Everything You Should Know About Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey, TV's Hottest Viscount

When asked about a job that changed his life by Harper's Bazaar during a January 2021 interview, Jonathan said that it was working on the lemon-curd line at a local factory as a kid. It was a tough job, and according to Jonathan, it made him realise the value of hard work — and how much he hated doing manual labour. "Every summer, Christmas, holidays, at school, there's something about having to open up a piping hot vat of lemon curd to check the temperature at five in the morning . . . It made me realise that I don't ever want to eat or have lemon curd ever again," he joked.

Jonathan loves music just as much as he loves theatre. He told The Standard in February 2018 that his love for music was likely influenced by his church growing up, which was in the village of Benson in South Oxfordshire, England. "We used to go to church and, musically, I remember that being a massive influence," he said. "It had a band so it was very upbeat and semi-happy-clappy. It made me who I am."

The church also gave him a sense of community, which is something he also values still today. "I have that strong instinct for community and I feel it very heavily when I see it break down," he added. "I worry that people are being pushed more and more into their own heads and it's become about looking after number one. For me, that's a modern-day horror story."

Before coming out as gay in 2018, Jonathan was discouraged from opening up about his sexuality by a surprising source. "The most conservative conversations I've had about me being honest about my sexuality in this day and age have come from gay men in the industry," he told Attitude in December 2020. ". . . They're either people who work in publicity, or there's also been casting directors who have put the call into my agent to say, 'Just so that you know, the way that this is going to be sold is that it's a gay story written by gay writers for gay actors. So by just taking the role . . .'"

Because of that, Jonathan kept his sexual preference hidden from the public. "This was at a stage where perhaps I was coming to terms with my own sexuality, I hadn't necessarily hidden it . . . But I've never been not honest about it," he added. "It's just there had never been a need to talk about it. There's a sense of shame, I think, that's palpable throughout gay men within the industry."

If Jonathan hadn't pursued his passion for theatre, he may have taken on a very different role. "If I wasn't an actor, I think I'd love to be a primary school teacher," he told Harper's Bazaar. "I mean, I think all teachers are basically modern-day heroes. And I love going to see my niece in her nativities at school. I always think they're just so sweet and lovely. Watching the next generation of Baileys grow up, you just realise how informative those years are and I think being a part of that is pretty special."

When asked by Vingt Sept magazine in December 2020 whether he would ever give up life on stage for film work, Jonathan said he would always return to theatre. "It's different for everyone — but for me, I think you get better as an actor on stage," he said. "You get a chance to tell the same story differently every night . . . I thrive on it. Theatre is the only thing that when I can't see it or be a part of it, I go a bit cold turkey."