01-03-2025
Bridgerton's Regé-Jean Page: ‘The idea of attractive spies is ludicrous'
After mulling it over for a little while, Regé-Jean Page reaches a conclusion: no, he would not make a very good spy. 'Probably not,' he concedes. 'I don't think I'd enjoy holding that kind of attention for that long. The stakes are a bit high.'
Also, he adds, he once learnt about the CIA term 'The Gray Man' (in fact, three years ago he was in a film of that name, opposite Ryan Gosling), which broadly relates to good spies being the sort of people you'd pass in the street without really noticing them.
'So the whole idea of having attractive spies is ludicrous,' Page says. 'That's more where actors are up against it. Because we, for various reasons, as a society like watching attractive people do attractive things, and that's kind of the opposite of the real job, which is being a very, very dull person, doing very meticulous things.'
As Page says the words 'attractive people', his hand gestures across his face, which he will later describe as his 'uniform'. It's as if to say, 'I mean, come on, who wouldn't notice this?' It would be a comically arrogant move coming from most people, but in Page's case it's a simple statement of fact. He really wouldn't last a day out in the field. Not with that smoulder.
We are in an oddly appointed mezzanine room above a photography studio in north London. Page – as he once had cause to tweet, Regé is pronounced like 'reggae', then Jean in the French style, and Page as you'd expect – is expressive and thoughtful, with a booming laugh and an ever-animated right eyebrow.
Cupro shirt jacket, £1,900, Giorgio Armani; Steel De Ville Prestige watch, £4,800, Omega; Bracelet, his own
He rode to global fame as Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, the most swaggering, eligible man in London, in Netflix's Regency-era romp Bridgerton in 2020. Today, though, he is confident but solicitous, and so wary of saying the wrong thing that he seems almost timid. 'I try and listen more than I talk, so I find these situations… unnatural,' he says. 'One of my favourite things about acting is deflecting attention away from myself.'
He is 37 years old, and snug as a bug in a black Armani tracksuit (he was made the face of Armani Code Parfum in 2022). He strokes his own thigh. 'It does magical things that tracksuits shouldn't do – very, very casual but still looks dressed up just a liii-iiitle bit.' He's paired it with Vans skate shoes. Those are very much his own. 'Teenage indie kid,' he nods. 'That's never going anywhere.'
Spies are the topic this afternoon, though, because this spring, four years after Page left Bridgerton and walked straight into the thick of a rumour mill familiar to a lot of handsome young British actors on the verge, the prophecy has been fulfilled.
That is to say, in his next film – an explosive London-set thriller – Page is playing a suave, womanising MI6 secret agent with questionable morals, impeccable tailoring, an inappropriate workplace relationship with a character played by Naomie Harris… and even a wizened mentor portrayed by Pierce Brosnan.
It's just not that spy. That job's very much still open. Instead, Page stars in Black Bag, a stylish, old-fashioned espionage caper from the prolific and garlanded Steven Soderbergh. In it, Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play impossibly stylish, married secret agents. When the latter is suspected of treason, the former has to investigate, testing loyalties in all directions.
Page and Harris, together with Tom Burke and Marisa Abela, play other MI6 employees who all get much too involved in the matter (in Page's case, that's an understatement). It is tricksy and smart. It's also refreshingly action-free. As Soderbergh told The Telegraph recently, 'It's less Fleming than Le Carré – no chases, no fights, just one gunshot. Bond is not my skill set. My core skill set is people in rooms, talking. The trick is making them interesting people and interesting rooms.'
And there really is just one gunshot. Otherwise, the action is largely focused on two extended dinner-party scenes in which the six of them bicker, flirt and talk shop while drinking expensive-looking wine. It's a little like Mr & Mrs Smith crossed with Couples Therapy. I liked it, I tell Page. It's full of bureaucracy, HR meetings and lanyards, which is probably what working for MI6 is actually like.
'Lanyards! Yes! It's about the real people behind the ethos of the secret service,' Page says. Soderbergh would most often ask, 'Well, what's real?' when questioning the set-up of a scene. They drafted in retired agents to advise them on getting it right, and Page drowned himself in research to grasp the culture of a world most of us understand only through bombastic fictional accounts.
'[The job] is mostly about manipulating people and knowing how to make other people do things as opposed to running around shooting things and blowing things up. Usually what spies do is make other people cause international incidents. It's soft power,' he says.
'The film is also about trust and intimacy, and knowing you're being lied to in good faith. Which is an extraordinarily knotty thing to dive into, because that's kind of what the secret service does to all of us: they lie to society in good faith.'
In the photo studio, a renovated old factory, Page gets up to gaze at a panoramic view of Tottenham and Enfield. 'This is insane,' he says, pointing out various sites and trying to orient himself. 'Is that… Wait. Yeah. And then… Ah. This is pretty much my old patch.'
He was born in London, to a Zimbabwean mother, a nurse, and a father who was a Catholic priest. When Regé-Jean was a baby, the family moved to Harare, where he and his younger brother, Tose, were brought up until returning to London for secondary school.
'Harare is close to my heart, it's where I grew up. I'm not sure I'd go back. I probably wouldn't recognise much of it at this point. But if you hadn't been to Hackney in 10 years, you wouldn't recognise it.'
His Zimbabwean accent wasn't strong – his father spoke in an old-fashioned RP, which he picked up – but it was enough to make him an outsider at school in London. 'I think you find a lot of actors are from overseas or military families, they move around and learn to fit in. Learning to assimilate, watching people and taking on that shape.'
As a child he was obsessed with Indiana Jones, and the idea of being an explorer. One of the most powerful moments of his life, he says, was getting a student Travelcard and being able to roam around London as he pleased. As a teenager he painted, wrote poems, and principally made music. With purple dreadlocks and in skinny-fit T-shirts, he sang in a punk band, The Super Nashwan Kids, with his brother, and still records on and off with Tose, a full-time musician, as the duo Tunya.
'Music's a bit of an outlet, because we grew up doing that. Acting's a wonderful resource, but then there's just playing [music] for yourself. Which is an important dividing line: the job side of it, and the link to the celebrity world. I like to find things that are just life, that feed the human being.'
Perforated suede/jersey blouson, £6,400, T-shirt, £590, and linen trousers, £1,400, all Giorgio Armani
He studied at Drama Centre London in King's Cross, which led to appearances in Casualty, a background spot in a Harry Potter film, a couple of episodes of Fresh Meat, and eventually a recurring role in the BBC soap Waterloo Road, which he's still recognised for. 'With soaps, you're spending so much time with people in their homes, which I think subconsciously is really quite intimate,' he says.
The 2016 remake of Roots, the landmark 1977 miniseries set after the era of enslavement in the US, followed, and remains the work Page is most proud of. 'Yeah, probably. Maybe a toss-up between that and Dungeons & Dragons [the 2023 fantasy boardgame adaptation he starred in]. They're certainly the most fun I've had, in very different ways.' Where would Bridgerton rank? 'Ah, I don't rank.'
Five years on from the trauma of the pandemic, it's easy to forget just how preposterously successful Bridgerton was. The super-producer Shonda Rhimes unleashed her period drama on a weak and unsuspecting audience just when it needed it. At the time, the global viewing public was hemmed in and, of necessity, chaste.
Here, then, was a pure, wilfully ahistorical slice of romantic escapism with a side order of incessant bonking. Eighty-two million households worldwide tuned into the show in its first 28 days online – which at the time was almost half of Netflix's entire subscriber base. Page, an instant sex symbol, was a large reason for that. One article during the fevered height of the world's lust was simply headlined: ' Bridgerton 's sex scenes, ranked by how much we see of Regé-Jean Page's butt.'
It's difficult to imagine that being written about a woman, wouldn't he say? He smiles. 'I'll leave that to others. I try not to concern myself too much with what other people think, and keep my eyes on the pitch.'
It was a breakneck ascent. Page had worked his way up to Bridgerton, including with a leading role in another Shondaland (Rhimes's company) production, the legal drama For the People, but to many it felt like the guy from Waterloo Road was suddenly one of the most famous faces in the world. Within weeks he was touted as Britain's next Hollywood star and surely Daniel Craig's successor as James Bond.
(The current party line on the Bond question? 'I am open to the full experience that acting is capable of giving me.')
That seemingly imminent vault into the next echelon of the industry was bolstered when, to the surprise of many, Page left Bridgerton after one series, despite the show carrying on. It seemed like a bold, brave decision. Both parties insisted this was always the plan, that Page was contracted for one series and the story was moving on without the Duke anyway.
That didn't stop voices from the more gossipy suburbs of the internet deciding Page must have quit – a decision, they reasoned, that surely vexed Rhimes, and definitely riled some Bridgerton diehards. 'I do generally try to avoid the darker recesses of the internet…' he says. 'It's only demanding if you're listening. It's the same as when people say, 'Don't believe your own hype.' Don't buy into your own narrative, because it's got nothing to do with you. It's hugely flattering that there's enough of a desire for people to talk about you. But it's got no bearing on you or your work.'
The truth is that Page doesn't appear nearly as motivated by the traditional leading-man rat race as people might expect. Instead, he is much more interested in doing what he wants to do, rather than what others choose for him. After Bridgerton, he admits, 'it got a bit loud there for a minute, and that can be a distraction, if you're not careful. Also, I'm not afraid of being patient and deliberate.'
Linen jacket, and matching gilet, both price on request, Zegna; Silver chain, £500, David Yurman
Naturally, he was offered an awful lot of breeches and tailcoats. 'Yeah, there are less imaginative swings that are easier to read quickly… But there's a pretty good variety of things that come through. And actually I spend a lot of time developing material for myself on the production side, so that's a useful channel.' That includes an upcoming series reimagining Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
He is now based between Los Angeles and London. Black Bag was exclusively shot in his hometown, which was one of the big draws. The other was the chance to watch and learn from Blanchett ('ridiculously good') and Fassbender. The latter has long been a hero to Page. To his endearing astonishment, both the leads knew who he was, which was 'really weird'. It told him he must be doing something right.
'There's that scene in Hunger [in which Fassbender plays the IRA prisoner Bobby Sands], when Michael's with the priest, and it's like 14 minutes of dialogue. I remember watching that and thinking, that – that's it.
'So getting to work with and chat with him, that's what it's about, that's how you lay down the foundations and do this well, for a long time, I think. That goal of just turning up to be seen doesn't interest me as much as turning up in good places with good people who I can learn from.'
Aside from his transatlantic work, he doesn't give much away about his life. Is he in a relationship? It says on Wikipedia that he's been with a nice British woman called Emily for several years. 'I do my best to talk about the rest of my life as little as possible, in public,' he responds, plainly. Fair enough. Hobbies? 'Weirdly enough, even that.' He must have some sick, perverted hobbies.
He goes silent and po-faced for a moment, then bursts into laughter and sighs. 'Not really. I play music with my brother. I play music and… don't sell it.' (He has turned down offers of multi-album deals, he says, 'because then I'd have to find another hobby'.) Fine Italian tailoring, as he has been wearing so well in our shoot today, is not something he was an expert in until fairly recently. 'It wasn't one of my leading hobbies, but I've learnt an awful lot about it, about the importance of how you wear your clothes.'
Linen blouson, £2,900, cargo trousers, £1,500, and leather loafers, £1,100, all Giorgio Armani
I wonder what he considers the worst part of his job. 'The job's great, the expectations outside the job can be a little trying. I think because you use yourself and your body it can be difficult to detach. Internally, because you don't stop thinking about it, and externally, because I walk around in my uniform, which is my face. So there can be an expectation. You need to remember you're not always a performer.'
He will now go home, and wait for LA to wake up, before making some calls and taking some meetings with his producer hat on. In that role, he's in charge, doing the unpredictable work he has always wanted to do, and he gets to choose when the spotlight falls on him.
This is a realisation Page has come to. Everything he does – 'the fashion, the films, the music, the plays' – is connected. 'The chaos of variety helps you realise that. If you do it right, everything gets a bit richer, and hopefully a bit more unexpected,' he says. 'I think the whole point of this job is not to be 'me, me, me'. What you do tells the story. How people interpret it is up to them.'
A shy and deep-thinking artist, hidden in plain sight as a Hollywood hunk. Maybe Regé-Jean Page would make a good secret agent after all.
In the lead image Regé-Jean Page wears silk crew-neck, £1,90; silk-blend trousers, £2,500; suede jacket (held), £5,850; and braces, £250, all Giorgio Armani; Gold De Ville Prestige watch, £13,000, Omega.
