A great change! Fans have been immersed in the historical drama of HBO Max’s The Gilded Age since its season 1 debut.
The TV series, created by Downton Abbey showrunner Julian Fellowes, is set against the backdrop of 1880s America amid the “Gilded Age,” a historical period of immense economic change. The show — which premiered in January 2022 — follows Marian Brook (played by Louisa Jacobson) as she relocates from rural Pennsylvania to glamorous New York City to live with her wealthy aunts (portrayed by Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon) after the death of her father.
As Marian begins to experience life in the Big Apple, she inadvertently finds herself torn between her family’s old-money traditions and modernity, unsure whether she’ll follow her aunts’ stubborn ways or forge her own path.
“I [was] interested right away,” Jacobson told Vogue in February 2022 of her audition process. “The details I had about my character, Marian, at that stage were pretty limited. She’s described as an innocent country girl who moves to Manhattan after her father dies and leaves her penniless. She’s quite wide-eyed about the high society in which she finds herself, but there’s a boldness and a fire to her that’s slowly coming out, too.”
She continued: “The first day on set felt a bit like being shot out of a cannon, to be honest. I’m such a history geek, though — that’s a wonderful part of being an actor, digging into other periods you have never studied before.”
While Jacobson’s Marian is new to the world of New York high society, Baranski and Nixon’s characters (Agnes Van Rhijn and Ada Brook, respectively) are old professionals.
“One of the things about The Gilded Age that excited me most was that I would get to use [the] training I haven’t used in so long because I’ve played contemporary characters,” the Good Fight alum told Town & Country in January 2022. “Just say the words ‘Julian Fellowes [is] doing a TV show for HBO’ [and] I mean, OK, sign me up.”
Baranski added: “It actually felt a lot like theater … and I say that in the best possible sense that there we were doing this play on film.”
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The show — which was swiftly renewed for season 2 after its debut — also boasts a star-studded supporting cast in Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Denée Benton, Taissa Farmiga and Blake Ritson.
“I’m very interested in American history, which I think is very rich, and I think the Gilded Age period in many ways was a precursor of 20th century America [and] the very high-gloss, high-glamour, high-consumerist America that would flower with Hollywood and all these various other aspects was really being laid and rooted in the Gilded Age, in those super-prosperous years after [the] end of the Civil War,” Fellowes told The Hollywood Reporter of his TV inspiration in March 2022. “These [Gilded Age] people were very confident and they believed in themselves, they believed in their preeminence. … They were the one power on Earth that for the 20th century you needed on [your] side in any kind of cultural battle, you needed America’s team on your team. And I think that was emerging now as they define the new way of being rich, a new way of having society, a new way of living life.”
Scroll below to see what the Gilded Age cast looks like in real life — sans corsets and period garb:
Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO; Kristina Bumphrey/Shutterstock
Christine Baranski (Agnes Van Rhijn)
“I mean, who wouldn’t want to play an elitist snob written by Julian Fellowes? He does it awfully well,” the Mamma Mia! actress told Variety in February 2022 of her character. “It’s a dream come true for me.”
Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO; Kristina Bumphrey/Shutterstock
Cynthia Nixon (Ada Brook)
The Sex and the City alum’s character, Ada, alongside sister Agnes, takes in the orphaned Marian and attempt to teach her the high-society ropes.
“The power differential between these women is significant. Not only is [Agnes] the older sister, not only does she have more of the powerhouse personality, but she controls all the purse strings,” Nixon told Collider in February 2022. “Ada is living there on her charity, essentially. Ada has discovered a long time ago, maybe even when they were still children, that the way to win over Agnes is not to assault her directly, but to go around behind and work behind the scenes. I think we see that very much still in evidence.”
Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
Carrie Coon (Bertha Russell)
While Agnes and Ada have the old-money lifestyle on lock, the Russells represent a new perspective when they move to town. Bertha (played by Coon) is the ambitious wife of a self-made railroad tycoon.
“The wardrobe is gorgeous. It does most of the work,” Coon told Entertainment Tonight in January 2022. “Bertha’s clothes are intentionally just slightly outside of the period, which is a really smart symbol for the audience.”
Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO; Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock
Morgan Spector (George Russell)
“It’s fun to play someone who’s tremendously powerful, of course,” the Homeland alum told Den of Geek in March 2022. “But he’s also somebody who [is] very happy. He’s a guy whose life is going well and it’s all easy. … It’s a fun challenge and I enjoyed that.”
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Denee Benton (Peggy Scott)
The UnReal alum portrays an aspiring Black writer on the HBO Max series. A close friend of Marian, Peggy is also Agnes’ secretary.
“I’ve played a couple of women from the 1800s, but none of them had been written as Black women,” Benton told TheWrap in February 2022 of collaborating with the writers on her character. “And so I was really excited to have this Black woman from the 1800s coming from a socioeconomic status that the media never really portrays. And I felt a really immediate kinship to [Peggy] because her identity praxis just matched with mine in astounding ways.”
Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO; David Fisher/Shutterstock
Louisa Jacobson (Marian Brook)
“Part of the reason I loved this project so much is that all of the female characters are so vividly drawn, and the talent is just insane,” Meryl Streep’s daughter told Vogue. “I had, like, 17 surrogate moms during filming; I just felt surrounded by this really nurturing energy, which made it much less daunting and scary.”
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Taissa Farmiga (Gladys Russell)
As the daughter of Bertha and George, Farmiga’s Gladys is poised to make her society debut during the season 1 premiere.
“Our production was wonderful to put together this sort of dossier or research bible of all of the information you could possibly need to know about the 1880s,” the American Horror Story alum told THR in February 2022. “And in that, it talked about debutantes debuting to society and the sort of parties they had, going back to the Vanderbilts and those families and what it would look like. So I knew it was an integral part of becoming an adult for a young woman in society at that time. If you didn’t debut, you really didn’t have a life, as sad as that sounds. Those were the rules of society at that time.”
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Blake Ritson (Oscar Van Rhijn)
Ritson plays the mischievous son of Agnes, who has his sights set on inheriting the Russells’ money for himself. To do so, he uses his charming wit to win over Gladys. “Oscar is a character who values his own happiness incredibly highly,” he told Collider in February 2022. “I think he looks at life as a game, where you make up your own rules as you go along.”
Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO; Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock
Simon Jones (Bannister)
Jones — who previously appeared on Fellowes’ Downton Abbey as King George V — plays the Van Rhijn family’s English butler.
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Harry Richardson (Larry Russell)
Gladys’ older brother is the apple of his parents’ eye due to his Harvard University graduation and good-natured temperament. He also is fiercely protective of his little sister and doesn’t care much for money.
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Thomas Cocquerel (Tom Raikes)
The Australia native plays the sensible lawyer who helms from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Tom has moved to the city after falling in love with Marian, the daughter of his late client, in the first season.
