Simone Ashley stands on a red carpet inside Arth Bar & Kitchen in Culver City, California, perfectly poised in a white gown she’s wearing with serene confidence. Suddenly, you can see the gears in her mind shift, and her easy smile widens into the kind that suggests she has always known the answer to the question in front of her and can’t wait to share it. “It’s coconut oil!” she tells Tudum, grinning.

Anyone who has watched Ashley’s star-making turn in Bridgerton Season 2 — as horse-riding heroine Kate Sharma — can guess what the 27-year-old is explaining: It’s the product Kate smooths through the tresses of her younger sister, Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran), in this season’s third episode, “A Bee in Your Bonnet.” While Kate can’t mend Edwina’s heart after the particularly disappointing dinnertime blunder committed by her crush Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), she can offer a helping hand in her sister’s self-care routine. 

The exchange embodies a sororal sweetness that transcends cultural boundaries — whether you’re a desi woman, like the actors portraying the Sharma sisters, or not, you understand the love between them. That’s the reason South Asian performers like Ashley, who are finally seeing the most treasured parts of their culture acknowledged in a genre that usually excludes them, are so thrilled about this season. “Many different cultures can relate to that really intimate moment that two sisters share. Charithra just blows me away,” Ashley continues on the red carpet, speaking at a dinner thrown to celebrate South Asian culture. “My heart truly broke for her. It’s all about rooting for your sister, lifting her and trying to take care of her, even though your heart might be somewhere else.” 

Liam Daniel/Netflix

Nonbinary author and advocate Alok Vaid-Menon, who also uses the mononym Alok, was equally touched by the scene because it mirrored their own upbringing. “It’s a scene that I grew up seeing. It felt so intimate to show something that’s so familiar,” they say. “I think that’s the success of having this kind of force in Hollywood now: [Simple] scenes like that can speak to such larger themes.”

While Edwina’s sisterly oil treatment is one of the most memorable cultural moments in Season 2, it’s not the only one. Kate and Edwina refer to each other as didi and bon, the Bengali terms for older sister and sister, respectively. The iconic Bollywood song “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham” is used as a bit of time-bending musical support. And, when Edwina is set to marry Viscount Bridgerton, Kate and their mother Lady Mary (Shelley Conn) prepare her for marriage with a Haldi ceremony, painting her body with a turmeric-based paste to bless the bride-to-be.  “It was so special to me. I got married a couple years ago. I had my own Haldi, with my own sister and mom there,” says Teen Vogue’s editor in chief, Versha Sharma, who hosted the dinner at Arth. “I never thought that I would see it depicted on mainstream television, in the way that it was... So, that was a really thrilling and emotional moment for sure.” South Asian actors are so impassioned about Bridgerton Season 2 that they’re ready to jump inside it — or, at least, jet to London to join the Sharma family.

Liam Daniel/Netflix

After all, Ashley did suggest that Kate and Anthony’s love story is going to continue in an already confirmed Season 3. “I’m wearing a corset and a pearl necklace. I came [sartorially] screaming tonight. I’m not trying to hide it,” actor and content creator Liza Koshy, who starred in the dance-themed Netflix rom-com Work It, says of her dream to add Bridgerton to her resume. She’s prepared to do anything from play Kate’s “friend from home” to “someone who comes in and just wipes [Kate’s] mouth.” 

Although Never Have I Ever leading lady Maitreyi Ramakrishnan isn’t sure she has enough “grace” to fit in with the posh Bridgerton clan, she does have some ideas about where she’d thrive in the cast. “Maybe I could be that rug-rat cousin [for the Sharmas],” she muses while proudly wearing Tamil designer Ashwin Thiyagarajan. “I would fly down to England to be on set just to be with Simone. She’s such a gem. I think the world of her. She is so freaking cool.” 

Until Shondaland comes calling, Ramakrishnan hopes Season 2’s success — paired with her own YA comedy series’ accomplishment — continues to expand perceptions about what someone who looks like her can do on-screen. “We can do it all. We can occupy these spaces that we normally and traditionally haven’t,” she continues. “We’re getting to see brown girls in different lights, different genres. It’ll only help us open the doors to other genres. Like where’s our horror? Our psychological thriller?”

While we wait for Ramakrishnan’s thriller, Indian actor Swara Bhasker, star of Netflix’s modern-day Hindi-language comedy Bhaag Beanie Bhaag, reminds us that Indian-based productions have been churning out all types of projects for decades (Bollywood is a multibillion-dollar industry). Therefore, there are already countless gems awaiting fans whose appetites for brown girl–led titles have been whetted by the Sharmas. “There will just generally be a better world if we all learn to listen to each other’s stories,” Bhasker says. So, if you’re looking for your next desi heroine, she has a suggestion: “Please, watch my show.”