It’s been two months since I last spoke to Hannah Dodd. She’s fresh from a trip to Australia visiting her sister, circling back around the globe into a world of filming Bridgerton, honing her craft and doing press — which leads us nicely back into the bedroom of her London flat, ready to discuss a topic that Dodd often labels difficult: herself. “You bleached your hair,” she exclaims as we connect — an effortless display of Dodd’s own eye for detail. But so much more has changed since our last conversation: audiences worldwide saw Dodd transform into the plot-twist character of Enola Holmes 2. She plunged into the filming process of Bridgerton season three. Her friends have been moving houses and getting engaged. And Dodd, as always, is still taking in as much as she can along the way.
In November, we weren’t really allowed to speak about a lot of the projects you had going on at the time, but I’m now allowed to ask about them!
I know! I keep thinking, have I done something wrong? Why am I not trusted? [Laughs.]
I guess we have to keep the mystery up for as long as possible! Speaking of which, now that Enola Holmes 2 has been out for a few months, can you tell us what the reception has been like?
Amazing. I think we were number one in 91 countries, which just blows my mind. I still can’t believe it. It was just really nice seeing people learning about the real Matchstick Girls, that was really special to me — seeing people getting behind these women that have been forgotten in history.
How many people knew that your character, Cicely, was actually the film’s mystery character, Sarah Chapman?
I mean, nobody. I had to keep those scenes so quiet from all of my friends and family. But I think when they finally saw it, they knew pretty quickly what was going to happen because they know me well. To play a character like that is such a privilege as an actor, you get to play with so many different elements because of the two sides of the role.
How do you think you would have coped living in that time period?
I’d like to think I would be like my character but I think that’s probably quite arrogant. But no, I don’t think I would have done too well back then. I hear women’s rights weren’t great…So I would have a lot to say about that! [Laughs.] I used to work in a show about a time traveller and we always got asked about whether or not we think we could have lived in a different time period and it always came back to one thing: food. Most of what we eat today, we wouldn’t have had access to. There was no Deliveroo in the 19th century. So absolutely not.
