‘The Gilded Age’ Star Morgan Spector Admits He’s ‘Nervous’ for George and Bertha Come Season 3: ‘It’s Going to be Difficult in the Russel Household’
variety.comHunter Ingram Before Morgan Spector ever put on the three-piece suit of railroad baron George Russell, he was concerned audiences might feel alienated by the opulence of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” “The vast majority of people just don’t have anything in common with someone like George Russell,” he says. “When I first read these scripts, it was in 2020.
Bernie Sanders was still a frontrunner in the presidential campaign, and class politics were in the news. There was a sense that maybe we are tired of billionaires and their power.” He’s not wrong for wondering just how elastic viewer tolerance would be for 19th century cultural warfare between old and new money.
But Spector credits creator Julian Fellowes with recognizing the timeless appetite for sudsy yet sharp historical fiction that places privileged characters and their often-trivial problems in the context of a transformational moment in history.
During the show’s second season, audiences showered praise on its extravagance and catty commentary. But credit should also be paid to Spector for challenging the stereotype of self-made industrial titan that history both dignifies and detests in equal measure.
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