Phoebe Dynevor Just Broke Her Silence on Regé-Jean Page Leaving ‘Bridgerton’

What’s a Daphne without her Simon? A perfectly good character, actually! Bridgerton star Phoebe Dynevor, who plays Daphne Bridgerton on the hit Netflix series, just publicly reacted to the news that her costar, Regé-Jean Page, who plays her character’s husband, Simon, will be leaving the series.

“I had a bit of a heads up, so I knew,” Dynevor revealed on a Variety podcast on May 20, per Us Weekly. That makes sense–Page was only ever contracted for a single season and, apparently, approached the project like a limited series. If you’ve seen the final episode of season one, you know they stick a real button on the Daphne/Simon story. Though fans would love to see him return, it’s not like there’s a big cliffhanger that needs to be resolved (ahem, Theo James on Sanditon).

As series executive producer Shonda Rhimes concurred last month, “I mean, really: What would Regé-Jean do, you know what I mean? We gave them their happily-ever-after!”

“But yeah, I guess it is a spanner,” Phoebe Dynevor admitted, employing a British slang term that means something that foils a project (apparently). Her chemistry with Page may have been off the charts, but the actor was quick to remind everyone that the show is based on Julia Quinn’s series of novels, and in the books, the Bridgerton siblings take turns at center stage: “But again, the show centers around the Bridgertons, and there are eight books. And I think maybe the fans of the books were more aware of that happening than the fans of the show. Because I think the fans of the books know that every episode is about a different sibling. And we’re very much passing on the baton to the lovely [Jonathan Bailey], who plays Anthony, and that will be the main storyline of season two and the story arc of season two.”

We can’t wait!