Bridgerton Star Luke Thompson Reveals What Really Happened When He Performed for the Real Queen
Fresh off leading Bridgerton’s just-wrapped latest season, Luke Thompson reveals a surprising line on his résumé: he once performed for Queen Elizabeth II.
Before he was swirling around Mayfair balls on Netflix, Bridgerton star Luke Thompson had a much smaller, much quieter royal audience: Queen Elizabeth II. Yes, an actual command performance, delivered to exactly two people.
The day Benedict Bridgerton met the real Queen
Thompson, who plays Benedict Bridgerton and steps forward in the latest season that just wrapped its second batch of episodes, looked back at a very specific early-career moment in a recent interview. He studied drama at the University of Bristol, then graduated from RADA in 2013. Somewhere in that window, he performed a Tom Stoppard monologue for the late monarch at a London art gallery.
It was a student showcase situation, and while several classmates had pieces ready, the slot ended up going to him. The room? Not exactly the West End.
"It was just her and the director of the drama school that I was in. So it was just an audience of two."
Intimidating? Apparently not. Thompson says the surreal nature of the setup steamrolled any nerves.
"The strangeness of it took over any sort of, like, oh my God, nerves. I think I was just like, How bizarre. Here I am, and she is there."
He even joked that the Queen might not have been dying to hear a Stoppard speech that day, which, fair. Still a pretty unbeatable story for the group chat.
"That is probably one of the coolest offers that was made to me, I think."
From gallery monologues to Bridgerton ballrooms
Fast-forward, and Thompson is a core part of Netflix's Regency juggernaut, with Benedict stepping into the spotlight this season as the show closed out with its second part. The new episodes are streaming now.