For British actor Regé-Jean Page, who sets hearts aflutter in Netflix’s new period drama Bridgerton as the dashing duke Simon Basset, the role of Regency dreamboat required serious preparation.

First there was the “Regency bootcamp”—where Page and the series’ ensemble cast received a crash course on 19th-century etiquette. “How to bow and curtsy to various people,” Page explained to Vanity Fair on Monday. “Plus the communication—how you address the queen, staff, your mates, and everyone in between.” There were extensive dance lessons, which Page and Phoebe Dynevor, who plays Simon’s romantic interest Daphne Bridgerton, found especially helpful. “I think we found each other’s relationship mostly on the dance floor,” the actor said.

Then there was the physical prep work required for shirtless scenes. “They had me doing this whole Rocky situation,” said Page, whose handsome nobleman in the Shonda Rhimes–produced series is also a hobbyist boxer. “I was up at 5:00 a.m. every day at the gym. I had a horrible man yell at me for an hour.”

But Simon isn’t a traditional duke; his grace is more of a complicated rogue. Childhood trauma, viewers learn, turned Simon off the idea of marriage and onto the idea of world-traveling adventure. To get in touch with that element of the character, Page immersed himself in music and culture from the era. 

“I got particularly taken with the idea of what Simon represents in this story,” said the actor, who found inspiration from “the Byronic hero.… He’s an outsider, traveling across the East, just like Byron did. And he’s bringing back slightly different types of fashion, different ideas about society and how it should and shouldn’t work.” Page said he spoke with the wardrobe department about Simon’s “private rebellion,” which was telegraphed in wardrobe choices, like “the fact that Simon’s always wearing riding boots, no matter where he is.”

Once Bridgerton began filming on location, in mansions and castles scattered across England, Page found additional inspiration.

“Anywhere old and gold, we were up in it,” the actor said. “Real castles, anywhere that’s been in The Crown. You turn up and say, ‘Why do I know this place?’ It’s because it was where The Favourite was shot. I got access that most people could only dream of—palaces and castles and old mansions, and all of this history, all of these stories. Plus, the old grumpy kings staring down at you. You feel the weight of all of that, very viscerally, which helped us to work.”

Last year, Page was finishing work on the Shonda Rhimes–produced legal drama For the People when he heard about Bridgerton, which Rhimes protégé Chris Van Dusen was adapting from Julia Quinn’s romance novels. “The early conversations were very much about how excited they were to step into what people perceive as a very stuffy, traditional genre—and do things that people won’t expect, particularly in terms of bringing in the 21st-century, Shondaland–like feminist angle on things.” Page said he was especially interested in “reexamining masculinity…because I feel like that’s my corner of feminism to contribute to. It was all about what we could do that people hadn’t seen yet, and how we can continue to bring the conversation forward.”

Ironically, it was an American production that brought Page back to England—not that his mother knew that immediately. “Bridgerton happened so quickly,” said Page, who spent his primary-school years in Zimbabwe before moving back to the U.K. in high school. “We were talking about it, and then I was on the plane doing it, and then somewhere along the line, I was like, Oh, by the way, I’m back in the U.K.” Said the actor, “I’m a terrible, terrible child in that sense.’”

The third of four kids, Page was drawn to the arts growing up. He was a drummer for years, and continues to make music in his free time with his brother. (“My iTunes is thoroughly, thoroughly splintered. You’ll get Tracy Chapman one minute, thrash metal the next, and then Vivaldi. It confuses people to no end.”) He discovered acting through Saturday school in England—which, the actor joked, “is a glorified day care for loud children.” He didn’t take it seriously until being introduced to the National Youth Theatre in the U.K. “So I dropped out of uni, ran away to go to drama school, did a little bit of telly, and continued doing that. Here we are,” he said. “Knock on wood, long may it continue.”

Page’s breakout came four years ago with the History Channel’s Roots remake, where Page costarred as Chicken George. Bridgerton marks his first leading role in a series—not that the actor is spending much time analyzing this milestone. “I do my very best not to think about the effects of anything,” he said. “I get very much like a race horse on the track. I put the blinkers on and do the thing, and get to the end. And if there’s champagne at the finish line, then great.”

Before Bridgerton bows on Christmas, Page takes one more fairy-tale turn—playing Prince Charming alongside an A-list cast on the BBC’s Christmas Eve fund-raising special Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime For Christmas.

“I just had this utterly surreal experience of spending several hours on Zoom with literal Oscar winners like Olivia Colman, and Helena Bonham Carter, Anya Taylor-Joy,” Page said, still in awe. “Just like, Oh, this is a normal Tuesday, right? I was ubiquitously struck all around and spent most of my hard energy just trying to keep my [jaw] off the floor.”

And even though he’s seemingly cornered the market on romantic love interests, Page is setting his sights far beyond. “I like exploring. I’d be pleased to keep expanding that lens,” said the actor. “I’d love to be Prince Charming and Quasimodo, you know? You want to explore people and characters across the whole spectrum.”

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