Katie Leung has long carried a unique perception in Hollywood: she seems forever young. Between 2005 and 2011, she portrayed the teenage Cho Chang in the Harry Potter franchise—a role that has defined her public image for nearly two decades.
Now 36, Leung recently auditioned for the latest season of Bridgerton, where she was asked to read for not only the motherly Araminta Gun but also the young love interest Sophie. Rather than feeling slighted, she felt validated. “People thought I’d be offended at being asked to play Araminta,” she recalls. “And I thought, ‘No – I feel seen, for once!’ I was the ingénue 20 years ago.”
In the series, Leung portrays Araminta, Lady Penwood, a stepmother guiding her daughters, Posy and Rosamund (Isabella Wei and Michelle Mao), through the intricacies of the “ton.” While she occupies a traditionally fraught role, Leung’s performance avoids clichés. “The beauty of Bridgerton is that all the characters are complex,” she explains. “At the beginning, the show-runners emphasised how important it was to find Araminta’s humanity, to include her past struggles. She has a real sense of purpose, and the decisions she makes are out of love and protection in a world where marriage is all.”
Leung took cues for her character’s physicality from Maggie Cheung’s performance in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love. “There’s something romantic about the way she floats about. I wanted Araminta to glide,” Leung says. “On the outside, she seems poised and calm, but the cogs are turning underneath. She’s never sleeping.”
This duality comes naturally to Leung, who admits that projecting confidence while feeling anxious inside has been a lifelong skill. “That’s how I’ve been for the best part of my life, because I was afraid to express myself,” she reflects. “I speak my mind more now than I did before – it’s a combination of playing Araminta and being a first-time mum, so not having the capacity to sugarcoat anything.”
Motherhood has given Leung a fresh perspective on life and success. With a three-year-old son, she feels a heightened responsibility to model authenticity. “I have a child now who watches my every move, and I have a responsibility – to be authentic, to do as I say, to realise that people-pleasing has never really served me,” she says.
Through Bridgerton and life, Leung has embraced the roles that reflect her present self, moving beyond the ingénue persona of her youth into an actress confident in her maturity, complexity, and voice.
