“I think I tore my shoulder at one point.”

Simone Ashley never really watched period dramas until she was cast in one herself. The breakout star of Bridgerton season 2 appeared on the March 2022 digital cover of Glamour UK and revealed that filming the show came with many firsts for her – including wearing a corset.

During her interview with Glamour, the actor, who plays newcomer Kate Sharma, reminisced on her experiences landing the role and filming the show, noting special messages of congratulations that were shared by her personal entertainment heroes like Mindy Kaling. Her time spent filming for the Netflix fan favorite had her filming intense horse-riding scenes alongside dreamy ballroom dance scenes, and if you ask us, she nailed them all. (She contains multitudes.)

She also recollected to Glamour the story of her very first day on set in the city of Bath, England, where she made the mistake of eating a full meal before getting into costume. “I realized when you wear the corset, you just don’t eat. It changes your body. I had a smaller waist very momentarily,” Simone said. She referred to experience wearing a corset as “interesting” and recalled the wardrobe crew helping her dress due to the restrictive nature of the garment. That wasn’t the end of Simone’s struggles, as she looks back on near-injuries that came from her costume. “I had a lot of pain with the corset, too, I think I tore my shoulder at one point!”

The Regency era drama featured numerous period-relevant empire waist dresses that offered much looser silhouettes than what comes to mind when we think of a corset. They might say pain is beauty, but we’d rather hear Simone telling stories about being 100% comfortable if Kate comes back for the already-confirmed third season — which we hope to!