The wonderful Hannah Dodd is on Harper’s BAZAAR Australia august cover. Along with the cover, she did a full photoshoot and gave an interview to the magazine. Check everything out below!

Harper’s BAZAAR — Hannah Dodd is just warming up

For much of her life, dancing filled the dreams of English rose Hannah Dodd. That was until a modelling job spawned an acting career that caught fire when she joined the cast of the juggernaut that is ‘Bridgerton’. A severe bout of stage fright behind her, she is now set to explore the limits of her talent.

It was not long into the filming of the latest series of Bridgerton when the new girl on set became distressed. Preparing for the scene in which her debutante character is presented to the queen, Hannah Dodd felt weeks of anxiety boil over. Could she do this? Could she go on?

This was July 2022. Just two months earlier, landing a role on Shondaland’s zeitgeist Netflix series had seemed like the gift of a lifetime to the unassuming English actor. The first two seasons of the lavish, history-bending Regency-era romantic drama had garnered huge audiences and turned its leads into stars. On learning she would be taking over the part of Francesca Bridgerton, Dodd had gone straight to work, perusing the Julia Quinn novels on which the series is based and learning piano, one of Francesca’s more conspicuous skills.

By the time filming started, however, the insidious process that converts excitement into crippling self-doubt had done its thing. And on this day — when her alter ego was to be paraded before Queen Charlotte, judged and appraised less as a sensitive young woman than an object — the newcomer unravelled. “I’d been so nervous for so long, and I think I’d hit the point where I couldn’t actually sustain feeling like that,” Dodd says.

Fortunately, the Bridgerton cast and crew are, by all accounts, a supportive bunch, and Dodd’s turmoil did not go unnoticed. Picking her moment, one of the producers approached her and suggested they take a stroll.

“She said to me, ‘To us, this is still the tiny little show we were making back in 2019, and it’s the same people’,” Dodd recalls.

Though there was more to this benevolent intervention, that was the message she remembers most clearly, and the one she found most reassuring. That same day, she performed the scene. And was on her way.

For Dodd, if the filming was an examination, the period since the two-stage release of Bridgerton Season 3 (on May 16 and June 13) has been a whirlwind as she’s turned on the charm at promotional events in New York, Amsterdam, Paris. When she settles in to talk by Zoom to BAZAAR, she is home at last in her London flat, having just returned from the Caribbean playground of Saint Barthélemy, where she had spent three days with Zimmermann, marking the opening of its new boutique. “An Aussie brand, so it’s very fitting,” she says, referring to the timing of our interview.

Dodd, who’d watched and enjoyed Bridgerton before coming aboard, has described the experience of suddenly being on the show as “like stepping into your TV”. I clock a version of this discombobulating phenomenon when she appears on my computer screen. She is dressed like the girl in the coffee shop in a well-worn white T-shirt with red and blue trim; her strawberry-blonde hair is loose. Rosy-cheeked and radiant, you wouldn’t guess she’s just done a red-eye flight.

It turns out her connection to Australia has a more personal element than the Zimmermann job: her older sister, Alice, has lived in Sydney for the last six years. Dodd has visited her here once in that time and says she’s eager to return, though exactly when that may happen, she can’t say. “But I hope to get to the point where I can come regularly. I love Australia and I want to travel around more — I’ve only done Sydney … I need to get to Melbourne, I have a friend in Byron Bay I want to visit, and my mum went to Perth and loved it, so I feel I have to do that. I want to do it all, while probably being terrified of spiders and sharks because I’m a Brit.”

In conversation, Dodd is expressive in her body language, self-deprecating, quick to laugh and good fun. With actors, there’s always the possibility you’re witnessing a kind of performance. But put it this way: if Dodd is not a good egg, then at 29 and with fewer than 10 roles on her resume, she’s a shoo-in for an Oscar one day.

Lately, Bridgerton has upended her life and she’s not sure what to make of it all. It’s strange, she says, because she feels “everything’s changed and nothing’s changed” — which is less of a contradiction than it sounds. When people acquire this fame thing, their foibles and worries don’t magically disappear, any more than they do when you travel or move house. “Being in a different country and people asking for a photo, it’s weird, but it’s still me,” she says. “Day to day, when I’m home, it’s still the same. When people come up to me, my immediate reaction is, Oh, I’ve parked somewhere [illegally], or, I’ve done something wrong. Then I realise, Oh, you just want a photo — that’s lovely, thank you.” She’s momentarily lost in thought, before adding: “I don’t know. I don’t know whether I’ve processed any of it yet.”

As to whether all the fuss might change her, she sounds every bit the ingénue when she says, “I hope not. I really hope not. I hope I stay the same and I hope my friends and family all still feel like I’m the same. You know, this industry, as much as you get some amazing moments in it, is a really humbling industry. There are always moments that aren’t so lovely, and I think that keeps you grounded. Also, the same people you hung out with before any of this … I can’t imagine my family letting me get away with anything.”

Dodd was born in Colchester, Britain’s oldest city, and grew up a middle child (as well as Alice, she has a younger brother, Will) in Leavenheath, which lies to the north of the Essex-Suffolk border, midway between the market towns of Colchester and Sudbury. Describing Leavenheath, she emphasises two features: its remoteness (back in the day, you had to drive 20 minutes for milk) and its beauty. “It was countryside,” she says, “and as a family we would go for walks — that was kind of what we did.” When she passes through Leavenheath these days, the scenery stuns her; but as a teenager, she mostly yearned for the cultural richness of London, an hour away by train.

Long before acting crossed her mind, she was set on being a dancer. Her parents have told her that she started dancing spontaneously at the age of two. And she kept dancing, day after day, every day, until her imaginings evolved into a plan: after graduating from Ormiston Sudbury Academy — a mainstream high school that happened to have excellent performing arts teachers, Dodd says — she would train in musical theatre with a view to lighting up the West End.

With hindsight, any life can be distilled into a series of turning points. Dodd arrived at one at the age of 15 on a visit to the salon in Sudbury where she and Alice would get their hair cut. “One day, the girls in there were like, ‘Would you like to come and do a photo shoot, you and your sister?’” — as the business needed new imagery. Young Hannah was keen.

The photographer on the case was the respected Catherine Harbour, who quickly recognised that this neophyte she was shooting had potential as a model. “You should do this,” she told her.

Harbour sent her photos of Hannah to London’s Select Model Management, who wanted to put the teenager on their books. But Hannah baulked because, to her mind, it was dancing or bust. “I was so stubborn,” she says. “In the end it was my sister who made me reply to the email. At the time, I had no idea how the two could connect — no idea how modelling could help me earn money that could pay for my dance training, no idea about the doors it would open.”

While Dodd did end up training in musical theatre — first at Evolution Foundation College in Colchester and then at London Studio Centre — the next turning point came when she was 19 and picked to co-star (with fellow dancer/actor Anders Hayward and a 12-year-old Romeo Beckham) in Burberry’s 2014 festive campaign, an artsy four-minute advert in which she dances and shines in a beige tulle gown as snow falls around her. Her performance earned her gushing press suggesting she could be the next Cara Delevingne. It took a little while to build, but the Burberry ad was Dodd’s bridge to acting. Her debut role was as a ballet dancer in Hulu’s Find Me in Paris (2018-20), during which she realised there was something besides dancing she could feel passionate about. Pre-Bridgerton, her other credits include the Chloe Zhao-directed Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals (2021), the Netflix mini-series Anatomy of a Scandal (2022), in which she plays a younger version of the Sienna Miller character in flashbacks, and the Netflix film Enola Holmes 2 (2022).

In a sense, though, Dodd has been part of the Bridgerton universe from the start. In 2019, she auditioned for the role of Daphne Bridgerton and was shortlisted but ultimately shaded by Phoebe Dynevor. In casting director Kelly Valentine Hendry, however, Dodd had a fan. The previous year, she had cast Dodd in the TV series Harlots as Sophia Fitzwilliam, the secret child of the character played by Liv Tyler. When Ruby Stokes, who played Francesca in Seasons 1 and 2 of Bridgerton, left the show because of a scheduling conflict, Valentine Hendry saw Dodd as a potential replacement. “Bridgertons always make an impact when they walk into a room,” Valentine Hendry tells BAZAAR. “They are perfectly poised, immaculately brought up, intelligent, [devoted to] their family and, most importantly, super likeable. Hannah is all these things.”

Dodd felt tired and frustrated as she self-taped that second Bridgerton audition with a malfunctioning microphone one night in January 2022 — unaware what show she was trying out for as she acted the part of a guest at a ball. She had just worked a long day at one of her part-time jobs (in admin for a financial advisor) and then “everything possible went wrong and I ended up sending the one [try-out] where I got the lines right”.

Three months passed without a word — curtains, surely. But then came a call from her agent, a Zoom meeting with the Shondaland team, the revelation that this was a Bridgerton part, some more roleplay on that same Zoom call, and, finally, the news that she was the new Francesca.

Had the part arrived at a time when she was despondent about her prospects? “I’d had a decent year, but I’d had a lot of those times when I’d thought, Is this working? Honestly, you’re in that mental state on the last day of every job. What am I going to do now? I’m never going to work again! That’s every single time.”

Dodd can say now that it was a blessing she joined Bridgerton in 2022 rather than three years earlier, because the life experience she gained in the interim made her a better actor. She also needed to temper the tendency towards harsh self-assessment that’s instilled by elite dance training.

There is a theory that boxers and actors have at least one thing in common: both need to have suffered to succeed. Dodd tends to agree. “I’ve been through stuff,” she confides, without divulging specifics. “Yeah, I’ve felt horrendous pain — and incredible happiness, as well.”

If you’ve watched the end of Bridgerton Season 3, you might have sensed that Francesca (and therefore Dodd) is just warming up. Quiet and thoughtful, Francesca appears to have partnered well in the temperamentally similar John Stirling. At a ball following their quiet nuptials, however, she is struck dumb on meeting John’s cousin Michaela (Masali Baduza). Based on what we know about Francesca’s narrative arc from Quinn’s books, and from public comments by Quinn and Bridgerton showrunner Jess Brownell, it seems Francesca and Michaela (who’s Michael in the books) are destined to be intimate.

Best be patient, though, dearest readers: Dodd says she doesn’t know when shooting starts for Season 4, which has a projected release date of 2026. And that plot twist might not even occur within Season 4.

Nonetheless, of the prospect of co-portraying a same-sex relationship, Dodd says she’s excited. “And I’m so proud to tell this story, whatever the writers come up with — I don’t know completely yet. It’s a show about people and everybody deserves the chance to see themselves represented on screen.”

Here, Dodd alludes to the duality of character creation. On the one hand there’s writer intent; on the other is something more abstract: how viewers may see themselves and their struggles reflected in a character, irrespective of writer intent. Francesca has already been an inspiration to introverts and neurodivergent people, and soon perhaps she’ll be the same to members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“It’s just so nice,” Dodd says of her role’s capacity to generate inclusivity. “I don’t think I can really get my head around it, but I know that characters do that for people. I know that Bridgerton is a comfort show for people, and going on those press tours and meeting people and seeing how much they love the show is so beautiful. It’s crazy to me that my character would make somebody [who’s used to suffering]
happy. That makes me so happy.”

Something else that delights her is the Bridgerton finery. “It’s gorgeous,” she says — and more comfortable than it appears. “They make [the outfits] comfy because we shoot for long days.” No actor is obliged to wear corsetry, and slippers can substitute for shoes if they’re not in shot. “But the dresses, they’re made from scratch for our bodies. We have a million fittings, and you can always say, if you’re dancing at a ball, for example, ‘I need a little bit more room in this sleeve’ or whatever. It is an honour to get to wear those designs. Every single one is stunning. Quite a few people cry in their fittings because they’re just so beautiful.”

In real life, Dodd’s fashion tastes are simpler. Jeans and a T-shirt never fail, she says. “I do like classic pieces. I love tailoring, blazers, suit trousers. I like being able to buy good pieces that you look after and keep for a long time and mix and match. Especially now when I’m getting to work with stylists and learn about different brands and watch somebody with an incredible eye put things together, I feel like I’m still learning but I lean towards that tailoring and minimalist vibe.”

As for recreation, Dodd says she thinks little about it these days. She’s so enamoured of her work and castmates that rare are the times she feels the need to switch off. “But I’m quite a simple girl. I have a gorgeous group of girlfriends I met at dance college. A lot of them are personal trainers or Pilates instructors, so we’ll do a class together, grab a coffee, brunch. I’m such a foodie. That’s kind of my recreational activity: eating. And I love being at home, as well. I know that sounds boring, but I’ve travelled so much in the last couple of months, it’s nice when you get home.”

There are eight (technically nine) Bridgerton novels. A season takes eight months to shoot. And roughly two years will separate the airing of each new season. I tell Dodd I’m trying to calculate how much of her life this show is going to consume. She could be doing it into her 40s!

“Yeah. I know,” she deadpans. “It’s lucky we really like each other.”