says.
“But you know what? It’s funny, because those Bridgerton steamy, sex scenes — or whatever you want to call them — they don’t feel like they’re there just for the sake of it,” she continues.
“They’re actually an extension of the storytelling, and it is quite poetic and they’re there for an actual purpose. I do think Bridgerton does the sex scene so well … from a female gaze.”
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Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek, Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in “Bridgerton” season 4
Liam Daniel/Netflix
Ha says she felt lucky that she and Thompson clicked as well as they did on the show’s set, as he was, “naturally,” the castmember she was most nervous to meet.
“I had to play lovers with him and [I] just wanted to really make sure that our dynamic was good,” she says.
“Not that I was going to force anything, but you just kind of hope and pray that it will just be a nice, easy transaction, and it really was. And so I’m very fortunate for that.”
Part 1 of Bridgerton season 4 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 2 premieres Feb. 26.
Read the original article on People