Nicola Coughlin, 39, currently has the career of a much younger woman. That’s because she has a babyface and she can pass for characters in their 20s, if not teens. Since she became famous with Derry Girls almost a decade ago, Nicola has been working nonstop – not just on Bridgerton, but assorted TV shows and movies and theater. Nicola covers the latest issue of Elle UK, and she reveals more of her personal life than I’ve ever heard from her, while at the same time remaining pretty guarded. She also talks about how people shouldn’t look to her to be an icon of body positivity. Some highlights:
Living with boyfriend Jake Dunn: ‘I’m not dirty, but I am messy. [It’s] very ADHD in that there’ll be one thing that’s extremely organised, like colour-coordinated wardrobes, and then clothes also on the floor. But, I try, I try, I try. When you live with someone, you have to rein that in.’
She’s happy she wasn’t typecast: ‘I feel very lucky for that. I think there was a risk with Derry Girls being such a success, kind of out of nowhere… It was incredible, but you do have a moment where you go, “Am I going to play this character forever?” I was lucky that Bridgerton came around, because it was really different right away.’
Highlighting humanitarian causes: ‘I was in the era of Twitter when everyone was opining everywhere. I was one of those people, but then I hit a point when I was like, “We’re all shouting opinions and it’s not doing anything effective.” I’m not a politician, but I can raise humanitarian funds.’
Being diagnosed with ADHD in her 30s. ‘I suspected it for a long time, and I think people with it are drawn to other people with it. We just find the conversations more stimulating.’ When she eventually went to a psychiatrist, she was worried she’d brought it on herself: ‘I [asked], “Is this something I’ve done to myself?” Have I just gotten addicted to my smartphone? And he was like, “It’s hereditary,” which a lot of people don’t know.’ The diagnosis has made sense of certain traits: ‘It feels like I got the handbook to my brain that I wasn’t given when I was born. I understand things a bit better now, and I give myself a little more grace.’
Don’t hold her up as a body-positivity advocate: ‘The thing I say sometimes that pisses people off is I have no interest in body positivity. When I was a kid growing up, I never thought about that. I didn’t look at actors and think about their bodies. So, I actually don’t care. There’s a lot of things I’m passionate about, it’s not one of them… That’s someone else’s thing. It’s not mine.’
All of the gross commentary about her body on Bridgerton: ‘You know what was really bizarre was, when I was shooting that series, I was exercising a lot because I knew I had to, so I had lost a bunch of weight – I was probably a size 10 and one of the corsets was a size 8. And then people talked about how I was plus size and I was like, “How f*cked are we that I am the biggest woman you want to see on screen?”’ But it’s a topic that follows her around, even when she’s not working. ‘I remember this really drunk girl once talking to me in a bathroom being like, “I loved [Bridgerton] because of your body.” And started talking about my body, and I was like, “I want to die. I hate this so much…” It’s really hard when you work on something for months and months of your life, you don’t see your family, you really dedicate yourself and then it comes down to what you look like – it’s so f*cking boring.’
Thoughts on her body-positive comments? I’m fine with it. We shouldn’t force women/actresses to talk about their bodies, especially when the woman has a different kind of figure. There are plenty of models and actresses who want to talk about body-positivity too, women who make that issue into their whole deal. And that’s great too – I think it’s wonderful that Ashley Graham is out there, proudly representing the girls who are bigger than sample size. I think Nicola understands that if she positions herself that way, that’s literally all people will ask her about and talk about, rather than her work. It’s also clear that Nicola does not want anything to do with the “plus-sized” label either. Which is also fine. Incidentally, it does feel like “body positivity” as a pop-culture moment is pretty much over because of the now widespread use of GLP-1s.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of Elle UK.
