‘This is a wild casting’: A ‘Harry Potter’ star is joining ‘Bridgerton’ for season 4 and her shocking role is already turning heads

A few months drifted away since Bridgerton graced us with Polin’s love story in season 3, and the Netflix series is back in production for season 4. Aside from a new leading couple, there will be some newcomers, and one of them is a Harry Potter star whose casting is shocking fans.

Bridgerton season 4 will go back to Julia Quinn’s book 3, An Offer From a Gentleman, covering Luke Thompson and Benedict Bridgerton’s love story, after skipping it to focus on the much-teased romance between Colin and Penelope. Benedict will finally meet his Lady in Silver, Sophie Baek, played by Yerin Ha.

The Bridgerton multiverse is expanding with Harry Potter star Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in several films of the franchise. One of the new faces, Leung will play Lady Araminta Gun. Netflix further explained her role as “twice married and twice widowed,” whose two daughters Rosamund Li (Michelle Mao) and Posy Li (Isabella Wei) are “debuting on the marriage mart this season.”

Lady Araminta is “feeling the pressure to get at least one of [her girls] married off,” as her eldest daughter, Rosamund, “sets her sights on Benedict Bridgerton.” The new trio is bound to pose some trouble for Benedict and Sophie, but this isn’t what’s shocking fans.

Katie Leung is only 37 years old, but joins the series as the mother of two daughters ready for marriage. As the series’ cast boasts several thirtysomething actors, having the similarly-aged Harry Potter star play a presumably much-older character is raising eyebrows.

Like Leung, Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington Bridgerton, is 37 years old. Coughlan joined the series ahead of its premiere in 2020, when she was 33 years old, but didn’t score her leading season until she was 37, several years older than when Phoebe Dynevor and Simone Ashley, who are at present are 29 years old, got theirs. Claudia Jessie, who plays Eloise, is 34 years old, so might be around 37 by the time it’s Eloise’s turn to adapt To Sir Phillip, with Love, the fifth book in the series, and the most natural choice after Benedict’s season.

The casting story gets even wilder when you realize that Leung’s on-screen daughters, Michelle Mao and Isabella Wei, are 25 and 20 years old, respectively, in real life. Luke Thompson, meanwhile, is 36.

Other Ton mothers of daughters ready to make their debut on the marriage mart were significantly older. Violet Bridgerton, the matriarch of the titular family, is played by Ruth Gemmell, who is 56 years old. Polly Walker, who plays Portia Featherington, is 58. Shelly Conn, who played Lady Mary Sharma, Kate and Edwina’s mother, is 47.

However, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves; Katie Leung’s character’s age would be on point for the Regency era. Women married as young as 17 or 18, and, like Daphne, had children very young. That makes her casting as a 37-year-old mom of two realistic, although the series has delighted us with moms like Violet, Mary, and Portia, whose differences from their children are consistent with the larger age gap between them.

Katie Leung joins a series of other Harry Potter alums who appeared in Bridgerton

Katie Leung isn’t the first Harry Potter star to grace Netflix’s top series. Season 1 starred Regé-Jean Page in the lead role, who appeared as an uncredited wedding guest at Bill and Fleur’s wedding in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Freddie Stroma, who played Prince Friederich of Prussia in the first season, was also in Harry Potter, but with a bigger role, as he played Cormac McLaggen in the last three films.

The Bridgerton multiverse collided with the Wizarding World in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, as it featured Sam Clemmett, who played Albus Potter in the West End play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. James Phoon, who played Harry Dankworth in Bridgerton season 4, played Scorpius Malfoy in the same West End production. Guy Henry played both Doctor Monro in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, and Pius Thicknesse in the last two Harry Potter films. Their ages on the series weren’t an issue like Katie Leung’s, but still, they were a surprise for many Potterheads.