‘The Gilded Age’ Star Morgan Spector Reveals His and Carrie Coon’s Imagined Meet Cute for George and Bertha

The Gilded Age Season 2 continues to challenge robber baron George Russell (Morgan Spector) in every possible way. At work, Mr. Russell finds himself cast as the villain in a cold-hearted battle against union workers fighting for basic labor protections in Pittsburgh. However, at home, he’s been finding things all the more difficult. When his beloved wife Bertha (Carrie Coon) discovers that George hid the fact that her former maid (turned social rival) Turner (Kelley Curran) attempted to seduce him in Season 1, the robber baron winds up in the dog house. It takes setting up a meeting for Bertha with a handsome Duke (Ben Lamb) to win back Mrs. Russell’s good graces. Meanwhile, his son has been cavorting with a hot widow, he’s promised his daughter she’ll eventually get to marry her true love, and he’s been doing everything he can to secretly siphon money into Bertha’s beloved Opera Wars cause. George Russell might not be HBO’s most relatable patriarch, but we can definitely admit his struggle is real. (Well, sort of.)

Decider recently caught up with The Gilded Age‘s Morgan Spector to talk about what Turner’s dramatic return as Mrs. Winterton meant for George, how much he’s been loving co-star Kelley Curran’s viral antics, and what the arrival of a Duke means for the Russells going forward. Somehow we still managed to find time to break down exactly why the Russell family’s accent sounds simultaneously so familiar and yet so weird, and — most importantly — what sort of meet cute Morgan Spector and Carrie Coon understand George and Bertha to have had…

DECIDER: Julian Fellowes dropped a bombshell earlier this season when Turner returns. I talked to Kelley Curran about it. I’m curious, when did you first know that was happening? And how would you characterize George’s initial reaction upon meeting Mrs. Winterton at the end of Season 2 Episode 2?

MORGAN SPECTOR:  Yeah, so I knew it was happening when we all found out sort of at the same time that it was happening, and I was just delighted. I think it’s such a fun, juicy turn, and I think Kelley has been amazing. Like that bit where she runs up the stairs and she’s like, “I want MY DUKE!” I was just like, “This is all I want television to be! This is just so crazy.” And I think she’s just been having fun with it and I’ve loved seeing the audience respond to her because people love to hate her. But anyway, Kelley is fantastic. I think she’s doing a great job.

I think when she turns up at the tennis club, you know, it’s one of those things that like… George made the decision not to tell Bertha that Turner had tried to seduce him. And I think when you make a decision like that, maybe in the back of your head, you know this might come back to bite me in the ass. I think the minute that he sees her face, sees her there introduced as Mrs. Winterton, I think he knows, “Okay. Yes, the reckoning has come.”

Speaking of Bertha, I’m one of the many people obsessed with the interplay between George and Bertha. One thing I am dying to know more about, though, is what their back story was like: how they fell in love, how they met, what their status was at that time. Because even though I know your characters are supposed to be loosely based on the Vanderbilts, I get the sense that you guys probably came up from poorer backgrounds than they did. Have you and Carrie Coon talked about that and what the foundation for this partnership is?

Yeah, I mean, I think we have talked about it. There is not a backstory that we have that Julian [Fellowes] or the writers or Sonja [Warfield] have committed to. I think for us, what we have talked about in sort of loose, outline terms is George came from a successful mercantile family. Not wild wealth, but a business family. So he was able to get investment early on and use his business acumen to make the moves he needs to make, to become as wildly successful as he’s become. And Bertha, our idea is that she did come from poverty, but they were close enough in their social strata they could meet each other at a party and fall in love. You know, like properly in an organic way that we would recognize in our contemporary moment. You know, be attracted to each other and then come to see each other’s strengths and discover each other as potential partners.

But, yeah, I think in my head part of what makes Bertha such a ruthless driver and climber is that. And it’s why she’s so committed to her daughter marrying someone who is of a very high station. Because she comes from a family that knows what real poverty is and she’s just not ever gonna have her kids be in danger of that again, I think. She’s motivated by that.

Again, this is what our conversation is. It may come out we’re going to do the Russells’ backstory and it turns out they were secretly immigrants from Romania or something.

You kind of read my mind because my next question was going to be about Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) and the Duke. In Season 2, Episode 2, George promises Gladys that he will back her choice of a true love match. And I’m just curious, do you see that potentially blowing up in his face down the line?

I don’t think it’s going to blow up in his face. I think it’s going to blow up in Bertha’s face. She’s the one who’s gone behind his back and done exactly the opposite of what he wanted. Yeah, it’s going to be a problem. No question.

Yeah, they’re really hinting with the Duke arriving at the Vanderbilt backstory. So do you anticipate that there will be fireworks down the line if there is a third season?

I mean, I think, yeah. Bertha seems very, very committed to having the Duke be part of the family. I mean, my hope is that there’s one way out of this being a real fight to the death between George and Bertha, which is that through some miracle, Gladys actually does fall in love with the duke. Which is always possible. I mean, it wouldn’t be the Vanderbilt story because I don’t think their marriage was actually a happy one. But, you know, Ben Lamb has a really lush mustache. It’s very possible. I don’t know.

This might be a very nerdy question, but I have a slight drama background and I’m always interested in accents and dialect work. Most American shows set in the 1800s don’t really pay attention to the dialects as much as I think The Gilded Age does. So I’m curious if you’d speak to the inspiration for the very specific way that you and Carrie and the rest of the Russells speak.

Yeah, we’ve essentially gone for like a “general theater standard,” which is something that you learn in acting school and is not really applied anywhere else. There’s just no reason to do it anymore. When I went to acting school, it was like, [shifting accent] “This is how you speak when you do Shakespeare.” And I think today nobody wants to hear Shakespeare done that way. For the most part, people want to hear a contemporary sound.

But we have a wonderful dialect coach, Howard [Samuelsohn], and he is relentless. Like he is there every take and he is helping us tune it. Because the problem with the accent that we’re doing is there’s literally no one that speaks this way. There’s no tape you can listen to that will help you groove that in. You just have to kind of find it and drill it and sort of have somebody stay conscious. But I do think it really serves the show. I mean, it gives it that sense of this strata of society that had its own peculiar values that were only obtained in that era and have kind of vanished. That sense that the audience is getting privileged access to a world that no longer exists and that was eccentric even in its own time. I think it’s part of what makes the show fun. A detail like that is part of what helps build that insular world.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.