Meet Charithra Chandran, Bridgerton’s 'Edwina Sharma'

Charithra Chandran rose to fame with her portrayal of Edwina Sharma on the second season of Netflix's Bridgerton. While she had done theatre and shows before Bridgerton, it is Shonda Rhimes' popular period romantic series that brought her to the limelight. 

Chandran, the only child of Indian immigrant doctors, lives in Oxford city with her mother. Although she is famously known for her role of 'Edwina Sharma', she has a strong academic background. She is a graduate in philosophy, politics and economics from the Oxford University and has worked with New Policy Institute (NPI). She also interned with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2018. 

The actress can speak English, Hindi and Tamil fluently and also has a penchant for Bollywood-style music and dance, according to her agency profile. She is skilled in sports like hockey, ice skating, squash and tennis.  

On her character Edwina

Charithra Chandran became a popular name with her performance in Bridgerton, which is streaming on Netflix since March 25. Chandran believes that her character in Bridgerton is a definition of "do not judge a book by its cover". 

She told the magazine Bustle, “The last thing I wanted for Edwina was for her to seem like a manic pixie dream type person who is so sweet and naive. That’s boring. The challenge was to make her an authentic human being, whilst still keeping all of that naivety and diamond-esqueness.” 

Prior to Bridgerton

Chandran completed her graduation from Oxford University in 2019 with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and is trained with National Youth Theatre, whose alumni include Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley and David Oyelowo. 

She also worked part-time for the New Policy Institute after taking a gap year, when she did drama as a hobby and turned down a job offer from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). At NPI, she was a research analyst with special interests in economic justice and racial equality. Her internship at BCG was in the Public Sector practice area.  

She also told the magazine, “Before [acting], I never really made conscious decisions as to whether to stay on the train or get off. I was just blindly passing through the stations.” 

Born in Scotland’s Perth, she is also known for her plays like Drunk Enough to Say I Love You; House of Bernarda Alba; and Medea and movies like Being Kate Brown; The Love Bet; Class S and The Talents. Bridgerton is her second TV role as she featured as Sabina in the popular series Alex Rider and is currently working on the animated series Pillow Talk. 

(With Bustle inputs) 

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