Adjoa Andoh thinks Bridgerton has changed "the zeitgeist of casting".

The 63-year-old actress has played Lady Danbury in the hit Netflix show since 2020, and she feels proud that the Bridgerton cast is so diverse.

The actress - who stars on the show alongside the likes of Jonathan Bailey, Simone Ashley, Luke Thompson and Nicola Coughlan - told the Observer newspaper: "I always felt sad that there would be historical dramas and I wouldn't necessarily get a shout in them.

"Hooray for things like being able to do classical theatre, but it wasn't translating into contemporary iterations of historical drama. What Bridgerton has done is change the zeitgeist of casting."

Adjoa previously conceived, co-directed and starred in the first all-women-of-colour version of Richard II at the Globe Theatre.

And the actress wishes that the theatre industry was even more open-minded when it comes to casting.

She recalled: "We all cried because it was like, I don't have to be the only one in the room.

"Imagine that all the work you've ever done as a journalist, you've always been in newsrooms with writers of colour every day or you've been in the newsrooms where you're the only man. You have to think of yourself in a slightly different way, because you can't just go in and be a journalist.

"You have think about, 'Oh, am I being too blokey?' Just stuff that you don't need in your head, and so I wanted us to have the opportunity to not have that in our heads. We could just go and be, and be a great stage manager, or be a great assistant director, or voice coach, or actor, or composer, or whatever it was you were doing, and also know that you were working on a project where your excellence, your stagecraft, your comedy, your line delivery, your design absolutely would be scrutinised but there would be a whole gang of you and you were all working to be great."