Carrie Coon on ‘Gilded Age’ season 3 final, the wedding of Bertha
Spoiler alert: This interview contains spoilers for the season 3 final of “The Gilded Age”, which is now streaming at HBO Max.
Bertha Russell should be at the top of the world.
Since “The Gilded Age” ends his third season, Bertha (Carrie Coon) has compiled another social triumph, a shimmering evening in Newport who also shattered the limitations that prevent separate women from going to balls and other major events. The old rival of Bertha, Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy), is finally forced to loosen her stranglehold on the Monied Elite. And George (Morgan Spector) has survived that they are being shot thanks to Dr. Kirkland. George actually looks remarkably robust for someone who has taken a bullet to the intestines. Oh, and Bertha is about to become a grandmother of a small Duke or Duchess.
And yet, the Bertha that we see staring straight out the window just before the credits on the season finale rolls is a shattered woman. Instead of bringing her closer to George, his near-death experience made him more secure that their marriage may be broken once so firm, irreparably. He cannot forgive Bertha to use their daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) as a pawn that she can marry with the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb) to Te Eenmans.
Thanks to HBO
‘[The shooting] Did me have my life examined, and I don’t like it that I see, “George tells Bertha shortly before he leaves their Newport Mansion. Could the division dish in their future?
For Coon, playing Bertha this season was a chance to show another side of her character. During the first two seasons, Bertha was an unstoppable force, determined to conquer New York and bring the Russell family at the forefront of an exciting new era of wealth and power. This season, her ambitions and George’s varying, which made Bertha invalid.
“It is always interesting to explore the vulnerability of a character,” says Coon. “She is usually so faith in her actions, but this season she really did not expect the consequences of what she did and she is blinded. It is very rattling for her.”
“The Gilded Age” has seen his assessments rise in the midst of all the Russell family drama, where HBO recently renewed it for a fourth season. Coon spoke against Variety About what can be in store for Bertha and George, as well as for the High Society that she now rules.
The last shot of this season is a close -up of you who looks affected. What do you know about filming the last scene?
It was very heartbreaking. We worked on its language before we shot it. Morgan Spector and I wanted to feel that Bertha and George were completely expressed in that scene. And our hearts broke over it while we did it. What the audience does not see is that the first advertisement outside was in a raincoat and pretended to be gone so that I could get the eye line well. Instead of dramatically escaping in a carriage, I looked at one of the crew members who pretended to be on a horse. The magic of Cinema is alive and well.
If you say you were working on the language, what do you mean? Did you change the lines?
After three years in the show, Morgan and I feel very protective of our characters. We wanted to make a few adjustments to what they said. We only argued for our parties of the argument, just to ensure that the audience understood where we both came from in that fight.
Thanks to HBO
There is a moment in the ball where George and Bertha reunite and it seems that this almost death experience has brought them together again. It has even made the fractions more pronounced in their relationship. Why do you think that’s the case?
The experience of getting married to Gladys was deeply worrying for George. He really feels that he has failed his daughter, and then he has an almost Dood experience, who forces him to have a spiritual confrontation where he questions his life choices. And Bertha cannot be entirely in that experience, and she doesn’t really understand how it changed him. She thought it would bring them closer together. But she understands better than ever what her priorities are, and he is already asking. That feels very real for me in long -term relationships. One person can go through a very transforming experience that the other person has no access to, and it takes a while to find their way back to each other.
Do you feel that they can put their differences aside next season?
Don’t know. It depends on what George wants.
Do you follow the online discourse around the show?
I do. I have always been someone, even from my earliest theater days, who read all the reviews. I just really wanted to develop thick skin or punish myself or something. I have always enjoyed participating in the conversation – even the mean things, I find quite hilarious. I think it’s great that people are really angry with Bertha. I think it’s great that they think she is a villain. I like to defend her.
This season, Bertha and Gladys started completely at odds about Bertha’s decision to marry her with the duke. But it ends with them closer than ever. What do you think of that change?
Bertha was right. It was a good marriage. She just needed everyone to board. What I also like is that it shows the process of a mother and daughter. Her daughter is now married and Bertha has a lot to offer in the field of advice. She had a long and successful marriage and her daughter would do well to take advantage of that experience.
That is not the case with the son of Bertha, Larry (Harry Richardson), who seems to have accompanied by the end of the season with his father in the absolute contempt of Bertha.
My clear, radiant star, the apple of my eye, turned on me. It was very surprising. She has certainly stood in the way of his relationships. She got involved in his life and expressed her disapproval of Marian Brook [Louisa Jacobson]. She initially expected her son to make a better marriage, but then had to do a Mea -Culpa, and to save her own marriage, she decides to make an exception for Larry. And she respects Marian. It is just not the marriage she had wanted for her son in terms of his strength and influence and wealth, but she admires Marion’s Pluck, her sense of fashion, her ambitions – the idea that Marian is not happy to just go along with what is expected of her. Bertha tells about this, because Bertha plays the game, but she is not afraid to question the game. She also decides not to stand in the way of her son’s marriage because her son is fine. Everything he touches changes to gold. He is a rich, white man. The world is set up for its success. Her daughter, that’s a different story. She had to be much more protective and much more control over her daughter’s life.
Why did Bertha decide to embrace the cause of helping divorcing women who re -enter society?
It is not completely altruistic. She always has an eye on the future. In the event that something would happen to her, at a certain level, I think she also takes care of herself.
Bertha has an interesting exchange with Mrs. Astor in the party where she says: “America is the future.” At that moment it feels like a torch has been passed on. Has Bertha now replaced Mrs. Astor as head of society?
Yes, and that happened in real life. Mrs Astor eventually had to leave all these ‘new money’ families in society because their wealth could not be denied. They would build their own society if she didn’t.
How precarious is Bertha’s position? Is she also replaced by someone who is younger and richer at some point?
About her dead body. She’s going to swing.
This season came out because attention was paid to the billionaire class. We have seen their influence politically, with people such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who brought himself together into Trump. And we had the media circus that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s lush wedding surrounded. Do you see parallels between the era that shows the show and what is happening in America today?
I see devastating parallels. At one level I am worried that we humanize billionaires? But on someone else I am happy that people pay attention to the effects of capitalism in the late stage that were set in motion during the gilded era. It is a useful conversation to have, and I think that is what good art does. You know, these people we play were not necessarily good people. The reason they built museums and opera houses is to rehabilitate their reputation as terrible, terrible, punitive rulers of labor. They benefited from everyone, and then they had to give back part of their money as a charity to pretend they were not that bad. Our billionaires don’t even do that today. There is no more shame. They don’t even pretend to be good. They are just openly, shamelessly acquire what they want at the expense of everyone else.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
