by Madeline Anderson
Photography By Jack Margerison // Styling By Sarah-Rose Harrison // Grooming By Shanice Noel // Retouching By Fran Hughes
The ability to reflect is one that passes a lot of people by.
It can be difficult to look in the rearview mirror, and reminisce on past triumphs, failures, and opportunities that have shaped us into the people we are today. But often, the best and most prescient reflections come just as one is on the precipice of new heights, and that is exactly where we find Victor Alli.
We catch up with the actor ahead of his turn as Lord John Sterling, the Earl of Kilmartin, in the third season of Netflix’s regency-era romance drama Bridgerton, a show that has taken the world by storm and cemented itself as one of the streaming giant’s major pop culture events. Based on the book series by Julia Quinn, Bridgerton first debuted on Netflix in 2020, and has since become one of the platform’s most-watched English language programs of all time.
As he takes his place in the Bridgerton universe, Alli is set to be catapulted to widespread mainstream attention. Yet, he remains enduringly grounded as he reflects on his career thus far in conversation with tmrw, and talks us through the various highs and lows that brought him to the ton.
For the most part, Alli’s involvement in the latest Bridgerton outing has been kept entirely under lock and key, bar online fan discussion and speculation that the London-based actor may be the one to take on the role of John, who serves as a love interest for Francesca, the sixth child in the titular Bridgerton family, played in season three by Hannah Dodd.
But following the release of the first four episodes on May 16, the curtain is up, and after a period of prolonged secrecy, Alli is taking to the stage. “Sometimes I have to tell myself, ‘Victor, you are in the show’,” Alli says, speaking candidly about his role two weeks out from the third season’s premiere. “It’s good that it’s all under wraps – it helps build anticipation.”
Fans will be surprised to hear that Alli nearly graced their screens one season earlier, as he auditioned for a part in Bridgerton’s second season, which was released in 2022. “I’ve not said this before, but I auditioned for a part in season two,” Alli reveals. “It was for one of the lords, for one episode… I’d never really imagined myself in the show.”
Later, while Alli was starring in The Glass Menagerie in the West End, he was presented with a second opportunity to join the cast. “I sent a tape on a Friday, and they asked me to come in the following week to do a chemistry reading with [Hannah Dodd],” Alli says, recalling the breakneck speed that defined his experience landing the part.
“A day or two later, I got the role. It was so fast, I didn’t have any time to process it.”
Alli soon found his stride on set, working alongside Bridgerton’s talented ensemble cast, which features returning stars Nicola Coughlan, Luke Newton, Simone Ashley, and Jonathan Bailey, to name a few. Alli was thrown into the proverbial deep end on day one, when he shot his first scene in Bridgerton Manor’s drawing room opposite the entire family. But he was given some evergreen advice by Bridgerton veterans Ruth Gemmell, who plays family matriarch Violet, and Claudia Jessie, who plays fifth child and second daughter Eloise.
“They told me, ‘take it all in – you’re here, and it’s so good to see you’,” Alli says. “Everyone was so encouraging. Every day on set, you know, if it was with the boys, and I was doing a scene with [Luke Newton] and [Luke Thompson] and [Martins Imhangbe] – these guys have been doing this together for years, but they didn’t look at me as the new kid. I didn’t feel out of place at all. It was really nice to have each other to lean on.”
Bridgerton’s status as a pop culture juggernaut is not at all lost on Alli, who appears prepared to handle the avalanche of fan discourse that awaited the season as it dropped in two batches of four episodes each in May and June, respectively. Alli was first exposed to the fandom’s enduring passion when photos of him on set with Dodd surfaced in February 2023, setting Bridgerton fan message boards ablaze with speculation.
“The fans are really good at finding things out,” Alli chuckles. “They always put two and two together.”
Though fans will have certain expectations for Alli’s interpretation of John Sterling, whose book counterpart first appears in the sixth Bridgerton novel, When He Was Wicked, the actor is positive the fans will be receptive to what he brings to the character on screen – a credit to both his acting ability and the talent of the Bridgerton scriptwriters.
“John is really shy and charming,” Alli says. “He’s got an interesting sense of humour, and he’s really thoughtful, precise, and caring, especially when it comes to Francesca. The scripts stick as close to the book as possible, but I find there’s more in the script that I can work on. The book gave me a sense of what’s happening to the characters, but the scripts gave more indicators and in-depth descriptions that allowed me to make more creative choices.”
Alli also takes time to credit Bridgerton showrunner Jess Brownell and executive producer Shonda Rhimes for their desire to continually push the envelope when distinguishing the televised Bridgerton universe from the book series, particularly when it comes to the show’s distinct anachronistic diversity.
“What I love about the world of Bridgerton is that they’re always asking, ‘what if?’,” Alli explains. “John Sterling is Scottish, but they chose to not make him a ‘traditional’ Scotsman but instead a Black man. Even in the last season, what they chose to do with Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma, they tried something different, and I think it just works. They’re not afraid to make those decisions and tell a different kind of narrative with different actors. It’s nice to be part of a world that notices and incorporates diversity, and since it’s got a massive fanbase, and all those people are watching from all different parts of the world, it's nice for them to see themselves in some way in the show.”
Long before his arrival in the gilded world of Bridgerton, Alli was inspired to begin his acting journey after landing a role in a far less glamorous locale: detention.
“I was a mischievous kid in school,” Alli reminisces. “I got in trouble for being the class clown and making all my friends laugh… I wasn’t a bad kid, I was just really funny.”
As fate would have it, Alli landed in a detention led by a teacher who happened to be looking for a student to fill in for the lead role in a school play. “The kid who was meant to play the lead never showed up, so she handed me the script and I took over, and I really enjoyed it. That night, I went home and the teacher told me the other kid wasn’t coming back, and the role was mine.”
The play, performed at the Arcola Theatre in East London, was all it took – Alli was hooked. He would go on to study acting at the BRIT School, and he later trained at RADA, one of the world’s most prestigious drama institutions. He landed his first professional role on stage at the age of 17, and has been on a steady rise ever since. Alli, an acting triple-threat, has starred in notable projects spanning the stage and screen – both big and silver. He made his West End debut in 2022, and featured in Belfast and Death on the Nile, two award-winning films both directed by Kenneth Branagh. His television credits include Andor, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and Last Light.
Though Bridgerton may be Alli’s biggest role to date, he is no stranger to high-profile projects – in 2022, he starred as Jim O’Connor in The Glass Menagerie on the West End opposite seven-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams, who played the lead role of Amanda Wingfield. Directed by Jeremy Herrin, the production served as the West End debuts for Alli, Adams and Lizzie Annis, who played Amanda’s daughter, Laura. The production was something of a homecoming for Alli, who after taking time to work in film and television, was able to come back to the medium that started it all.
“I think every actor in the world should do at least one play in their lives,” Alli says. “It’s just so raw – so stripped back. There’s no, ‘cut, action, go again, turn around’. You just get on that bus, and it keeps going until the end of the show, and that’s why I love it so much.”
Alli explains he appreciates his experience working as part of The Glass Menagerie’s small cast, which allowed him to foster a sense of closeness with his co-stars by working alongside the same group of people for each performance. “On Bridgerton, in the ball scenes for example, you can have up to 70 people on set, and then there’s the main cast, and there’s so many people to make connections with. It’s really hard, but it’s also great, because it feels like a massive family day. I quite like the contrast of having a smaller cast – you get to work with and share the stage with the same people every day. It was an invaluable experience.”
As of late, Alli tells us he’s fallen back in love with film, with several releases in the last few years climbing the ranks to reach the heights of his "all-time favorites" list. The ability of a good film to mimic the constraints of a theatre production by creating a sense of urgency and efficiency throughout its runtime, and to generate and dissolve tension by the time the story comes to an end, is key for Alli, who counts David Fincher’s Gone Girl and Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall as a couple examples of such effective filmmaking. But could he name his favorite film of all time? “I physically can’t answer that,” Alli laughs. “There’s just too many.”
When asked if there are any directors he dreams of collaborating with in the future, Alli names someone he’s already crossed paths with in a big way – Jeremy Herrin, who directed him in The Glass Menagerie.
“He’s my favorite director… I asked him if he would ever go into TV or film, and he said ‘we’ll see.' A lot of directors have made that jump. For example: Denzel Washington. He directed plays on stage and now he's directing movies as well. So, I guess making that jump can be quite a shock, but it is possible,” Alli says. “There are so many clever collaborators I would love to work with, and jump on board with their projects. I guess we’ll see!”
You can catch Victor Alli in the third season of Bridgerton.
