Showrunner Jess Brownell tells TheWrap how Penelope and Colin’s history enabled them to “go further with the intimacy”

“Bridgerton” Season 3 will plunge viewers into the love story between longtime friends Colin and Penelope — and promises to feature plenty of steamy sex scenes that star Nicola Coughlan said were “intimidating” yet rewarding to film.

“They were intimidating to shoot but then brilliant to shoot,” Coughlan told TheWrap of the sex scenes. “Watching back we’re so proud of them, which is an amazing feeling.”

With the third installment of the Netflix series centering on the friends-to-lovers journey between Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope (Coughlan), Coughlan noted that there’s a “massive amount of purpose” behind each and every intimacy scene, saying “they always progress the narrative.”

“They’re just a hugely important part of Colin and Pen’s story,” she explained.

Unlike previous seasons of “Bridgerton,” which featured a newly introduced love interest for the season’s respective Bridgerton sibling, Colin and Penelope have known each other for year’s due to Penelope’s friendship with Eloise. With this deep-rooted history in mind as the pair shifts from childhood friends to lovers, Newton noted their intimacy scenes help to connect the new couple when words fail.

“I think because Colin and Pen can struggle to communicate at times because of their history and because they’ve been friends, it sometimes takes them to be in that environment to really open up, emotionally as well as get undressed,” Newton told TheWrap. “It helps them to communicate their true feelings.”

After the slow burn between Kate (Simone Ashley) and Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) translated into less intimacy scenes than the show’s steamy first season, new showrunner Jess Brownell noted the characters’ history enabled the team to “go further” when it came to their sex scenes.

“Because Penelope and Colin have been friends for so long and they have this depth to their relationship, it allowed us to go further with the intimacy scenes this season,” Brownell said. “It’s been building for so long — not just what we’ve seen in Seasons 1 and 2 — but they’ve known each other for years and years.”

Brownell also noted the team was given more “creative license” when it came to Penelope and Colin’s evolution.

“They are characters who don’t necessarily play by the rules all the time — certainly not Penelope, who has this whole exceptional career which was so unusual for that time period,” Brownell said, referencing Penelope’s role as Lady Whistledown. “That gave us creative license to push them into a more romantic space.”