New queen of romance 'MY FRIENDS THINK IT'S HILARIOUS!'

Nicola never imagined she'd be part of Bridgerton's most feverish love stories

Just a few years ago, Nicola Coughlan was half expecting a chat with her parents, telling her it was high time she pulled the plug on her acting dreams.

“My family would have been well within their rights to say, ‘Maybe this isn’t working out,’” the actor recalls. “But they didn’t. They had my back. If I didn’t have them, I couldn’t have done it.”

By “it”, Nicola means her dizzying rise to fame, from a struggling wannabe actor, hardly able to get an audition, to starring in the steamy runaway Netflix hit Bridgerton.

Gone are the days when there wasn’t enough cash in her pockets to buy a coffee. Now, she has Hollywood knocking down her door.

“It’s hard for me to comprehend,” admits Nicola. “How do you process that? You don’t, is the answer.”

Based on the novels by Julia Quinn, each season of Bridgerton follows a different sibling from a London society family as they attempt to find love in the early 1800s. In the recently released season three, it’s Nicola’s turn to play the romantic lead as Penelope Hetherington, alongside Luke Newton, 31, who plays her on-screen lover Colin Bridgerton.

It’s a scenario the 37-year-old never imagined as she was growing up in a small village near Galway on Ireland’s west coast.