1. Nicola Coughlan is known for her roles as Clare Devlin in Channel 4's sitcom Derry Girls and Penelope Featherington in Netflix's Bridgerton.
53 Facts About Nicola Coughlan
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Nicola Coughlan earned a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination for playing the lead role of Penelope Featherington in the third season of Bridgerton.
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Nicola Coughlan was born on 9 January 1987 in Galway, Ireland, and grew up in Oranmore.
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At the age of five, while watching her sister perform in a school play, Nicola Coughlan decided she wanted to become an actress.
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Nicola Coughlan attended Scoil Mhuire Primary School and Calasanctius College.
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Nicola Coughlan graduated with a degree in English and Classical Civilisation from the National University of Ireland, Galway.
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Nicola Coughlan then went on to train in England at the Oxford School of Drama and Birmingham School of Acting.
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In 1997, at the age of 9, Nicola Coughlan had an uncredited role in the action thriller film My Brother's War.
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Nicola Coughlan made brief appearances in the soap opera Doctors in 2012 and the musical comedy film Svengali in 2013.
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Nicola Coughlan suffered from depression during this period, and received help from her family.
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Nicola Coughlan worked part-time at an optician in Galway, and later responded to an open casting call for Jess and Joe Forever at The Old Vic in London, winning the main role of Jess.
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In 2018, Nicola Coughlan began playing Clare Devlin, one of the main characters in Derry Girls, a sitcom set in Derry, Northern Ireland, in the 1990s.
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Nicola Coughlan has said that her Northern Irish accent was inspired by Girls Aloud's Nadine Coyle.
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In December 2018, Nicola Coughlan competed against some of her Derry Girls co-stars in an episode of The Great British Bake Off.
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Nicola Coughlan played Hannah Dalton in Harlots, a period drama television series set in 18th-century London.
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Nicola Coughlan has stated that she auditioned for the part of Robin Buckley in season 3 of Stranger Things, but did not get the part.
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In 2019, it was announced that Nicola Coughlan had been cast in the Netflix series Bridgerton, which premiered in December 2020.
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Nicola Coughlan played Penelope Featherington, a reluctant debutante and youngest daughter of a nouveau-riche family in Regency era London.
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Nicola Coughlan's role was significantly cut back in the third series of Derry Girls in 2022 due to scheduling conflicts with Bridgerton and the coronavirus pandemic.
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Nicola Coughlan is confirmed to return for the fourth season of Bridgerton.
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In November 2022, Nicola Coughlan was honoured with Glamour's Women of the Year TV Actor Awards.
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In February 2023, Nicola Coughlan was awarded Best Newcomer at the Newport Beach Film Festival UK Honours.
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In July 2023, Nicola Coughlan made a brief appearance in Barbie as Diplomat Barbie, later citing filming clashes for the short time she was in the film.
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Nicola Coughlan portrayed Queen Victoria in the 2023 Dodger Christmas special on BBC One and CBBC.
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Nicola Coughlan starred alongside Lydia West in Channel 4 sitcom Big Mood, a six-part dramedy series about two best friends navigating friendship amidst a mental health crisis.
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Big Mood was Channel 4's most-watched new comedy launch since Derry Girls, and Nicola Coughlan received praise for her role as Maggie Donovan.
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Nicola Coughlan received her first British Academy Television Awards nomination for Best Female Performance in a Comedy.
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Nicola Coughlan won Best Comedy Performance at the TV Choice Awards 2025.
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In December 2024, Nicola Coughlan played the title role in the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special, "Joy to the World", written by Steven Moffat, alongside Barbie co-star Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor.
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In October 2024, Nicola Coughlan was named in Time 100 Next's 2024.
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Nicola Coughlan was named in Variety's 2024 Power Women of Hollywood.
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Nicola Coughlan was the cover of Time's 28 October 2024 issue, having been named as one of Time's Next Generation Leaders.
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Nicola Coughlan was IMDb's second Most Popular Breakout Star of 2024, and seventh Most Popular Star of 2024.
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Nicola Coughlan was named as one of the best-dressed women of 2024 by Harper's Bazaar UK.
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Nicola Coughlan was named in Elle's "40 for 40: The Women In Film And Television Power List," which lists women that will shape what - and how - you watch for decades to come.
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Nicola Coughlan will be honoured with the Konbini Commitment Award, which recognizes a talent or a series that has distinguished itself by the artistic quality and the societal, innovative or revolutionary dimension of its work, at the 8th Cannes International Series Festival.
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Nicola Coughlan will have a starring role in the upcoming feature drama-thriller, Love and War, about a woman who must travel to Syria to find her abducted daughter.
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Nicola Coughlan has narrated several audiobooks, including Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen, The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue, Listening Still by Anne Griffin, Aren't We Lucky by Sarah Forbes Stewart, and an Audible Original, Misdirected by Lucy Parker, alongside Gwilym Lee.
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In 2021, along with Big Mood creator and writer, Camilla Whitehill, Nicola Coughlan co-created, co-wrote and starred in Whistle Through the Shamrocks, a six-episode scripted comedy podcast with a star-studded cast, including Ben Miller, Louisa Harland, Stephanie Beatriz and Jonathan Van Ness.
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Nicola Coughlan presented History's Youngest Heroes, a twelve-episode history podcast focusing on the stories of twelve extraordinary people from across history, on BBC Radio 4.
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In March 2022, Nicola Coughlan became the muse and face of Pat McGrath Labs x Bridgerton II make-up collection.
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In October 2023, Nicola Coughlan partnered with Uber Eats Australia for its campaign to help address period poverty.
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In June 2024, Nicola Coughlan starred in Skims' latest campaign for the brand's Soft Lounge Collection.
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In February 2025, Nicola Coughlan starred in Neutrogena's 'Main Character Energy' campaign.
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Nicola Coughlan has been often recognised for her youthful looks.
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Nicola Coughlan shared that she found the discourse about her age "funny"; she has never hidden her age, despite having been advised to do so.
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In October 2017, in a now-deleted tweet, Nicola Coughlan shared that she had been teen-aged when she was told by an "older, respected director" that if she wanted to impress him in an acting competition, she should perform naked.
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In 2018, while Nicola Coughlan was appearing on stage in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at London's Donmar Warehouse, she wrote a piece for the Guardian calling out the unfair scrutiny of women's bodies common in theatre criticism.
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In February 2019,28 women with their suitcases led by Nicola Coughlan crossed London's Westminster Bridge to demand the decriminalization of abortion in Northern Ireland.
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Nicola Coughlan is an ambassador for LauraLynn Ireland's Children's Hospice, which provides specialist palliative and supportive care services.
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On 12 April 2022 upon the release of the third series of Derry Girls, Nicola Coughlan protested the attempted privatisation of Channel 4, posting a picture of herself holding up a middle finger on Instagram and linking to a change.
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In December 2024, Nicola Coughlan partnered up with HURR and Choose Love to rent out a selection of her wardrobe, with proceeds going to Choose Love, a UK-based charity supporting refugees and displaced people all over the world.
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Nicola Coughlan started a fundraiser for Not a Phase, a charity helping trans people, in response.