“People just want me to be this guy who says, ‘I burn for you.’”
'Bridgerton' Star Regé-Jean Page Perfectly Spoofed His Own Show on 'Saturday Night Live'
Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page just made his Saturday Night Live debut and it was everything you, dear reader, could have hoped for.
It all started with his monologue, which involved a lot of screaming audience members, and the most accurate description of Bridgerston ever: “The show that made everyone text their moms and say, ‘you know what? Nevermind, I don’t think we should watch this together.'"
During the February 20 live show, Page went on to discuss his post-Duke of Hastings fame, which made the British actor a household name seemingly overnight. “It's a bit of a racy show. Because of that, people may associate me with this smoldering, sensual, smoke show," Page said. "But I assure you I'm just a regular guy and I'm here to show you a good time.”
“I am nothing like my character, The Duke,” he insists before sultry music begins to play. “I'm actually quite shy. It's hard to talk about myself because, well. I just want to listen.” I don't think I can accurately describe why that was so hot but it was. Maybe it was the red wine he pulled out of nowhere.
When he asks his “personal liaisons” Aidy Bryant and Ego Nwodim their favorite part of the show, Ego says, “I don't know…episode five, 55 minutes in.” IYKYK.
It just gets better and better. Page sings, Chloe Fineman comes out as Daphne Bridgerton, and he says “I burn for you” again. Honestly, just watch the full monologue for the full effect.
But that's not where the Bridgerton callouts end. There's a full sketch devoted to the steamy Netflix period drama. In fact, the monologue wasn't even the only time Page said “I burn for you” that night.
Towards the end of the episode, Page revisits the brooding Simon Bassett, Duke of Hastings, in a sketch involving shooting a sex scene with Bridgerton's Phoebe Dynevor (played, of course, by Fineman). Specifically, the honeymoon scene in episode 6.
"I burn for you, Daphne," Page said, just before Bridgerton "director" Kate McKinnon calls cut and clears the set before introducing the actors to a pair of intimacy coordinators played by Pete Davidson and Mikey Day. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Advertisement"We've worked in special effects for years," Day says. "But not a lot of people get puked on in movies because of COVID so we took a Zoom and got certified to do all the sex scene stuff."
They didn't read the script, though. “We get the jist: you two are brother and sister, you're banging each other," he says. "Good stuff.” It's all downhill from there. Watch the full sketch, here:
In reality, Bridgerton's intimacy coordinator, Lizzy Talbot, is one of the most important people on set. Talbot's nothing like those SNL guys, but she did tell Glamour that filming the more…sensual moments from the film was done with humor.
“Regé and Phoebe both have a wicked sense of humor, so that was absolutely wonderful,” Talbot said. “At one point we got called out by production, like, ‘Are you still rehearsing?’ We’d been laughing for the last 15 minutes about something Johnny [Bailey] had said. A lot of the time we were just having so much fun.”
As much fun as watching Regé-Jean Page sing “Driver's License” on SNL? That's the real question.
After that performance, all we can hope for is that Saturday Night Live will bring on the real Phoebe Dynevor next.
This story originally appeared on: Glamour - Author:Emily Tannenbaum