Spoiler alarm: This interview contains spoilers for the final of the third season of “The Gilded Age”, which is now streaming on HBO Max.
Bertha Russell should be on the top of the world.
When “The Golded Age” ends his third season, Bertha (Carrie Coon) achieved another social triumph and put together a glittering evening in Newport, which also destroyed the restrictions that prevent divorced women from going balls and other main events. Bertha's old rival, Ms. Astor (Donna Murphy), was forced to loosen her strangle area for the Monied elite. And thanks to Dr. Kirkland survived, which he was shot. In fact, George looks remarkably robust for someone who has brought a ball into the intestine. Oh, and Bertha is about to be a grandmother of a little duke or a Duchess.
And yet we see that the Bertha, which we really stare out of the window, just before the credits are a broken woman at the season finale. Instead of bringing them closer to George, his nearby experience has made him safer that their marriage, once so unshakable, irreparably broken. He cannot forgive Bertha that she used her daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) as a farmer.
With the kind permission of HBO
“[The shooting] Has my life examined me and I don't like everything I see, ”says George Bertha, just before he lifts off her Newport Herrhaus. Could the divorce court be in its future?
For Coon, playing Bertha was a chance this season to show another side of her character. In the first two seasons, Bertha was an unstoppable force that was determined to conquer New York and to put the Russell family in the top of an exciting new era of wealth and power. This season their ambitions and George went off and did not leave Bertha.
“It is always interesting to explore the vulnerability of a character,” says Coon. “She is usually so confident in her actions, but this season she has the consequences of what she did and made it blindly. It is very rattling for her.”
In “The Golded Age” his reviews rose in the middle of the entire drama of the Russell family, with HBO recently renewed for a fourth season. Coon spoke to diversity What Bertha and George and the High Society that she now rules could be about the task.
The last shot of this season is a close -up of you that look struck. What do you remember to film the last scene?
It was very heartbreaking. We worked on the language before we shot it. Morgan Spector and I wanted the feeling that Bertha and George were fully expressed in this scene. And our hearts broke about it when we did it. What the audience does not see is that the first display outside was in a raincoat and pretended to run away so that I could do the eye line right. Instead of escaping George dramatically in a car, I looked at one of the crew members who acted as if he were on a horse. The magic of the cinema is alive and good.
What do you mean when you say that you have worked on the language? Did you change the lines?
After three years on the show, Morgan and I feel very protected by our characters. We wanted to make a few adjustments to what they said. We only campaign for our sides of the argument to ensure that the audience understood where we both came from in this fight.
With the kind permission of HBO
There is a moment on the ball in which George and Bertha come back and it seems as if this near -death experience has brought them back together. In fact, the fractures have actually made it more pronounced in their relationship. Why do you think that's the case?
The experience of marrying gladies was deeply worrying for George. He really has the feeling that he failed his daughter, and then he has an almost death experience, which forces him to have a spiritual confrontation in which he questions his life decisions. And Bertha cannot be completely in this experience, and she doesn't really understand how it has changed it. She thought it would bring her closer together. But she understands better than ever what her priorities are and he interviews all of his. That feels very real for me in long -term relationships. One person can have a very transformative experience to which the other person has no access, and it takes a while to find their way back to each other.
Do you feel that you can put your differences aside next season?
I don't know. It depends on what George wants.
Do you follow the online discourse on the show?
I do. I've always been someone, even from my earliest theater days that all reviews read. I really wanted to develop a thick skin or punish myself or something. I always loved to take part in the conversation – even the common stuff I find quite funny. I love that people are really mad at Bertha. I love that you think she's a villain. I love to defend them.
This season, Bertha and Gladys began to contradict Bertha's decision to marry them with the Duke. But it ends closer to them than ever. What do you do about this change?
Bertha was right. It was a good marriage. All she needed everyone to get on board. What I also love is that it shows the trajectory of a mother and daughter. Her daughter is now married and Bertha has a lot to offer in terms of advice. She had a long and successful marriage, and her daughter would be good to take advantage of this experience.
This is not the case with Berha's son Larry (Harry Richardson), who apparently seems to have despised with his father with the end of the season.
My bright, shining star, the apple of my eye, turned me on. It was very amazing. She has certainly also stood in his way in his relationships. She has introduced herself to his life and expressed her disapproval of Marian Brook [Louisa Jacobson]. At first she 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 simply not the marriage that she would have liked for her son in relation to her power, influence and wealth, but she admires Marion's courage, her sense of fashion, her ambitions – the idea that Marian is not happy to simply go with what is expected of her. Bertha refers to 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 doing well. Everything he touches turns into gold. He is a rich, white guy. The world is set up for its success. Her daughter is a different story. She had to be much more protected and much more controlling the life of her daughter.
Why has Bertha decided to use the matter to re -enter the divorced women?
It is not entirely altruistic. She always has an eye on the future. In the event that something should happen in a way, she also takes care of herself.
Bertha has an interesting exchange with Ms. Astor at the party, in which she says: “America is the future.” At that moment it feels like a flashlight has been said goodbye. Did Ms. Astor replace Bertha as head of society at that time?
Yes, and that happened in real life. Ms. Astor ultimately had to let all of these “new money” families into society because their prosperity was undeniable. They would build their own society if they didn't.
How precarious is Berha's position? Will it be replaced by someone who is younger and richer at some point?
About her dead body. She will swing.
This season appeared because the billionaire class was made aware again. We saw their influence politically because people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were together on Trump. And we had surrounded the media circus, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez 'wasteful wedding. Do you see parallels between the era that is the show and what happens in America today?
I see devastating parallels. I'm worried on one level that we humanize billionaires? But I am glad to another that people pay attention to the consequences of capitalism in the late stage, which was started during the gilded era. It's a useful conversation and I think that's what good art does. You know, these people we play were not necessarily good people. The reason why they built museums and opera houses is to rehabilitate their reputation as a terrible, terrible, punishing overlords of work. They all took advantage of them, and then they had to give back some of their money as charity in order to do it as if they were not as bad. Our billionaires don't even do that today. It is no longer a shame. They don't even pretend to be good. They are only open and shamelessly acquire what they want at the expense of everyone else.
This interview was processed and compressed.