“One of the hallmarks of an HBO show is always reflecting something in society today, and the idea that we would be in another Gilded Age is somewhat unbelievable,” said Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content. But “I’ll take railroad daddy over Elon Musk.”
Bloys was introducing the Season 3 premiere of the HBO series, referring to the ruthlessly ambitious fictional railroad magnate George Russell played by Morgan Spector, and to the billionaire Tesla CEO.
Comparisons to Gilded Age late 19th century Gilded Age and now continued throughout a Q&A after the first episode world premiered at the Tribeca Festival. The show created by Julian Fellowes debuts June 22.
“I mean, there were moments when we were filming, and they were racing each other to the moon, their new rockets, and that kind of thing. And you thought, well, they didn’t have rockets, so they didn’t do this. But if they had had them, they would have done it. I mean, that was a complete Gilded Age episode. And I think this extraordinary sort of, I don’t want to say, explosion of ego. Does that sound sort of judgmental?” aske Fellowes gently, on stage with Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Louisa Jacobson and Denée Benton.
He didn’t mention Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin by name.
“I mean, these robber barons, they were ruthless and corrupt and tried to manipulate the government and politics. But they were philanthropists and they created the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall. Look at these men, who had so much money. How did they use it? They really used it to the benefit of their society,” said Baranksi, who plays the indomitable Aunt Agnes of the curled lip and scathing remark, a scion of Old New York society reluctantly giving way to new titans of industry.
The Season 3 logline reads: The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic and social change, when empires were built, but no victory came without sacrifice. Following the Opera War, the old guard is weakened. The Russells stand poised to take their place at society’s head. Bertha (Coon) sets her sights on a prize that would elevate the family to unimaginable heights; George risks everything on a gambit that could revolutionize the railroad industry. Agnes refuses to accept Ada’s (Nixon) new position as lady of the house. Peggy (Denée Benton) meets a doctor from Newport whose family is less than enthusiastic about her career. As all of New York hastens toward the future, their ambition may come at the cost of what they truly hold dear.”
Fellowes executive produces the season with Sonja Warfield, David Crockett, Michael Engler, Gareth Neame, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Bob Greenblatt
“They thought they were the new princes,” he said. And it’s hard to argue with the end product — “the railway system of America and all sorts of other things. That meant that by the time the First World War began, the biggest and strongest economy in the world was America. So it’s very difficult to take a position on the whole thing. It’s an extraordinary phenomenon that a great country arising and being part of the world’s future when it had not much been part of its past, and that I find really fascinating.”
Coon was asked about playing the series weekly, not in a binge, as HBO does (including with her recently complected Season 3 of The White Lotus, which she wasn’t allowed to talk about). The actor said she thinks it creates community. And “art, storytelling is very powerful, and it does have the power to create some affinity, you know, and hopefully, maybe, maybe pull us out of this, but I don’t think so. Hopefully, help us get through it, whatever’s coming our way, which is going to be bad,” she said.
The current political climate is marked by a defunding of the arts, possibly of public broadcasting (after a House vote today), attacks on most public institutions and this week a crackdown on immigrants that’s led to a curfew in Los Angeles and nationwide protests.
Jacobson, who plays open minded Marion Brook, waxed enthusiastic about the truly transformation epoch the show is set in with electricity and steam heat, “when so much was changing all the municipalities were forming, like the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Health. It’s all so fascinating.”
“And it’s all about to be taken away,” added Nixon.
Bloys and Fellows noted that tonight was the first chance to really celebrate the show since Season One debuted amid Covid and Season 2 during the Hollywood strikes.
“You know, the show went into production when Broadway was still closed down, and as a result, became a lifeline for a lot of Broadway actors,” noted Bloys. “Over three seasons, we have hired 163 Broadway actors, which is also, by the way, one of the benefits of shooting in New York.”
“It really is a theater repertory company, and we’ve all worked together or done readings together, or we go back way back together. I played Cynthia’s mother in 1984,” added Baranski.
Fellowes declined to comment on a potential Season 4, or a movie treatment. “I think one of the great things about this sort of interview is that we talk all the time, and you don’t really learn anything. That’s how they’re best experienced.”
