Regé-Jean Page On His Family’s Reaction To Steamy 'Bridgerton' Scenes: 'No One Was Sufficiently Prepared'

Regé-Jean Page shared his family's reaction when they watched his steamy scenes in the Netflix period drama series "Bridgerton."

Page joined Chris Rock, John Boyega, Jonathan Majors and Josh O'Connor at The Hollywood Reporter's annual Emmy Roundtable series. During the interview, Page shared that he was not thrilled to have his family watch the intense romance series. He also admitted that it was more difficult on his part to watch himself on the show than he expected.

"No one was sufficiently prepared. I wasn’t sufficiently prepared, and I was there," Page shared. "I think people were grateful for the intensity of the romantic aspects of 'Bridgerton'; I’m not sure how grateful I was to watch it for myself. It was overwhelming. But I think people were looking to be overwhelmed."

Meanwhile, Page's family just chose to not make a big fuss out of it because many were happy with the show.

"My family doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by my backside, specifically, too often, but they’ll take it on this occasion because everyone seems to be terribly happy," he added.

In the same interview, Page was asked about his reaction and comfort level in being a sex symbol. The interviewer wanted to know if he wanted to scream and let the people know that he is a highly trained actor who can do other things, too.

"I don’t think I need to scream, because hopefully I can do that in the work," he explained.

As for his comfort level in being tagged as a sex symbol, Page said he cared about his family’s thoughts about it more.

"And to the last question, there is a responsibility to my family. I think I owed them that side of things because I know that, for instance, my brother finds it incredibly hard to watch Roots, he can’t do it. And I need to look after my family in the more traumatizing work, as much as I look after them when they’re going to have a couple of blushes," he said.

"I thought that I owed them that for putting them through the previous trauma. And there’s always a conversation with the people you love watching you go through these empathy bridges we’re talking about, these very far removed experiences that are massive — and I keep myself honest by imagining the rest of the audience is my family, and I owe them balance in that experience, too."

Page is not returning for another season of "Bridgerton" despite being offered $50,000 per episode to return to the series for three to five episodes. According to an insider, he wasn't happy about the plans for his character.

"Regé is not coming back to ‘Bridgerton’ because of creative differences with [executive producer] Shonda Rhimes and her team," an unnamed Hollywood insider told Page Six. "He wasn’t happy with what was planned for his character for Season 2, which would have kept him a player but not the focal point of the show."