THE GILDED AGE Stars Denée Benton, Taissa Farmiga, and Louisa Jacobson for Town & Country Magazine

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For two seasons, Denée Benton, Taissa Farmiga, and Louisa Jacobson have served as witnesses to all the opulence and melodrama of THE GILDED AGE’s grande dames. Now, it’s their turn. “THE GILDED AGE Girls Step into the Spotlight,” a special TOWN & COUNTRY digital cover story, is available on townandcountrymag.com now.

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Denée Benton on her fellow cast members: “We are getting to sit at the feet of legends. I feel like I’ve gotten to apprentice a masterclass of performance, getting to work with Audra [McDonald, who plays her mother Dorothy] and John [Douglas Thompson, her on-screen father] and Phylicia [Rashad, who joins The Gilded Age this season as the mother of Peggy’s new love interest]. Christine [Baranski] had us over and was talking about, ‘Oh, Steve Sondheim gifted me this’ and how she would take the bus two hours in and out of the city every day when she was on Broadway but also raising her kids. You’re just getting gold. I’ve all asked them to coach me on auditions; John has coached me on a Shakespeare audition. Cynthia [Nixon] coached me on my Gypsy audition; I’m just mining them for their genius all the time.”

Taissa Farmiga on her onscreen family: “My parents, my God, I am just so grateful because on the show, you kind of work in groupings, you know what I mean? And I’m very grateful that my bubble is a f*cking fantastic bubble. Carrie [Coon], Morgan Spector, just incredibly intellectual people, super witty and funny, but kind. And their chemistry is so intoxicating, just like their friendship in real life and then their romance on the show. I don’t feel like I have to pretend much when we’re doing our family scenes,” she says, acknowledging that while most people are going to say they enjoy who they work with during press interviews, on their set, “there is this higher sense of comradery and gratitude.”

Taissa Farmiga on the similarities between herself and her character: “Gladys reminds me of my young teen self. The thing Gladys craves the most is freedom. It’s something I craved very much when I was a teenager, and she especially craves freedom from her mother. And in the season, the manner in which she finds that freedom actually brings her closer to her mother Bertha, which is not something that was expected.”

Denée Benton on representing the community of wealthy Black elites: “I get really emotional reactions from people who are fans of Peggy’s world because it’s not just a history we didn’t know. It’s really connected to people who are still living and breathing. And one of the most special parts of getting to do this for me is people feeling like life is being breathed into something that was their little secret, and it gets to be brought to the mainstream in a special way. So the history element has been a huge part of it for me, and validating in a lot of ways.”

Denée Benton on Peggy’s happy ending this season: Peggy is introduced to Newport society by way of a potential love interest, and Benton confirms that her character does have a happy ending this season—perhaps with the strapping gentleman whose arm she takes in the trailer, but that doesn’t mean she won’t face some challenges, particularly in regards to her relationship with her parents. “So much of what your parents do is trying to keep you safe. Their version of what it means to keep you safe. And that’s what Peggy goes through with her parents. But so often what keeps you safe also keeps you sheltered from your destiny,” Benton says. “So Peggy’s is definitely a story about getting free. A lot of the women I play all end up sort of being stories about getting free, which I feel like has been my journey as a woman.”

Louisa Jacobson on the season ahead for her character, Marian: “Things that you think are going to happen might happen, but then something else is going to really twist it up.”

Louisa Jacobson on being in the public eye (as an actress and as the youngest child of Meryl Streep and Don Gummer) like her character: “There are certain things in Marion’s journey that I can relate to. Back then, society was a very public place and the stakes were high if word got out that you f*cked up two engagements. So there’s a level of public pressure that women were under, and I can relate to that in some sense because of the way that I grew up and the way that I currently live. It’s funny because in season one she was like, ‘I don’t care what society thinks,’ but actually, I think she does discover that it is important. The optics of how you are living your life are important. And she’s working through this process of building her own path that feels authentic to her and that feels meaningful to her and that aligns with her values as opposed to following the path of her aunts or the other young women in society. And I can relate to that.”

Taissa Farmiga on the parallels between the Gilded Age and today: “The Gilded Age is a period piece, but we haven’t traveled that far from the same societal battles that they were fighting then that we’re fighting now: the fight for equality, women’s rights, people of color, for us in the queer community. We’re still going for the same thing even though it’s 140, 150 years later.”

Louisa Jacobson on broadening the scope of the story in future seasons: “I think Sarah Paulson needs to be the show’s first lesbian.”

Denée Benton on how a musical episode would be a “fantasy” come true: “Christine Baranski has to sing a cranky song as Agnes.”

[Photo Credit: Emilio Madrid for Town & Country Magazine – Video Credit: Town & Country/Magazine]

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