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Tag: Christine Baranski

  • From Bertha Russell’s Opera Wars Victory to Aunt Ada’s Newfound Fortune, ‘The Gilded Age’ Stars Break Down the Season 2 Finale

    From Bertha Russell’s Opera Wars Victory to Aunt Ada’s Newfound Fortune, ‘The Gilded Age’ Stars Break Down the Season 2 Finale

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    SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the Season 2 finale of HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” now streaming on Max.

    Bertha Russell, who never really cared for opera, can now watch Verdi from the best seat in the house.

    Polite society’s battle royale ended with the New Money triumphing over the Old Guard, as “The Gilded Age” wrapped up its second season on Sunday. Mrs. Astor’s attempt to steal Bertha’s thunder by getting the Duke of Buckingham to attend the opening night of the Academy of Music instead of the Metropolitan Opera House ended in disaster. After Bertha made the cash-starved royal an offer he couldn’t refuse, he showed up box-side with her at the Metropolitan, gazing at her daughter Gladys as New York’s elite looked on. That left Mrs. Astor gazing down at row upon row of empty aisles at the Academy.

    And that’s not the only big moment from an action-packed finale (well, by “Gilded Age” standards, where everything unfolds in the Julian Fellowes HBO drama at the frenetic pace of a leisurely stroll through a botanical garden). The van Rhijn family was saved from social ruin by an unexpected financial windfall, Peggy Scott was forced to sacrifice her dream job, and Marian Brook called off an ill-considered engagement, only to draw closer to the Russell’s son, Larry. Are wedding bells in their future?

    To break it all down, and get some hints at what might come in a third season, Variety convened a roundtable of “The Gilded Age” stars Morgan Spector (George Russell), Carrie Coon (Bertha Russell), Louisa Jacobson (Marian Brook), Denée Benton (Peggy Scott), Cynthia Nixon (Ada Forte) and Christine Baranski (Agnes van Rhijn).

    Has Mrs. Astor been deposed at the end of this season? Is Bertha the new queen bee of society because the Metropolitan Opera superseded the Academy of Music in popularity?

    Carrie Coon: Yes. The opera war was a fierce battle, but Mrs. Astor always knew that she was going to have to yield at some point because the new money Bertha represents comes with such ungodly wealth. It’s just that Mrs. Astor wanted to yield in her own time, and in her own way. And somebody like Bertha is going to just keep pushing until those doors are thrown wide open for her.

    And so I think Bertha recognizes that as long as she keeps this up, she’s going to get everything she wants. And it’s true. If you look at history, the people with the most money did get what they wanted. They still do.

    Courtesy of HBO

    This season ends in a moment of triumph for Bertha, just as the first one ended with her successfully luring Mrs. Astor to her ball. But this victory feels like it comes with a troubling undercurrent. By promising her daughter to the Duke of Buckingham, has Bertha crossed a moral line? 

    Coon: Morgan is very upset right now.

    Morgan Spector: I just find it very disturbing, because I think in the next season, we’re going to go to war basically over this. I guess I’m hoping that Gladys [Taissa Farmiga] actually likes the duke. 

    Coon: Well, of course, the inspiration for Bertha is Alva Vanderbilt, who did this exact same thing to her own daughter Consuelo, marrying her off to this duke who she didn’t love, only to turn around a decade later and become a suffragette. That was infuriating for her daughter, to have her mom suddenly become a feminist.

    Now you have to remember, in my eyes, Bertha is no villain. She’s looking out for her daughter in a world that is not built for her daughter. Bertha is going to make sure that her daughter is safely married and ensconced and supported financially. With his social position, her son is fine no matter what he does, but her daughter doesn’t have that freedom. 

    Christine Baranski: The same thing is true of Agnes in terms of [her obsession] with marrying off Marian. It’s why she’s so insistent that she play by the rules and find the right man or she will slip through the cracks. The stakes were very high for women in that society. If you got into that social circle, you held on for dear life. I mean, read “The House of Mirth.” It’s just a study of a woman’s position, and how it can start slipping away as you get older and you lose those opportunities.

    Courtesy of HBO

    In the finale, the roles of Agnes and Ada are dramatically reversed — Agnes’s son Oscar has been conned out of the family fortune, just as Ada comes into an unexpected financial windfall following the death of her husband, Rev. Forte.  Where do you think their relationship goes from here?

    Baranski: That is up to the writers, but it’s just the most delightful twist. That final scene with [the butler] Bannister deferring to Ada as the mistress of the house instead of Agnes. The ramifications of that are so huge.

    Cynthia Nixon: We did have a lot of fun supposing what might happen with Ada in the driver’s seat. She would throw open the doors of their mansion and make it a home for unwed mothers or stray cats or Bohemian artists or overseas missionaries. 

    Baranski: Agnes will never leave her bedroom, and there’s the smell of cats all over the house. 

    Would Ada have been able to assert herself like she does in the finale if she hadn’t married Rev. Forte? How did that relationship change her?

    Nixon: At the age that she is, the idea that she would find a man to love her is really startling to her. His love and belief in her, and his choosing of her out of all the women that were possible for him made her trust herself.

    Peggy also has a very dramatic arc this season, where she falls in love with her boss, T. Thomas Fortune, who is a married man. What led her to sacrifice her dream job at the New York Globe? 

    Denée Benton: Peggy starts the season in such deep grief [over the death of her son], and she’s running away from her pain through her work. But that work forces her to run deeper into the grief of the country. Her time in the South [reporting on Booker T. Washington], it shapes her for the rest of the season. She experiences a life or death moment down there, and that centers her in a way.

    So, instead of seeing her as walking away from her dreams at the Globe, I think she’s walking toward them. A lot of her life has been derailed by men — from her dad’s decisions about what to do with her son, to her husband leaving her. And now here’s T. Thomas Fortune, who she has strong feelings for, but who is married and unavailable. Only she’s not going to let her life be derailed by this man. It’s actually a step toward herself, even though it’s a step away from that gig.

    Courtesy of HBO

    Do you think Peggy was naive about the extent of the problems and violence in the South before she made that trip?

    Benton: I think so, but it’s a naivete that came from a passion. You always want to think that your personal power is bigger than the oppression you’re walking into. And I think it was really easy for Peggy to be in New York with her ideas about how to solve things. And it was very humbling to be with Booker T. Washington and be like, no, no, no, these are not the same strategies for survival in your parts.  

    George obviously embodies this new kind of wealth and this harder-hitting type of businessman. It’s weird because as an audience member, we find ourselves really rooting for this rapacious capitalist. Why is he so seductive?

    Nixon: I mean just look at Morgan!

    Spector: The show offers a variety of fantasies in which the audience can immerse themselves. One of them is the fantasy of having nearly absolute power. That’s pretty seductive just on its face. When George has a problem, he solves it by dint of his own indomitable cleverness, as well as his seemingly bottomless bank account.

    But he’s also honorable. He’s certainly not a leftist or a humanist in any way, but he has a code of ethics. It’s an honor among thieves approach, but that’s better than amoral corporate capitalism. 

    There’s a pivotal moment when George decides not to have the troops fire on the striking workers. It’s later revealed that there’s also a business strategy behind that decision. But in that moment, was he responding emotionally because he wanted to avert a tragedy, or was he just thinking about it in terms of dollars and cents? 

    Spector: It’s a little bit of both. He’s more farsighted than some of his business peers. And I think he sees that he’s going to have to come to some sort of sustainable truce with union power. And there’s also that scene where he goes to [the union leader] Henderson’s house, and he sees his family and starts to understand the conditions that his workers are living in. So when he sees the troops start to aim and he’s looking at that little kid who is standing with the strikers, he realizes that killing a child is a step too far.  

    Courtesy of HBO

    Marian calls off her engagement to Dashiell. When did she realize he wasn’t the right person for her to marry? 

    Louisa Jacobson: It wasn’t love at first sight by any means. But after what she went through in Season 1 with Tom Raikes, she’s more open to the possibility of something that just makes sense and that is safer. And I think she tried a little bit to fall for Dashiell, and she got in too deep with his daughter and she didn’t think things through. So she has deep regrets about it when she breaks things off with him. But Dashiell, as she saw over the course of the season, he didn’t take her employment seriously. He didn’t want her to continue teaching watercolors when they are married. And that’s actually a big passion for Marian. It’s not just a flippant thing. So for him to be like, “Oh, it’s not serious,” is frustrating. And it made her realize, OK, I don’t feel good about this. 

    Why is Marian so drawn to Larry Russell? 

    Jacobson: She sees a similarity. Larry is also artistically minded, and has this interest in architecture. He wants to pave his own path. He doesn’t just want to follow in a family business. He’s sort of a free spirit. There’s an equality of interests there that’s really attractive to Marian.

    Spector: They’re both searchers. They’re both still looking for the thing that’s going to be like their big purpose in life.

    Would Marian be welcomed into the Russell family? 

    Coon: Marian would be a really good fit for the family. She’s ambitious like Bertha. Bertha has always liked Marian, and she’s stylish and modern in her thinking. She’s not afraid of this meritocracy that the Russell family is espousing. 

    Would Agnes be all right with that union?

    Baranski: I can’t imagine how long it would take me to get down that aisle. 

    Courtesy of HBO

    But Agnes seems changed by her experiences this season. In the last episode, she has this revealing monologue about how her social connections will soon vanish now that her money is gone. She’s very aware of the tenuous nature of her power and influence.  

    Baranski: This season, you begin to see the cracks form in her rigidity. With both her niece and her sister, she comes to understand that she cannot stop the tide of change. And that’s a wonderful thing to play as an actor – to see the emotion coming through, and realize that this woman is not necessarily made of stone. But you have to set up that strong sense of what her history is and what her purpose is and what her worldview is, and then you can let the water to start seeping through the cracks.

    Many of your characters are based on historical figures. Does that give you a sense of where your story might end? 

    Coon: When I was presented with the possibility of doing the show, there was an accompanying document that Julian Fellowes had written up about where Bertha was possibly going. And because she’s very closely tied to Alva Vanderbilt, we know that Alva married her daughter off to a duke. And we also know eventually she became an advocate for voting rights for women and divorced her husband. I hope the writers don’t do that to this amazing marriage we have created with George and Bertha, but I think that’s a really interesting arc for Bertha. 

    Benton: And sometimes our biggest dreams can be limited by the history. Because originally the writers were really hoping that Peggy and T. Thomas Fortune would have a longer love story. But he was a real person with a wife, so there wasn’t as much runway. That was disappointing. 

    Baranski: His wife could die.

    Spector: People got run over by carriages all the time.

    This interview has been edited and condensed.

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    Varietybrentlang

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  • On the Grinch Finally Being Vindicated For His Misanthropy

    On the Grinch Finally Being Vindicated For His Misanthropy

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    In the past couple of years, some variation on a meme that goes, “The older I get, the more I understand why the Grinch wanted to live alone with his dog” has cropped up every Christmas. This sudden “empathy” for the green creature is not only an about-face from perceptions past, but a clear sign that humanity has become so insufferable that there’s finally some vindication for misanthropes and why they might be “that way.” Which is to say, contemptuous of all human contact. Of course, the Whos aren’t human, but, for the Grinch’s purposes of hiding in a “cozy” (or heinous, as the Grinch calls it) lair on Mount Crumpit, they’re equivalent enough for inspiring his hikikomori existence. 

    Although it used to be the case that the Grinch was a prime example of how not to be, he has become something of a hero to the masses. Particularly the post-Covid masses who, of late, might be missing the excuse that lockdowns gave to avoid all social contact (oh, how quickly people can romanticize something they hated once it’s in the past). Despite the Grinch not being anything remotely human, he has, before this recent meme, typically been held up as an exemplar of what humans should avoid “aspiring to” at all costs. In fact, his trusty dog, Max, is the one whose heart seems big enough for the both of them, what with the Grinch’s heart being “two sizes too small.” And, besides, how could it not be when he was simply reflecting back the love he received. Or rather, did not. At least according to the 2000 version of the film, directed by Ron Howard. 

    In contrast to the original (and classic) animated film (you know, the one Kevin McCallister [Macaulay Culkin] watches in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York), the live action edition presents the (formerly) villainous (turned heroic) Grinch with a backstory that “explains” his current state of curmudgeonliness. In effect, it set the precedent for the later ongoing trend of giving villains “origin stories” that (supposedly) shed light on how/why they became “evil” (e.g., Maleficent and the Joker). Except that the Grinch was never really evil, per se—or “rotten,” as the famed song about him likes to tout. He was simply a misanthrope. And, in 1957, when Dr. Seuss’ original publication, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, was released, there was nothing more menacing or “dangerous” to American society. By 2000, when Ron Howard’s adaptation (written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman), it seemed that was destined to remain true, as Bush conservatism took hold of the nation again. Taking even more hold after the 9/11 attacks of 2001. And so, to be a “grinch” a.k.a. people-hater was not exactly chic; instead, considered “unpatriotic.” A sign of being “off.” Worse still, one of the “enemies.” 

    But the Grinch suddenly falling into fashion at a time when misanthropy has arguably been more accepted and embraced than ever (largely thanks to the driving force that is the internet), well, that’s no coincidence. His moment to shine, as it were, has arrived in an era of extreme dissatisfaction with and mistrust in humanity as a whole. Hence, the resonance to more and more humans when they hear the Grinch utter, from the cold comfort of his cave, “I’ll tell ya Max, I don’t know why I ever leave this place. I’ve got all the company I’ll ever need right here.” He points to himself, and then proceeds to engage in a “conversation” wherein his words echo back to him from the walls. 

    The Grinch’s resentment of more “socially acceptable” misanthropes posing as jolly “givers” prompts him to seethe, “Talk about a recluse! [Santa] only comes out once a year and he never catches any flak for it! Probably lives up there to avoid the taxes.” And yet, in the end, the message of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is that you, too, can become a socially acceptable misanthrope. Soften yourself around the edges to become more palatable. Conform more willingly to the warm-and-fuzziness expected of you despite inhabiting a world so unapologetically cruel. Founded on a system that’s designed to harden you and make you immune to anything resembling empathy. And yet, that very system can continue to create docile soldiers by releasing content that has the type of self-awareness of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, which acknowledges that misanthropy is to be expected, to some degree, but that, in the end, we should all go back to loving our fellow man who fucks us over on a daily basis. 

    Even from the outset of Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, there is an immediate foreshadowing of the Grinch’s eventual surrender to being “one with humanity.” Or “Whomanity,” if you prefer. That glimmer arrives when he says, with menace and malice in his voice, “I guess I could use a little…social interaction” just before going out to wreak undercover havoc on Whoville. But that line is ultimately designed to emphasize the idea that, yes, humans are social creatures who will wither and die on the vine of existence without enough socialization. And, in the Grinch’s case, he was really only made to feel so isolated because of the early ostracism he experienced as an “othered” child. Which is why, while on that undercover outing to wreak havoc, of course, even then, his “teddy bear stylings”  flicker in and out, as he ends up “saving” Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen, before she was Jenny Humphrey) after placing her in the mail sorter himself. It is only the Grinch’s true conscience, Max, who stops him by pulling violently on his cloak to keep him from leaving the mail room without rescuing her. So it is that the Grinch unwittingly stumbles upon someone who “believes in” him. Someone who, for the narrative’s sake, has to be a child…because they’re the only ones with a shred of enough innocence not to be so jaded. 

    Thus, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, like another beloved Christmas story, A Christmas Carol, wants to reinforce the trope that misanthropes aren’t all “bad,” they just need the right person (or scenario) to “draw them out.” The ultimate fallacy in that statement being that it’s bad to despise humans in the first place. But it’s become less and less taboo to do so in an open manner. Case in point, the recent adaptation of Leave the World Behind, during which Julia Roberts as Amanda Sandford declares from the outset of the film, “I fucking hate people.” By the end, however, she experiences her own kind of “Grinch transformation” when she tells Ruth (Myha’la), the girl she’s been “saddled with” for the end of the world, “I know I say I hate people, but I’d do anything to have them back.” 

    Thrust into her own extreme circumstances that force her heart to become “three sizes bigger” after it’s already too late for such revelations, Ruth is the one to inform her, “As awful as people might be, nothing’s gonna change the fact that we are all we’ve got.” But that’s really not true if you have a dog like the Grinch’s. As time goes on, and the meme about finally understanding the Grinch continues to hold water with more and more people (in short, as misanthropy becomes more “mainstream”), it bears remarking that the reason for such comprehension is that the “collective veil” regarding so-called humanity seems to keep being pulled further and further back to the point that, indeed, why wouldn’t we all want to hide in a cave by ourselves with a dog who loves and understands unconditionally? No matter how inherently rotten his owner might be.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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