Morgan Spector probably won’t have a big summer vacation this year. Don’t feel sorry for him though, it appears he’ll soon be in front of the camera for the third season of “The Gilded Age.” The HBO series took a creative and viewership jump in season two. What that means for his character, fictional 19th-century industrialist and “new” New York money George Russell, remains to be seen.
READ MORE: “The Gilded Age” Season 2 Trailer: Julian Fellowes’ star-studded period drama returns
Russell is inspired by an influential robber baron, Jay Gould, while his wife, Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), seems to be based on William K. Vanderbilt‘s wife, Ava Vanderbilt. That means series creator Julian Fellowes and his writing team have a multitude of directions to turn to.
“I mean, I got some scripts today that I have not yet read, but that is going to be my first inclination of what they have planned. And I really have no idea,” Spector says. “There are so many different directions you could go depending on who they want to use as inspiration as we head into the late [1880s]. But yeah, I think as time went on, and I wouldn’t know where exactly to place this in history, but Gould really became kind of a financial engineer and that was where he started. But I’m not sure how dramatic some of that stuff is. I mean, it was incredibly consequential, a lot of the stuff that he did. He was really just yanking the entire United States economy around to sort of suit his profit margins.”
What we do know is that “The Gilded Age” is a frontrunner for a number of key Emmy nominations this year including Outstanding Drama Series. Throughout our conversation last week, the Santa Rosa, California native did a deep dive into Russell’s dramatic showdown with a striking union, the ramifications of a scandalous (and mistaken) encounter the season before, season two’s unexpectedly captivating “opera wars” storyline, and much, much more.
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The Playlist: Could you tell that it was hitting more people?
Morgan Spector: I felt like I started feel that happening halfway through the season. I felt like there was a kind of gathering momentum. I didn’t know, I think I couldn’t really tell at the beginning, but really the thing that demonstrated that was that we got a pickup, the third season pickup. I think until then I thought, I don’t know how you can’t tell. We’re not seeing any numbers, so all you’re getting is online chat as a metric. But yeah, I would say about halfway through the season started to feel like, “O.K., this show has actually got an audience.”
This season George had a very contentious and, in many ways, historically accurate storyline with workers striking his factory. Did Julian and the other producers give you a heads-up of what George would be dealing with this time around?
I guess I knew before even the scripts were coming in that we were going to touch a sort of story on a union uprising. And so that was exciting just because that history in the 19th century is explosive and dramatic and really, really compelling. So, I was really looking forward to that. But then over the course of the season, what evolved was how to calibrate that and how to calibrate George’s interaction with the union, with Henderson, the union leader, and then ultimately how and why he makes the decision that he makes and what that decision is in terms of his direct confrontation with the strikers at his factory and six episodes.
He did drive someone to suicide in season one, but it felt like we saw an even darker side this time around.
I think we’ve had inklings of his sort of dark side throughout, but yeah, I agree. I think it felt a little bit like more of a fair fight. Those guys, the group of alderman come after George in the first season. They’re trying to bankrupt him and in fact he’s able to put enormous economic pressure on them, and for one of them it’s too much and he kills himself. And I think there was a sort of like, “Well, all’s fair in love and war sort of outcome to that.” But I think interestingly, a contemporary audience now is pretty much on the side of the union. It’s sort of unambiguous. So, when George is the villain in that story, I think it’s a little bit clearer that he’s the bad guy or that he’s not on the side of truth and justice and righteousness.
Julian and other writers have noted that George is inspired by robber baron Jay Gould. When you were looking back through history to research the role, is that who you were looking to or are there other industrialists that inspired you?
In a way? I mean, I think Gould was the inspiration for George’s character traits, particularly the duality that he shows in his sort of love for his family, his really dotting love for his wife and his children, and his ruthlessness in business. That was a duality that you could see in Gould. But the sort of plot narrative is much more like [Cornelius] Vanderbilt. And so the strike is sort of an echo of the Homestead Strike, which was actually [Andrew] Carnegie and [Henry] Frick. So I think over the course of the show, we’re invited to see George as a real composite of these guys. And when I was researching, I looked a lot at Gould and then at a certain point started branching out and reading Carnegie’s autobiography and reading about [John D.] Rockefeller and reading about all these guys because it all kind of comes in. I mean, I think George, his business is railroads primarily, but it’s also finance. He has fingers or tentacles in a lot of pies. So, I think he does become a kind of broad composite for the robber barons of the era, though I think particularly rooted in Gould and Vanderbilt.
We end the second season still knowing that the union conflict will eventually pit the unions and some of the immigrants against each other. That could be a storyline for season three, but Gould had his fingers, as you say, in so many different aspects of Manhattan society. Have they talked about diving into New York politics at the time such as Tammany Hall?
I mean, I got some scripts today that I have not yet read, but that is going to be my first inclination of what they have planned. And I really have no idea. There are so many different directions you could go depending on who they want to use as inspiration as we head into the late [1880s] But yeah, I think as time went on, and I wouldn’t know where exactly to place this in history, but Gould really became kind of a financial engineer and that was where he started. But I’m not sure how dramatic some of that stuff is. I mean, it was incredibly consequential, a lot of the stuff that he did. He was really just yanking the entire United States economy around to sort of suit his profit margins. But yeah, I don’t know whether we’ll get into that, whether we’ll go deeper into the sort of Carnegie/Frick stuff. I mean, we’ve got Clay as the kind of Frick analog who’s the sort of guy willing to do the dirty deeds. We might get into more into that. I mean I really, yeah, I dunno. I couldn’t say.
Is shooting imminent for season three? Are you guys going to be in production soon?
I mean, sometime this summer? Yeah. I have not yet been told that I can say when we’re going back. I think they’ll announce it at some point. But yeah, we are going to shoot the third season,
But no summer vacations to Europe. You’ll be working.
No. Yeah, we’ll see.
Going back to season two, you guys had all sort of formed and bond the first time around. What did you enjoy most about coming back and doing the second season?
Yeah, there’s definitely more of a comfort level with everyone. And I mean, there’s a lot to be said for [the fact] we really all get along as a cast. There’s a lot to be said for showing up at work and being happy to see the people who are there. But also, I don’t think I’ve ever, I’ve never done an original show. I’ve done a lot of season ones, but I’ve never done, I had never done a season two. And so just having the privilege of coming back to a job and you’ve got your costumes and people know you and you know them and day one of the new season, you’re not sh**ting yourself and worried that you’re going to get fired on day three. It’s a much more pleasant experience.
It’s funny, if you were to read on paper, and this is not meant an insult in any way, that the main storyline that the season would end on would be whether Bertha is able to get everyone to come to the Metropolitan Opera House, you would think that’s not compelling, but it is! That finale episode is just so well done. And so on the edge of your seat.
Totally.
When you read it, were you like, “Oh wait, this works?” Were you concerned?
At this point, I think he has earned a fair measure of trust and faith as a writer. I think he understands his audience and he understands how to deliver something that will be dramatically satisfying. And I think that’s true of Michael Engler, who is our producing director and of our cast in general. But yes, the Opera Wars thing, to me, to some extent, it’s not my storyline and I think from a character perspective, it’s something that George only cares about because Bertha cares about it. And a little bit with the Opera Wars, I was like, “Is this going to land?” And then there’s that moment in the final episode where Carrie comes down and she takes in that full house and she’s gotten her victory. And I was like, “I’m pumped. I’m excited. I’m thrilled by this.” And what’s unique about this show to a certain extent is you get these things, the attention to detail in terms of how these storylines develop is so acute that when they come into fruition, it’s really thrilling. Even though, as you say, if you put it on paper, a billionaire’s wife gets what she wants, news at 11. O.K. But it works. You feel it. I do think it’s Carrie Coon’s innate pluck-it. It’s like you feel her kind of blue-collar moxie in every performance that she gives. And so you’re just rooting for her. You’re on her side even if she’s playing a very powerful character.
But also your characters are also the outsiders. So we have something to root with them because they aren’t the establishment, they aren’t the old rich. They’re the ones trying to get where most viewers want to get.
Exactly. And the establishment is boring and stuck up and even more loathsome than we are. So yeah, it helps.
Easy to root for, yes. I was also, George and Bertha have a rough sort of go at it for most of the season because of her misunderstanding of something that sort of happened…
I like the way you put that. Yeah. [Laughs}
At the end, did you feel all is forgiven with the characters? Did you feel like that storyline had sort of come to an end? Because as from what I remember, she does not know that George basically paid to finish the Opera House, correct?
Correct. I mean, this is something I wonder about narratively. Like what does she think happened when George says, “I’m going to go talk to the people” and then the work starts again and there’s money all of a sudden? Is she like, “Ah, George has worked it out.” What does she think? I mean, I don’t know. Bertha is no dummy. And I do think George very much wants Bertha to experience the success of the Met as her success. And I think she wants to feel that way too and does feel that way and rightly so. And so it’s just the kind of thing she’s not going to think about too deeply. And I guess it is a moment of deception. It is another, when we’ve seen them have this long battle over George withholding information, and then he does it again almost immediately it feels like, has he learned his lesson? But I think, and maybe I’m wrong, I guess we’ll see, but I think that’s the kind of deception that there is actually room for in their relationship. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that she would be upset about.
And I wanted to revisit the strike storyline for a minute. One of the things that I guess genuinely surprised me, or maybe he was so in his own bubble, is when George goes to visit the union leader’s home and he comes in and he meets his teenage son…
13-year-old son. Yeah.
…that is working in his factory. George sort of has this moment of zen where he’s sort of shocked that this kid is working in his factory. Is he truly unaware of this? Or do you think he’s just never had it in his face?
That’s my assumption. I think George knows exactly who it’s in his factories. He knows the rate of injury, he’s calculated the cost of slowdowns that he’s had to deal with in terms of dealing with worker injury. He knows all that stuff. He’s got the data in his head because I think that’s the kind of businessman he is. But I don’t think he’s had to confront the humanity of one of those people in a long time, if ever. And I don’t think, that doesn’t seem unusual to me. If you think about, I don’t know, when’s the last time does Tim Cook go to the families of workers in Shenzhen, China? I doubt it. And I don’t know. I think there’s a reality to that we are all in our certain political bubbles but we are all constrained by a kind of limited view of who is human and who isn’t. And I think if you’re someone like George, you have that degree of power. I think that bubble’s pretty small. And so yeah, going into that house where you’re like, “Oh yeah, these kids are not going to school and they don’t have that much food on the table, and I know exactly what the rate of injury is in my factory, and that little kid with those particular fingers and hands is the one who is going to be at risk.” I think it is a moment of realization for George, for real.
In terms of the entire season, is there any scene or any sequence that you remember the most? That pops into your head almost immediately.
I’m trying to think. I think maybe the first day back. We shot this scene, it was me and it was Bertha and Deborah Meyer who was shooting it, a director I had worked with before, actually, but not on thjs show. And she came into our season. I was really excited to have her voice in the show because she’s very sensual in the way she uses the camera. And she had so many, she had all of these great ideas and how to attack shooting, and she just, it was a scene early on where it’s like, we haven’t seen each other. Bert and I haven’t seen each other in a while. It was the scene where you’re like, “O.K, let’s show how good it is about to get bad.” And just the way she shot it, it was the camera sort of moving around us, and then we sneak off into this little atrium covered in plants make out against a wall or something like that. And this, it was just taking George and Bertha’s relationship and showing just a slightly other side of it. I was like, “Oh, are we allowed to do this ‘The Gilded Age’?”
Is this too HBO for us? [Laughs.]
I don’t know, it was just nice. I loved when I loved Deborah’s overall contribution to the season. I thought her episodes were fantastic, but I also just, yeah, it was an example. I think the nice thing about getting a second season is you get to fill out the humanity of these people. You get to play with, “O.K., well, what are the parameters of these characters? How far can we go in a certain direction?” And that was a scene where I was like, “Oh, we were pushing that now going to, we’re going to play with the edges a little bit. It was fun.”
And then lastly, before I let you go, you’re a movie that debuted at SXSW called, “I Don’t Understand You,” and I did not even recognize you in it.
Thank you!
Transformative. You’re playing an Italian person like character?
Yeah, kind of like a redneck, like an Italian, like Yoel. Yeah.
Can you just talk about the challenge of taking on that role?
Yeah, it was a couple of friends of mine, Brian Crano and David Craig directed, wrote and directed the film, and I loved the script, and I was so pleased. I was thrilled. They asked me to do it, and I was terrified because everybody else who speaks Italian and plays an Italian character in the movie, it was shot in Rome at their Italian. I’m the only guy who is faking it, and I think it works in the tone of the film. But yeah, I mean, I spent weeks working with an Italian on the dialect and on the actual spoken Italian, I don’t speak Italian, and it was really hard. I mean, I don’t know Italian pronouncing Italian correctly, it’s very difficult. I studied Spanish and I was like, “Oh, I’ll be able to get it.” But in terms of there are these double consonants that you have to give extra weight to, I struggled enormously with that. But it was fun. And beyond the technical demands of the language, it was just really exciting slash intimidating to get to work with Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, who are such experienced, talented comedians and improvisers. And I just think they’re so brilliant in that movie. I think they’re both so moving and funny kind of in equal measure. So yeah, getting to play with them and sort of step into that world was really fun.
“The Gilded Age” is available to stream on MAX