Bridgerton director Gia-Rayne B. Harris was no stranger to the world of Regency romance even before she directed “Yes or No,” the steamy fifth episode of the Netflix hit’s fourth season. As a past winner of the Women Directing Mentorship — a partnership between Shondaland and SeriesFest — she shadowed Bridgerton’s producing director Tom Verica the previous year.

Still, when she learned she’d be directing her first-ever love scene, she gasped. “I grew up Catholic in Mississippi, so my initial response was probably like this,” she tells Gold Derby while making the sign of the cross. “Just a little prayer. Then I was like, ‘Yes, I’m in. Thank God it’s gonna be me. I can’t wait to create this magic with them.”

Written by Lauren Gamble — who also penned Season 3’s viral carriage tryst between Penelope and Colin — “Yes or No” finds Benedict (Luke Thompson) struggling to understand why asking Sophie (Yerin Ha) to be his mistress at the midseason break was an epic romantic fail. She lets him hear all about it after he follows her into his bedroom. Asking when he ever stops to think about her, Benedict answers, “Every moment of every day…”

“You deserve the very world, but how else am I to be with a woman society has made it impossible for me to be with? The woman I was foolish enough to fall in love with,” Benedict continues. He goes on to tell Sophie how she’s shocked him back to life, turning him from someone who could not sit still to someone who wishes to be in one place — beside her — for as long as he might live. “If only you would love me back,” he says with the insecurity of a second son who’s never felt enough.

Bit Sophie still worries that he’ll change his mind. “You are the person I’ve been searching for all my life,” Benedict counters as he professes his love — his voice growing soft, his lip quivering, his arms raised. And that’s when they consummate their forbidden relationship,

“I’m giving Luke all the credit for that ‘I love you’ moment,” says Harris, who is also an alum of Netflix’s Series Director Program. “That little arm gesture just did me in. That’s saying, ‘I’m here. I’m surrendering. But now it’s up to you.’ Seeing her then make the full walk back to him, I had full body chills on the day. And I have chills when I watch it, because it’s a chemistry and an understanding of character that you can’t direct. You just have to stay out of the way of it.”

For his part, Thompson knew a declaration of love is “a seminal moment” in any Bridgerton season. “It’s a beautiful speech,” the actor says. “I wanted it to honor the fact that there is that expectation, but also to make it true to the character.

“It’s infused by how Benedict feels about love and feels about really, really saying to someone, ‘I love you,'” Thompson continues. “I feel like he’s never said it to anyone. Benedict is very good at big gestures and big sentiment. The thing that always trips him up is what happens the next day, or what happens afterwards.”

Harris says she hopes Benedict’s speech wins him back the trust of fans still smarting over his indecent Episode 4 proposal. “It’s one of the best confessions in Bridgerton history because it’s not just a ‘I want you’ — it’s ‘I want to finally stop running,'” the director notes. “He’s been the person who doesn’t want to be tied down, and he’s admitting to himself that his life would be better if he was with her, and that’s a hard thing to choose.”

If that speech doesn’t earn Benedict goodwill, what happens next should. Sophie says she loves him and the two kiss as a Vitamin String Quartet cover of Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” swells. In a Bridgerton first, it’s the maiden — not the man — who begins undressing her body, first by removing her delicate mobcap and literally letting her hair down.

Ha says that choice made practical sense in addition to being sexy. “She’s of lower rank. She knows how to dress and undress herself,” the actress observes. “A maid doesn’t have someone else to do that for her.”

“It felt really important for Sophie to take some leadership in the intimacy scene,” showrunner Jess Brownell adds. “Gia-Rayne and I talked about using somewhat kinky power dynamics within that scene, allowing Sophie to be a little more dominant. Of course, we still want to preserve the romantic fantasy of the man coming in and really taking care of her. But we ultimately landed in a place where they are at least equals in that sex scene.”

“Equals” was an important reminder that Bridgerton intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot gave Harris when they first looked over her storyboarded shot list. “She said this is the first time [a new couple] can make eye contact and remove their clothes, because all the previous women have had to be undone by the man,” Harris recalls. “So I was like, ‘Oh, we get to do something special here.’ And then the blocking became about showing that equality and duality throughout.”

Since this is also the first time that a Bridgerton maiden has lost her virginity in a love scene with multiple sex positions, the director ended up studying the Kama Sutra for images that conveyed that equality. “Let’s be super honest, this would not be a quick session — Benedict knows what he’s doing,” Harris says pointedly.

She also thought about why Benedict, who has been canonically intimate with both men and women, would find fulfillment solely with Sophie: “I think it’s because there’s an equal give and take,” Harris observes. “There’s this natural thing where sometimes he’s in charge, and sometimes she’s in charge. She fulfills the thing in him that needs to feel that balance. And as a director, the visual design of the scene was always about ‘How do I show that?’ That’s why she pushes him toward the bed, but then he puts her on the nightstand, and then they both join the bed together. All of that was part of that subtextual conversation [about balance].”

The actors had considerable input in the choreography of the “stunt,” as Harris describes the sex scenes. After the director presented her initial idea to Ha and Thompson, she left them alone with Talbot to discuss it in more depth. “What they found together was 10 times better than what I had originally imagined,” Harris says, pointing out that their elaborate costumes had many more pieces than she was anticipating, requiring her to narrow down what was most essential to show them removing.

To that end, they all agreed that Sophie should handle disrobing her final garment. “All these choices should be advancing their love story, not just hot,” the director explains. “Her consent to this was important. By having her take off that final piece, Sophie’s saying to Benedict, ‘I’m saying yes to you, even though you asked me that crazy question in Episode 4. I also see that I want this and I want you and love is enough.'”

Additionally, Harris presented both actors with an iPad showing her final plans for the scene, telling them they could cross out any frame they didn’t feel comfortable with — no discussion needed. “I was told later by a mentor why that’s a tricky thing, because actors could get really in their heads and delete everything,” she says. “But these two people were able to just do the exercise and say, ‘I trust you to play.’ On the day, we were really clear on what we were doing and I stuck to that.”

Harris is pretty sure that everyone who saw a recent public screening of “Yes or No” in Philadelphia was blushing after that hot and heavy sequence. “The crowd went silent because how weird is it to watch [a scene like that] in front of a bunch of strangers?” she says with a laugh. “But I’m hoping when people are at home alone, they’re fanning themselves.”

In fact, when we spoke with her Harris was planning a family Zoom watch party, with everyone pressing “play” at the same time — including the priest who received the invite against her recommendation. “I might evaporate. I might not be around to direct anymore because I’ll be dead,” Harris said. Obviously, Gold Derby followed up with her after that priest-attended watch party.

“When I hopped off our call, I found out that my mother had invited not one but two priests, so naturally I almost canceled the party,” she reported via email. “However, after watching with their cameras on, one of them simply said — with eyebrows raised — ‘I’ve seen the several seasons. I would’ve watched regardless. Proud of you, Rayne!’ So apparently priests watch Bridgerton, too!