Regé-Jean Page wants to set the record straight about who really delivered one of the “Bridgerton” series’ most memorable lines, because, contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t him.
The 31-year-old actor stole viewers’ hearts with his breakout turn as the brooding Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, and one scene appeared to stick with them above the rest. Since the 2020 release of Shonda Rhimes’ hit Netflix series, fans have oftentimes assigned one of the show’s most iconic lines that was delivered during the scene to Page. However, during a sit-down with Variety’s “Making a Scene” presented by HBO, he reminded the audience that his character did not utter the “Bridgerton” beloved “I burn for you” line, which was in fact delivered by his co-star, Phoebe Dynevor.
“I do not say, ‘I burn for you.’ It’s not my line! That’s Daphne’s line!” he laughed starting at 4:40. “There was never this kind of ‘I burn for you’ in the Batman voice. It’s not a thing. It’s the Mandela effect. Everyone clearly was feeling very burned for, which I’ll take as a compliment.”
Fans may have confused Page’s “Saturday Night Live” appearance, during which he did deliver the line as part of a skit, with what happened in the series, where it was actually Dynevor’s Phoebe Bridgerton who uttered the iconic line.
“You have no idea what lines people are going to care about, and that was surprising to me,” Dyvenor explained of the wedding night scene line’s popularity. “It wasn’t like I saw ‘I burn for you’ in the script and was like, ‘This is going to be what people talk about.’ I think the key to dialogue like that is just to make it as organic and as real as possible, and I think there’s no other way to play saying a line like that than to make it an inward feeling.”
Page shocked fans with news of his departure from the series after the first season’s conclusion, but show boss Shonda Rhimes maintains his exit was in line with the book series the show was based on. “That was the plan: Come and do one season as the duke,” she explained. “Anything else, that was extra and wasn’t really the plan when we started, wasn’t the plan when we finished.”
