\n<\/p>\n
But Denise\u2019s days of romantic strife may be over. In the Prime Video series\u2019 finale, her character couples up with Jeremiah in the months after his wedding to Belly (Lola Tung<\/strong><\/a>) is called off. Briggs learned shortly after filming began that her character was destined to end up with the younger Fisher brother. \u201cJenny sat me down and told me where the arc was going, and I was shocked,\u201d says the actor, who revealed the spoiler to only her mother and boyfriend. Briggs says that cast members received the season\u2019s scripts two at a time\u2014and that all of the Paris-set portions of the final two episodes were blacked out from the versions she received.<\/p>\n Although I am privy to the spoiler before our first conversation, Briggs plays coy about Denise and Jeremiah until our official post-finale Zoom call. There, she shares her theory on when things became romantic between the former coworkers and temporary roommates. \u201cInitially, she did find him attractive, but obviously he was engaged and she didn\u2019t take him seriously,\u201d says Briggs. \u201cSo she was rather reserved and slightly antagonistic around him.\u201d<\/p>\n As the first person in her family to go to college, Denise is weary of the familial advantages enjoyed by \u201cnepo baby\u201d Jeremiah and her fellow coworker Steven (Sean Kaufman<\/strong>), Belly\u2019s older brother. \u201cShe\u2019s had to work twice as hard to get into any room,\u201d says Briggs, \u201cwhich is why I think she passes such harsh judgment on Steven and Jeremiah. That\u2019s a fear of hers\u2014these guys waltz in, and in six months, they\u2019re [her] boss\u2026. But once Denise gets to know both Steven and Jeremiah, she releases that resentment because she admits to seeing the good, the talent, the passion in them.\u201d<\/p>\n Witnessing that ambition is also what leads Denise to confess her attraction to Jeremiah in the final episode. \u201cTalent and passion are so attractive, for Denise especially,\u201d says Briggs. \u201cWhen I was diving into why she chose to go into venture capital, I determined that she was really passionate about early-stage [venture capital] because that\u2019s where you get in on the ground floor and facilitate growth. Now she sees Jeremiah transforming this passion [for cooking] into a viable career path, and she wants to help facilitate.\u201d<\/p>\n In the lead-up to this surprising conclusion, Briggs says, she\u2019s had mainly positive fan interactions. \u201cKnock on wood, haven\u2019t got any weirdos,\u201d she jokes, though she admits that Jeremiah has garnered some backlash for his onscreen actions<\/a>\u2014prompting the series to issue its impassioned audience stern anti-bullying guidance<\/a>. \u201cI feel defensive for all the characters,\u201d Briggs says when I ask if she feels protective of Jeremiah. \u201cI just want people to have empathy, but I understand any good art is going to make you have opinions.\u201d Although she didn\u2019t see all of the memes<\/a> about Jeremiah\u2019s love for a certain dark chocolate mirror glaze cake coming. She saw the cake mentioned in a script, but \u201cI think I just glazed over it,\u201d Briggs says, stopping to chuckle: \u201cI glazed<\/em> over it.\u201d<\/p>\n Raised an only child by her lawyer father (\u201cHe wanted me to be a lawyer. Apologies, dad\u2026. I\u2019ll play a lawyer on TV.\u201d) and stay-at-home mother in Los Angeles, Briggs fell in love with acting as a young child while watching the swashbuckling adventures of Pirates of the Caribbean.<\/em> \u201cI begged my parents for years to let me do it. And of course they\u2019re not going to take the whims of a three-year-old seriously,\u201d Briggs says. \u201cI was also saying that I wanted to be the president and a veterinarian at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Her parents finally relented, enrolling Briggs in her first acting class at age six. She began to book commercials and print work the following year, but never made it big. \u201cGrowing up in LA and being a child actor, you\u2019re mostly going up for Disney stuff,\u201d Briggs says. \u201cBut I would always get the note, \u2018She\u2019s just not Disney.\u2019 I always had this knowledge that my career was really going to start later on in life, which I\u2019m so happy about. I feel so much more prepared for it now. I\u2019m also a much better actor now. And I\u2019m happy that I had a normal childhood.\u201d One that included her own teenage trip to Paris (\u201cI probably wore a beret and the French were probably pissed off at me for doing that\u201d) and a Summer I Turned Pretty<\/em>\u2013esque devotion to Gossip Girl<\/em> (\u201cI\u2019ve rewatched it 10 times at the very least\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n