With Bridgerton, Yerin Ha Embraces Her Cinderella Moment

Yerin Ha grew up loving Cinderella in all her forms — including, of course, Hilary Duff’s Cinderella Story. “Chad Michael Murray, I mean, come on!” she gushes over Zoom as we chat about her turn as Sophie Baek, a kind of spiritual successor to the fairy-tale princess, in Bridgerton Season 4.

It’s why Ha took it as a good omen that she accidentally slipped out of her shoe when running up a staircase while filming Sophie’s first dance with Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) at a masquerade ball. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s Cinderella. We’re being blessed by the gods! This is great,’” Ha says before adding, with effortless comic timing: “Then I lost both my shoes.”

It’s a handy mirror to what makes Ha’s leading lady so endearing to watch. The 28-year-old Australian actor (whose other TV credits include Dune: Prophecy and The Survivors) plays Sophie with quick-witted heart and humor, flitting between the disguised “Lady in Silver” Benedict meets that fateful night and the savvy maid he falls for months later — with him not knowing they’re the same person.

Behind the scenes, the Bridgerton team allowed Ha to craft her heroine, whose working-class station makes her a first for the show’s leading ladies. “Even very early on, with hair and makeup being like, ‘What do you like? What suits you? What do you think is good?’” she says, praising them for helping her figure out “what makes me feel good and what makes me feel confident” in scripts and styling alike. “It was always welcomed.”

Below, Ha opens up about #Benophie’s connection, making Shonda Rhimes cry, and finding hope in her Season 4 fairy tale. Spoilers ahead.

During their first meeting, Sophie does not fall for Benedict’s “You’re not like the other girls” line and defends the women in the marriage mart. She’s like, “They go through a lot of work for this!” Can you speak to that element of her character — that she’s actually defending a group she’s pretty ostracized from?

In a strange way, she wants to be in [their] position. She understands the amount of time and effort that women go through, that men don’t have to. Even [when she’s] not really being treated well, she still wants the best for everyone in the grand scheme of things. And that speaks a lot to her character.

I also love that she’s a yearner. She kisses him at the ball and says in the lake scene, “I can’t help but notice you.” There’s self-pleasure, curiosity. What was important to you about portraying this side of her?

She’s not back-footed as a woman, and I love the fact that she actually goes in for the kiss. It’s very rare to see a woman just go for it and seize the opportunity. [She] doesn’t tiptoe around. She goes for what she wants in the present moment, whatever that may be.

Shonda Rhimes has said that she cried a lot while editing this season. I was wondering what it means to hear that — and why do you think this season is impactful in that way?

When she said that, I was like, “Shonda, tell me which scene!” It’s such a blessing to hear that she’s actually quite moved by it. I feel like, “Oh, maybe I did my job.” As an actor, all you want is to move people’s hearts, and especially with something like Bridgerton, it’s a celebration of love and [can] fill people’s hearts with hope, when I feel like it can be a bit of a hopeless time.

I think this season has a different energy and a more grounded quality, in the sense that we’re opening the doors into the lower class. And we were talking about the class disparity. When society tells you that you can’t pursue something, but you’re seeing these two people fight for something that they want, that’s something that we can all grapple with and understand. All seasons speak on love — but maybe because this one is defying societal boundaries, it pulls on people’s heartstrings.

Part 1 ends with Benedict’s mistress proposal. What do you think is going through Sophie’s mind in that moment?

I remember when I was in the scene, it was almost like I was being hypnotized by what he was saying. And that was certainly what Sophie was probably feeling. But I keep thinking back — even if Benedict had offered, “Will you marry me?” Sophie might have also woken up in that instant. She knows deep down this will never become a thing, because society says it can’t.

So it’s almost like she gets caught up in this cyclone of passion, and she loses herself and her place, which is her whole motto that she’s been told by Araminta: “Know your place.” When he offers that to her, obviously, it’s more of a slap in the face because it takes her back to her childhood, to the trauma of living under her stepmother and her stepsister, Rosamund. But even if he had offered something else, I feel like Sophie might have retracted regardless.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.