Bridgerton director Tom Verica talks working on Netflix costume drama – even though he’s not read any of the books series is based on
- ‘I am not a romance novel reader,’ says Verica, who hasn’t read any of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton books but says he adores the author, who visited during filming
- The director says there is a ‘support of creative vision and creative storytelling and boldness’ at Netflix that is missing from broadcast networks
Tom Verica is used to juggling.
As a director, producer and actor for Shonda Rhimes’ production company Shondaland, he’s filmed dozens of episodes of gasp-worthy television. At one point, he was working behind the scenes on Rhimes’ ABC hit Scandal while moonlighting as a character (and sometimes corpse) on its time-slot neighbour How to Get Away with Murder .
But it wasn’t until Bridgerton, the bingeable period romance filmed in Britain that’s the first fruit of Rhimes’ US$100 million deal with Netflix, that the balls Verica needed to keep in the air were taking place in actual ballrooms.
Filming four elaborately choreographed social occasions in five days “was probably the most challenging aspect”, Verica says of directing the second and third episodes of the show, which was created by former Scandal writer Chris Van Dusen based on the work of romance novelist Julia Quinn.
“We had three balls in this one building [Leigh Court],” in the British city of Bristol, he recalls. “In some of those scenes, if I open the doors, you would see a completely different ball theme.”