Bad Bridgets, an upcoming Netflix period drama, has added seven actors to its ensemble ahead of production beginning in July in Northern Ireland and Ireland. Colin Farrell, Steve Coogan, Charlie Heaton, Domhnall Gleeson, Himesh Patel, Niamh Algar, and Simone Kirby join the project alongside previously announced leads Emilia Jones and Alison Oliver.
Rich Peppiatt writes and directs the film. His debut feature Kneecap drew wide attention on the festival circuit, earning six BAFTA nominations and six British Independent Film Awards, including Best British Independent Film. That debut told the story of a Belfast Irish-language hip-hop group and screened at several major international festivals before its theatrical release. Netflix acquired global rights to Bad Bridgets last month.
What Bad Bridgets is about
The screenplay draws on Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women, a 2023 book by historians Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick. The story follows a young Irish woman who receives a mysterious letter offering escape to 19th-century New York. There she becomes entangled in the world of the Bridgets, Irish immigrant women who worked as domestic servants in the United States during that period.
Irish women who emigrated during and after the Famine arrived in large numbers in cities including New York and Boston, where domestic service was among the few occupations available to them. However, Farrell and McCormick’s book moves beyond the domestic sphere, drawing on historical records to trace encounters with the criminal justice system that the film’s title alludes to.
LuckyChap will produce alongside Belfast-based Coup d’Etat, with backing from Northern Ireland Screen and an academic partnership with Queen’s University Belfast. Filming is set to take place across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The cast and its UK-Ireland roots
Several newly announced cast members appeared on the Screen UK-Ireland Stars of Tomorrow list before breaking through internationally. Oliver, Heaton, Patel, and Algar all received the designation. Algar has since appeared across a range of British and Irish film and television productions. Meanwhile, Patel is best known for Yesterday, while Heaton has been transitioning from his long run on Stranger Things into film work. Oliver drew the most recognition of the group for her lead performance in CODA, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2022.
Gleeson has worked across projects ranging from Ex Machina to Brooklyn, and brings experience across dramatic genres to the ensemble. Meanwhile, Coogan is primarily associated with comedic work including the Alan Partridge franchise, making this a different direction for him.
Farrell’s involvement gives the project its highest-profile commercial draw. After his Oscar-nominated turn in The Banshees of Inisherin, he drew further recognition for his role in The Penguin, an HBO series in which he played the Batman villain. Both roles placed him at a sustained high point in his career. His casting gives Netflix a name that travels beyond the art-house audience Kneecap attracted.
Netflix has not announced a release date.