She couldn’t have known being a “Bridgerton” diehard would come in handy when watching and rewatching the series, but Michelle Mao is thankful now that she was.

The actor was putting together her audition tape for a mysterious new show with dummy sides, but instantly recognized the scene as one from the “Bridgerton” spin-off series “Queen Charlotte.” 

“Because I was such a fan of the show — and quite literally a stan, I think we can say that, I’m not embarrassed — I literally clocked it immediately,” Mao says over Zoom from Vancouver, where she’s currently working. “I knew the scene by heart. I immediately texted my reps and I was like, ‘This is for ‘Bridgerton.’”

The 27-year-old would go on to land the role of Rosamund Li for the show’s fourth season, part two of which is out now. Rosamund is one of the season’s antagonists, the eldest stepsister of season four’s lead Sophie, and it took Mao almost six months to book.

“Every time I sent in a tape, in my head, it was like, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m not going to hear back,’ but I did my best and I feel happy about what I sent in,’” she says. “I’d never acted in a British accent before, and it’s really funny when I look back on my tapes, which I was actually just doing last night. I’m like, ‘somebody saw the potential there, and I’m so thankful that they did.’ I cringe when I watch it. The accent is going in and out.”

Just to be safe, Mao kept working on the accent in the meantime, and had it locked down by the time she arrived on set.

The experience on-set kept her insulated from the mega-fandom that follows “Bridgerton,” but the show’s executives prepared her and Katie Leung, who plays Lady Araminta Gun, for potential pushback about playing the evil stepmother and stepsister.

“At the beginning of shooting, the showrunner Zoomed with all of us individually and was like, ‘You need to be prepared. We have resources, especially for you and Katie being the antagonists, and because people are so passionate about these characters, they might vent their frustration.’ And I remember thinking in my head like, ‘No, I don’t think I’m going to need that.’ You always think you’re that one person who’s above internet hate,” Mao says. “And then it came out and I was like, ‘Oh, people are really passionate about this here.’”

She’s mainly looked at the response in a positive way, in that she did a good job of portraying the antagonist. 

“I always did, but I have even more respect now for actresses who play antagonistic characters because there’s so much heavy lifting having to be done with you creating a fleshed out enough character, and filling in the gaps of why this person became the way they are — because a villain is never a villain to themselves,” Mao says.

Mao’s journey into acting was “long and scenic,” beginning first as a hobby. Born in Nashville, she moved to Hong Kong as a baby after her dad got a job there, and spent her formative years in Hong Kong and Beijing. Growing up, she participated in a lot of theater but it was always framed to her as a hobby. 

“It was never ever going to be something more than that,” she recalls.

It wasn’t until she moved to Berkeley at age 18 for college and started to take acting classes at a playhouse that she realized it might be more than just a hobby. 

“On my first day at the playhouse, the teacher was like, ‘What you are is what you spend the most time doing a week. So if you spend the most time acting, then you’re an actor.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, you’re so right.’ And so it was never like a ‘waiting to become an actor’ thing. It was always like, ‘I’m an actor and one day I’ll get to do it professionally,’” Mao says.

Between the releases of “Bridgerton” parts one and two, Mao traveled to Sundance for the premiere of her movie “Zi,” from famed director Kogonada. The entirely independent film was shot just this past fall in Hong Kong, and the cast is currently weighing distribution offers. 

“We’re trying to see if there are any alternative routes to distribution, or if there’s a way that we break open that whole chain of what a normal independent film would do,” Mao says. “Are there any alternative routes that people have been experimenting with? That’s been at the forefront of our conversation because we made this film for basically nothing, and I don’t think we’ll ever get a chance again to be so free with how we experiment with a film’s release.”

Ahead, Mao will be seen in a yet-to-be-disclosed new role that she’s been doing training for, which has her in the best shape of her life.

“It’s very different to ‘Bridgerton,’ is all I’ll say,” she says.