Photo: LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX
Regé-Jean Page made quite thegracefulentrance into our lives —but is leaving almost as quickly as he arrived.
On April 2, the actor announced he was leaving Netflix’s wildly popularBridgertonafter playing the dreamy Duke of Hastings for one season in the Shonda Rhimes creation.
“The ride of a life time,” he wrote in a farewell message on Instagram. “It’s been an absolute pleasure and a privilege to be your Duke.”
Speaking of Instagram, much can be learned about the star fromhis feed(and a series of recent interviews). Read on for more to know about the rising star.
- He Started Acting as a Kid
Page, 31, grew up between Zimbabwe and the U.K., according to an interview withInStyle, and currently splits his time between London and Los Angeles.
Regé-Jean Page/Instagram
He began acting at a young age, landing his first “role” as the Little Drummer Boy in his school’s nativity play. “And oh how I played! Such drums, such playing!” he joked to Netflix’sQueue & A. “I clearly had a career in musical theater ahead of me and somewhere took a left turn and started getting all dour and serious and doing emotionally broken dukes.” Clearly, he’s got a deft sense of humor as well.
- He Wanted to “Be an Explorer” When He Grew Up
Page says he was first drawn to acting when he learned he wasn’t “very good at anything elseat all,” he toldQueue & A. “Also I wanted to be an explorer when I was a kid. That was my first idea of what would be a really great thing to do in the world: to discover unknown things and pick around in them and see what you could bring back home to go, ‘Look! The world is bigger than you thought it was.'”
“Acting is the closest thing I found to that, honestly,” he continued. “It’s about exploring and getting the opportunity to live in worlds and understand people that I would have no reason otherwise to interact with. One day I can be a spaceman, the next day I can be president, the day after that I can travel 200 years into the past. It’s this really freeing profession. It’s a great way to spend your time as a human: learning about other humans and then sharing that knowledge.”
- He’s Determined to Showcase Black Joy
For Page, who starred in Shondaland’sFor the Peoplefor two seasons, roles inBridgertonas well asSylvie’s Love, a romantic film set in 1960s Harlem now streaming on Amazon, hold particular significance, as he feels Black joy has rarely been shown in historical context on the screen.
“What happens in culture often is, you go back in time and only white folks are happy,” he toldInStyle. “And you know what? We’ve all known how to smile since the beginning of time. We’ve all gotten married since the beginning of time. We’ve all had romance, glamour, and splendor. Representing that is incredibly important because period drama for people who aren’t white shouldn’t mean only spotlighting trauma.”
Speaking toEntertainment Weeklyabout the responsibility of representing a wider range of Black stories, he added, “We’re at a moment in time where it is part of my job for people in my generation of artists to start telling those stories and filling them in.”
- He’s a Romantic
David M. Benett/Getty
That being said, Page appears to keep his own love life private, with no indications on his social media accounts of whether or not he’s as much the aloof-yet-eligible bachelor as his Duke is.
He’s a Renaissance Man
He Sings (and Hums)
Tunya/YouTube
- He Has Very Particular Snack Preferences
In hisInStyleinterview, Page revealed that he recently — or as he more charmingly put it, “of late” — has “accidentally invented my new favorite bagel at home. It is a blueberry bagel with cream cheese and cherry conserve, and it’s kind of like this weird cheesecake bagel that is so wrong and so right.”
To Netflix’sQueue & A, he added that he’s addicted to coffee. “I’m a being of caffeine when I work. It is a vice, but as far as vices go, I’ll take it.”
Bridgertonis now streaming on Netflix.Sylvie’s Loveis currently available on Amazon.
source: people.com
