Photo: Karolina Wojtasik/HBO
For all its dedication to upstairs-downstairs cliché, HBO’s The Gilded Age has, from the outset, been a mold-breaker when it comes to race. One of the best moments of season one was the reveal that Peggy Scott, played by Broadway vet Denée Benton, does not come from a low-income background, as her contemporaries (and perhaps the audience) expected. She hails from a wealthy Black family in Brooklyn, where her father runs a successful drugstore. Since then, the show consistently shines a light on New York’s pre–Harlem Renaissance Black community in ways rarely seen on TV. The groundbreaking nature of this depiction is something of a surprise for a project by Julian Fellowes, whose Downtown Abbey typically ran screaming from all matters of race.
This season, the show takes its focus on the Scott family a step further. After Peggy’s brief illness in the premiere, her parents take her to Newport, where she begins a flirtation with Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica). As the pair get to know each other during longs walks on the coastal cliffs, Peggy’s mother (Audra McDonald) and father (John Douglas Thompson) face off against their potential in-laws. Played by Phylicia Rashad and Brian Stokes Mitchell, the Kirklands are old money: descended from generations of free Black Americans and proud of their lineage to the point of condescension. Mrs. Kirkland’s haughtiness mirrors that of white characters from seasons past, but it manifests in new ways — namely colorism.
This dynamic between the Black parents and children is exciting to watch, because it both feels fresh for the show and remains steadfastly within its purview of class warfare. For Benton, who rose to fame playing War and Peace’s Natasha Rostova in the musical Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, this unprecedented depiction of 19th-century Black life is the result of years of research and conversations with the series’ producers and histories. “I would call it a miracle,” she says, “but it came from diligent collaboration.”
One of the best parts of The Gilded Age from the start has been its representation of New York’s wealthy Black community. But with this season, starting in this episode, the show has broadened its perspective to an even more established society in Newport. How did it feel to expand the show’s focus?
So much about this show feels like a lens we haven’t really seen on TV yet. And then to add even more layers … “gagged” is not even the right word. The legacy that I get to be a part of is just incredible. Back in 2019 when I got cast in this role, there were really the only three Black people involved in the project: Dr. Erica Dunbar, a historian who’s now an EP; director and EP Salli Richardson-Whitfield; and me. Audra and John were there in smaller capacities. We started dreaming out loud about how this show could be special. Julian Fellowes and director Michael Engler gave me their emails very early on, which I don’t think they regret anymore, but at one point they might have because I was just like, “You guys! Nothing has been done like this before! We have to break any blind spot, any stereotype.”
All those planted seeds have led us into different regions of the diaspora at that time and different depictions of what Black wealth looked like and how white supremacy still showed up inside our own communities. Even those cliff walks were not imagined back in 2019.
Can you describe what changes that collaboration has brought?
Originally, Peggy was going to function as Marian’s companion. We got to reimagine that. What if Peggy is using her writing skills inside of the house as well? What if instead of working at a white publication, she works at the Globe? Dr. Dunbar had all of these resources. T. Thomas Fortune was a man who existed, so what if we just widen the lens here? And instead of these two costumes, what if we get to see Peggy in silks and decadent jewel tones? Why wouldn’t she also be seen that way?
We widened the opportunities around where Peggy gets to be seen, not only inside of white spaces. We kept dreaming about what it would look like to have a Black ball, which we’ll have at the end of this season. No one would’ve questioned if we made this a white show with a token. But we really were like, Let’s make sure our show isn’t that. We’re going to give audiences and ourselves something we haven’t seen.
Did you have an interest in the Gilded Age prior to working on the show?
I have always been really interested in Black history. What I knew of the Gilded Age was really specific people. I knew Ida B. Wells’s work, but not anything about a wealthy Black community in Brooklyn. Black Gotham, by Carla L. Peterson, is a book they gave me, and I learned about the Black female writers of the 19th century. Their essays ask the same questions we’re asking now, about intersectionality, about wealth disparity, about who gets to speak for whom, about colorism. They show up between Phylicia and Audra and me and all our different characters.
We’ve gotten our first taste of the conversations the show is going to have about colorism this season, but Peggy’s not yet at the center of that. She’s in the midst of a love story.
It’s nice to see Peggy finally getting lost in a love story that could work out. We get to see Peggy be her own “It” girl for a moment. She’s speaking to a crowd about her political endeavors. She’s writing her novel. She’s got this cute man that saved her life. She’s in these colors we haven’t seen her in in the whole show. When Peggy gets into her conversations with Mrs. Kirkland, she’s not naïve, she just doesn’t even know to censor herself.
I have my own dreams of getting to be in films at all levels and getting to do magical realism with Yorgos Lanthimos. You say that, with my complexion, to an agent, and they’re like, “Okay, kid, best of luck.” That is what Peggy faces in every room. When she does face Mrs. Kirkland, she’s faced a million of those types of looks already. I pull a lot from her confidence in that way.
And I like that it’s Peggy’s parents’ turn to show up for her — they dropped the ball in the earlier seasons. They get the opportunity to ride for her as we see the season develop.
At this point, we’ve only seen Peggy bring up her connection with Dr. Kirkland to her mother and aunt. What is she really feeling?
Peggy felt an immediate spark with this man, especially when he asked to read her work.
That’s very sexy.
Very sexy. To a woman in the 1800s, this man said, “Let me read your writing.” They don’t want to read our writing now! And then the story he told her about her father being someone who inspired him made Peggy jump. It’s like, You saw me with my Miss Celie plaits while I’m fighting for my life in my little nightgown. He’s cute, but I don’t think she has any reason to believe he would see her that way. The cliff walk is the moment she really lets herself release into what feels good.
Do you think about her previous pain when you’re doing a scene like the cliff walk?
Grief is interesting. Peggy’s been through not only the heartbreak of Mr. Fortune but real, real loss. She lost her child. She lost her first husband against her will. I don’t think it’s always at the top of mind, but I think it’s in her body. She’s probably always going to be in a place of wondering when to disclose and not to disclose. She’s got a lot of lore. It’s not exactly first-date lore. We’ll see some of that tension show up as well.
You’re really segmented off in Newport, with a whole separate cast of characters than the other leads this year. How was it filming?
Peggy moves in and out of New York more this season. We’ll see her back with the main crew at some point. But we all say that our show feels like an acting repertory company, where you have companies within the larger rep. There are many people in different sections that never meet each other. Morgan Spector, who plays George Russell, and I did an interview for CBS This Morning and we were like, “My God, we are not in any scenes together in any seasons of the show.” Press is our big time to come together.
With my cast, with all of us being theater kids, there’s something that feels really natural. Obviously, I already had the working rapport with Audra and John, and acting with them makes me better every time. Jordan and I had done Into the Woods together. Audra’s worked with Brian and with Phylicia, and John’s worked with Phylicia. You come together and create your own ecosystem really quickly. It was exciting that Mrs. Kirkland feels like the Agnes of Newport. We have our own sort of archetypes we’re playing with that are echoed throughout the show. You have the Russell house, the Van Rhijn house, and now you have the Scott house.
Before this episode, I hadn’t thought of your family as new money.
Right? They’re new money and the Kirklands are old money, and they’re old free money. That’s a whole other kind of nuance. They look at us the way Agnes was looking at the Russells in season one.
A lot of the characters you’ve played, both onscreen and onstage, have relationships to money. Peggy; Natasha in Natasha, Pierre; even Cinderella in Into the Woods. Do they inform each other?
One of my friends made a joke. She was like, “You are always playing somebody who’s trying to get free.” That’s the way they all connect to me. They’re all young women trying to create their own sovereignty inside of strict boundaries. They are supernovas inside. I relate to that personally. I grew up in the first generation of an upwardly mobile Black family in the South. My parents were raised as migrant workers in Florida at the time of segregation. In school, it was my dream to play the ingénue, but I wasn’t conditioned to believe roles like Natasha would be possible for me. I had a North Star of Audra McDonald and dreamt it for myself.
Is it different to play a role like Peggy, who was written as a Black woman, versus someone like Natasha?
Peggy was written to be my complexion and reflect my socioeconomic walk through life. With Peggy, I always feel like if I was born in that time and you copy-pasted, that’s who I would have been. I look at my own essence and the ways I’ve walked through the world, and obviously I’m from the South and she’s a very cool Brooklyn girl, but she is the American Girl doll of my dreams. They say in good writing, the more specific, the more universal. That specificity has made her richer, and it’s made more people connect to her of all races and genders. People are really rooting for Peggy. And I think it’s because she’s a really clear human on the page.
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