One of my favorite things about watching the two of them onscreen is how much they laugh together, which is something you don’t get in a lot of period romances. Were there any romantic comedies that influenced the writing of this couple?
A lot. Any movie where there’s a less popular lead versus a more popular lead. So pretty much any John Hughes movie: Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles. We talked about She’s All That a lot, and then just generally, tonally, Richard Curtis movies, Nora Ephron movies. I go back to the banter of movies like An Affair to Remember and Love Story, which are the same movie, actually, and Roman Holiday. Banter is my favorite thing to write, and so a lot of those older classic rom-coms I draw from.
Having Colin and Penelope as the two leads feels really satisfying because we have an attachment to them already. What insights did Nicola and Luke bring after two seasons spent playing their characters?
I felt so lucky that I got to do my first season show-running with Nicola and Luke. They were both so warm and so collaborative, and know their characters so well. I’m writing an ensemble of 25-plus characters, so I did look to them to go deeper on their characters.
Nicola, as an actress, has a real effervescence and strength that she brings to the character. Even though Penelope really got dumped on quite a bit at the end of season two, she enters this season a woman who’s going to make the best of a bad situation, and a lot of that is informed by what Nicola brings to the role.
As far as Luke, his character this season has to undergo a pretty major persona change that mostly happens off-camera in between seasons. Last season, he was this awkward coming-of-age guy who hadn’t quite found his place in the world, and all of a sudden, he’s back with this swagger and confidence. Luke just really nailed it, figured out how to also imbue that performance with depth. Because obviously, if you’re denying a certain part of who you really are and coming back with a whole new persona, there’s still parts of you that are under the surface.
In the first four episodes, Colin and Penelope are driven by the desire to find a person who truly embraces all of who they are. That path leads them to some aesthetic changes. How did you thread the transformation piece of their story without making it purely surface level?