Adjoa Andoh on Shonda Rhimes, ‘Bridgerton’ and Becoming Lady Danbury

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1:35Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Listen, if you are beamed into 82 million households in the first 28 days of broadcasting, it's different from doing a big movie or anything else. You are ubiquitous. Adjoa Ando on being Bridgerton's Lady Danbury. Of course, Your Majesty, but remember, a young lady cannot be a diamond until you anoint her as such. What are your favourite Danbury lines or Danbury-isms? I like it when she's having fun. I love it when she'd kick back and have a, she'd have a fag on the go and a drink. I love that sort of just appetite and that here I am. Any actor who wants to stay interested in the part they're playing, you have to put some blood into the writer's words.

2:28From Bloomberg Weekend, this is The Michelle Hussain Show. I'm Michelle Hussain.

2:38Bridgerton has been a global TV phenomenon for more than six years now, from the moment the first episode dropped right up to and through this year's season four. And all the way through this tale of Regency England with its modern twists, there is one character who is not only very present, but who I think has a particular role for the viewer. Lady Danbury is kind of like the audience's guide, their friend even. And that is because of what a remarkable actor, Adjoa Ando, has brought to the role. And even if you have never seen Bridgerton and might not be planning to, stay with me for this. Because she is an actor of tremendous depth and thought.

3:29The daughter of a Ghanaian father and an English mother, she honed her craft on stage and with Shakespeare and since has ranged far and wide, including now with her own production company, which is called Swinging the Lens. We talk about all of this, but Bridgerton was fresh in my mind when we spoke, and I wanted to know how some of the Lady Danbury touches came about. The hats, the jewellery, the backstory of the character, her origins in Sierra Leone. I knew that Adjo would have been embedded in the creative process. And that is what we get out of this, I think, an understanding of the care which an actor of her calibre takes with their material.

4:17So to take us all to a magical place in Midsommar, here's Adjoa Ando in the studio with me. Adjoa, welcome. Thank you. Bridgerton's been part of your life for years now. We started in 2019, right? Do you mind me asking for you to take us back to how it began? The audition. What was that like? And did you feel at that time that you were on the brink of something extraordinary? No, it was a Friday afternoon. I had to nip to Shoreditch. That's where the casting director, Kelly, that's where her office was. You don't get a whole script. You only get the sides. I mean, how much of the script? Just a passage, literally.

4:56You literally get your character talking to somebody. I had a couple of pages worth because she was banging on. Lady Danbridge. She was Danbury-ing it. But it was really helpful because it gave me a real clear sense of who this personality was. And I just, I read, so I read the slides at home and I thought, yes, I can do something with her. I think sometimes jobs come along and it's almost like the sum of many of your previous experiences as an actor or your life or whatever can feed in and you just go, oh, I know who this is. So it was a really pedestrian thing. I didn't meet any of the team from Netflix or Shondaland or anybody.

5:36I just went in with Kelly. We banged it out once. And then I went, a few more lines. And she was like, oh, do it again. We did it again. And then she had a train to catch. And I went to see an exhibition. And do you remember feeling hopeful and really willing this to happen? Or are you quite stoic about things like this? Because I'm always struck with actors, how resilient you have to be. You have to be. You must have had loads of no's in your life. majority will have been no's. And what I did think that day was, I love this character. I could do something with this character. I've given it my best shot.

6:10All you can do is do your bit and then walk away and try to let it go. I say that, you never let it go. You think about the ones that got away, the roles that got away. Oh, completely, completely. Even now? Of course. I don't think that ever changes. It's like a lifetime's, you know, self-flagellation. But do you have a different level of confidence now that you have a role that's brought you global fame? No, no. I, you know, I did a movie with Morgan Freeman when he was saying, so what are you doing next? So, you know, I don't think that changes. I remember Richard Breyers worrying about what his next job was going to be in his late 70s.

6:44So I just think it's part of the actor's tick. I mean, I'm sure there are some people who deal with it better than I do, but I don't. It has been life changing for you, though, I imagine. It has. So there are lots of moving parts to it. So I would say it's on Netflix, which in 2019 felt different from talking about it in 2026. Shonda Rhimes is the queen of continuous, fabulous storytelling. And it's based on an internationally bestselling set of books by Julia Quinn. So those are three parts that mean you should have a good go with it. You and I were both on stage with Shonda Rhimes in Edinburgh last year when she got the Edinburgh Fellowship, the inaugural one.

7:26And I was really struck by her describing Bridgerton as a workplace drama. I'd never thought of it that way. And the way she explained it was that this is a world where women only get power through marriage. And therefore, that world of getting married is a, that's a marketplace. Essentially, that's their workplace. Yeah. I just think that's a brilliant way of, and you know, and she does workplace dramas. Yeah. So here's another one. And I think that's one of the things that I love most about what Danbury's role is in the show, that thing about going, yeah, it's not just about going, oh, he's quite cute.

7:59You're quite cute. Maybe you can get, it's not. It's like, do you want to live? Do you want to have an income? Do you want to have some agency in your own life? Let's find you the person who will allow you all those things. I guess that was always there in the script, the sides that you saw, but you must have also brought a lot of yourself to it. That character has grown with you. Yeah, I think any actor who wants to stay interested in the part they're playing has to bring a deal of themselves to the character. Even if you're playing a serial killer or, you know, whatever, you are truthful within your own narrative.

8:34And I think there's a three way thing that happens. There's the writer, there's the audience, and there's the actor. And you have to put some blood into the writer's words so that the audience can pump with their blood back at you. that's sort of what I feel about it when the new scripts for a new season come out and are shared with you is there a table read where you start with Shonda Rhimes sitting there she will be present at the table read absolutely and what is it like you are literally seeing the script for the first time at that moment no you'll have it a couple of weeks in advance probably is that still nerve-wracking that process of coming together again and starting on the script together it's nerve-wracking it's also fun because you won't have seen each other for a bit So they'll be all like, how's your plumbing going?

9:20Or, you know, all that sort of stuff. From that and then into the character. Did you get the cat neutered? But also it's, you know, the nature of our show is there's a new energy most seasons. So you'll be seeing how does this all work together now? And quite often because, you know, everything's filmed out of sequence, this may be the only time where you hear all the voices of a particular episode all together. So it gives you a really strong sense of the story. And how much of that comes from Shonda? What does she say in moments like that? she tends to just watch and observe and listen and she may have a little welcome to say but she's not giving you notes or any big wisdoms at that point.

9:59You hear from Shonda in the words on the page and in the shape of the narrative. I was fascinated when we were together in Edinburgh on Queen Charlotte and I don't know if she always works like this but she said she hadn't written the last episodes when the first ones were being filmed so sometimes she'd get feedback on how performance had gone and it would give her an idea of how it carries on. Is that what it's like in the normal seasons of Bridgerton? I think there is a mixture of having an overall arc and framework. But then there's space for creative play. I mean, you will get a whole script, but that's not what will end up on screen.

10:35You know, some of your favourite moments when you've been your most marvellous may end up on the cutting room floor and you just have to accept that that's the process. And do you not know until you see it? When you see it, your Netflix. Oh, so, I see. Okay, thank you. Or, you know, you've done 75 million takes of a particular thing and you don't know which take they're going to go with. What are your favourite lines, Danbury lines or Danbury-isms? I like it when she's having fun. I love it when she'd kick back and have a, she'd have a fag on the go and a drink. I love that sort of just appetite and that, here I am.

11:10I love that quality to her. I love it when she gets a bit imperious with somebody who thinks they're the great I am and I love it when she's doing her tough love sort of come on now come on you can do this come along that sort of stuff and then in this season we see a vulnerability when many spoiler here everyone but right at the beginning of this new season she says to Queen Charlotte I want to go back to my country which is Sierra Leone there's the regular four series of Bridgerton and then there's the Queen Charlotte the origin story and in that you get a little hint of the life that Danbury was sort of raised to inhabit.

11:50So she sent over from Sierra Leone age four to be raised to be an English girl in the English style in order to marry this much older man with whom she has four children and then thankfully he dies. Giving her freedom. Blessed release. Giving her freedom but also making her entirely vulnerable and that's why she has this relationship with the Queen where she says to the Queen, I've been in the court longer than you. We're both foreigners in this place. I will give you knowledge. You give me power. I need a title that's inheritable for my children for the foreseeable future. We need the income and we need the status and we need the land and all those things that make us secure because it's me and the kids.

12:30And I will give you all the runnings of how to do court. I will teach you how to strategize and how to survive and thrive in this space. so that's the deal and she's done that happily all this time and then in season three her brother turns up and she's not very happy about but I think there's something about when the brother turns up the tick starts going for her of what was my family life before you know my grandson's four and a half I've had tons of times with him she left at four what was the first sky she saw what was the food she ate what were the smells what was the language she heard who were the people Or, you know, where did she first take her little chubby leg steps?

13:10All of that. And I think she needs to know where she's from in order to go forward. And you need to know this as well in order to play her in the moment. Well, you know, Shonda was really incredibly generous when she was doing the origin story. And she said Sierra Leone, I was like, right, I'm doing some research. So I came back and I was like, OK, I found a general, female general, who advised the most significant tribe at that time in Sierra Leone, and her given name was Soma. So I said, can that be Lady Danbury's given name, Soma? So I had little snippets and sniffs and flavours of who it might be.

13:51But it was really interesting. And Shonda took that? You know, Shonda is a hugely confident, creative person. And I think confident, creative people will go, oh, that's a useful idea. We'll put that in. And then she took it in the way that suited her to use it. but that information was there and I just, I love that. You shaped the look as well, didn't you? In the jewellery that she wears, it was you saying to the costume designer, I would like West African symbols, patterns to be part. That's come latterly. I said now that we know her backstory, I would love to have little hints of. So we've really used just two Odinkra symbols.

14:28One, Jinyame, which means, except for God, fear nothing, which is for me, which is her mantra. Keep it going. And then the other one, which is Sankofa. And the Sankofa symbol, it's a bird with a bead in its beak. And you have to go back to get the bead, put it in your beak, and then you go forward. So it's like you have to know your history in order to move forward. When we left Ghana, having visited my grandparents in 76, my grandmother didn't say goodbye or why are you leaving or anything like that she gave me a top with a great big sanguifer on on it so the message was in the bird yeah symbol of that bird yeah it's so fascinating because there are probably a minority of people watching britcherton across the world who will spot this symbolism in the costume but it's there if you know it yes and perhaps people will know it and think i wonder what that design comes from and learn something in the process that the detail is as authentic as possible and it will strike a chord with some and pass others by and that's fine I love the granularity of stories because I think that's where you get strongly grounded but it's also those little nuggets are there for people to find or not find so I you know if I'm directing a show or I have any say over what happens every prop, there must be a detail to it and it must have a connection to your character.

15:52Because, you know, sometimes I will watch things and I'll be like, oh, what's that? And I will be interested in that. So any little nuggets that we can bung in there for people to... You're a perfectionist. I don't know. I think sometimes the interesting bit is in the failure and in the cracks. Tell me about the contrast between seeing something like Bridgerton now and what it was like earlier in your career as an actor when you're immersed in the classical canon and you've grown up with all these great works, Shakespeare, and then the reality of the acting world is a lot of these roles are not suitable for someone like you.

16:31I think when I started it was 84 and the roles for actors of colour were not as widespread as they are now. Certainly if they'd been a costume drama, romantic costume drama set in Regency England, moving on, you wouldn't have even thought you might be in it unless you were enslaved or maybe a servant, maybe. So your zone is like the gritty urban roles? There's a lot of that. And then things shift. So recently there was a trend where if there was a therapist in a series, they would be somebody of colour. Or, you know, the ubiquitous judge. So you might have high status, but you have absolutely no narrative.

17:18Nobody cares who you are. So that would be a way of going, you know, we are browning up the show here. But I would expect to have more roles that would be a fully fleshed out person on stage than on screen. But in that period, does it do something to you inside when you know that you are not even in consideration for so many of the plum rolls. You have to make that equation, really. I did several things. I started a theatre company called Wild Iris with a friend of mine and we did a lot of restoration comedies. We commissioned new work. We did tours because in the end, at a certain point, you can sit in a corner and bleat about it or you can get up and do something about it.

17:59So it makes it work. is it Bridgerton that you think has really moved the dial on that? Is it part of a continuum or in its success, is it a massive milestone in its own right? Listen, if you are beamed into 82 million households in the first 28 days of broadcasting, it's different from doing a big movie or anything else in that way. You are sort of ubiquitous in lots of places and they can watch it on repeat. You know, I think streaming has made the difference.

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21:04So your mother, English, your late father, Garnet. Yeah. What was it like in the 1960s in your early childhood as you grew up in the Cotswolds? Which is not a very diverse part of England. No. There is a massive use for us. Yeah. So we actually lived in Leeds until I was four, which is still the place of my heart, I think. It's my football team. And lots of my mum's family were Yorkshire sheep farmers. We have cups going back to the 1700s. What, trophies? Trophies for sheep. Yes. Okay. Yes. And my granddad was definitely a Yorkshireman first, and Englishman's second and everybody else was... That explains it because I was thinking otherwise Leeds till you're four doesn't really explain the lifelong connectedness.

21:50Yeah, yeah. Then we moved to the Cotswolds. So not only were we the only three black people in the village, me, my dad, my brother, but I also had a really booming Leeds accent as well. So we were like from planet, hello, what on earth? But you know, my dad lived in that village till he died. And I still have friends that I went to school with who still live there because lots of people, they don't move. They stay in those communities. And everybody remembers my mum because she taught at the secondary school. There was only one secondary school in that catchment area because we all lived in tiny villages.

22:25And you did walk to the next village. And your friends did ride over on their horses, which they kept in the field behind their house because there was no public transport. And you did hitchhike with random strangers, do all of those things. And it was rough and tough. and also achingly beautiful. That combination. Yeah. Were you conscious of racism growing up? Of course. But when you're a kid, your world is, the world as it is, is the world as it is. You know when kids say, we were poor but we didn't know we were poor. It's like what you grew up with. I had a really strong sense of, but that's not fair.

23:03Which meant that it might be something about not being fair towards me, but I also became the person, was if someone was being bullied, I would wade in. And I think I'm probably still four as far as that's concerned going, but why? Why would you do that? Yeah. Children have a very developed sense of justice. Really? Really. And did you see your father treated differently? Did that register? Yeah. I mean, there's a really common narrative. And I think for lots of immigrants from that period. My dad worked for a big company and he would constantly be training people up who would then become his boss.

23:42And I think that's really painful. And it was really painful for him because he was a journalist in Ghana. He was the chief sub-editor on a national newspaper. So he was a super smart man. And I think it hurt him enormously. And a talented man. Talented musically, even though It was clearly not his profession, but it was something he loved and it was therefore part of your life. He was born in 1932 in Cape Coast in what was still then the Gold Coast. His first memory of his mother was her singing and playing guitar to him because she played guitar in a palm court orchestra. I have fabulous photos of her in the 1920s with a cloche hat and the little flapper dress.

24:22And so my dad played in folk bands, would be schlepped around the country to, you know, I can do that. I've been a wild rover for many years. You know, all of that folk. And he loved that folk tradition. He played the mandolin and the flute and the guitar and the piano and the harmonium and all sorts of things. And my brother's a musician and my nephew's a music producer. So on it goes. So hence the acting. Would that be fair that you thought I too will perform? I'm the child of an immigrant father and a working class mother. and I was supposed to do, be a doctor, be a lawyer, you know. I do know.

25:01You do know. I do. You do know. In fact, both of those, I think I also moved from doctor to lawyer and then also disappointed. Yes, I surrendered in the end and I did two years of a law degree and then I couldn't stand it and I left and I just heard my dad, just finish it, which is exactly what I'd say to my kids if they bailed two years into a degree. And I think he was kind of waiting for me to go, he's always been waiting for me to go back and finish my degree. But what made you then think, okay, I get the not wanting to be a lawyer, I totally relate to that, but the actor part, how did that come in?

25:35I just think it's what I liked. What do you like watching? No, I would direct plays with my friends. I directed Noel Coward's Blythe Spirit, age seven, never seen it. We just did it in someone's front room, we charged them. And there was a lot of net curtains and lights going on and off acting. So, you know, I loved all the Nid, Blight and Secret Seven and Famous Five. I loved a mystery. So I was always dressing up. I was always pretending. But at school, you weren't allowed to do drama in my school unless you were doing A-levels because it wasn't considered a proper subject. So I did drama O-level in the sixth form.

26:12And by this time, my parents were getting divorced. I was fairly unhappy. And drama was my haven. And I went to see David Hare's play Plenty with Kate Nelligan. And it was a play about a young middle-class woman who works as a secretary in London. And she speaks fluent French. So she gets hoiked out and sent over to do special ops in France. And she supports the resistance. And she's marvellous at this. Of course, she fought in love with a very handsome Frenchman who's in the resistance. and then the war ends and she comes back to London and she's supposed to go back to being a secretary and put all that brilliance and all that skill that she's acquired back in a box and just be a nice lady doing her job.