[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Season 3 of The Gilded Age.]

Summary

In Season 3 of ‘The Gilded Age,’ Gladys is on an intense emotional roller coaster while Larry is experiencing love and business pressures.

Gladys finds empowerment and happiness by embracing her mother’s influence.

The extravagant wedding scene was emotionally intense, with Taissa Farmiga showcasing emotional depth, exhaustion, and gratification as she portrayed Gladys.

In episode six of Season 3 of the HBO series The Gilded Age, Bertha (Carrie Coon) gets to see Gladys’ (Taissa Farmiga) new life and new struggles in England firsthand. While Bertha can only interfere so much, she is able to empower her daughter enough to find the spine she needs to solve her problem for herself. At the same time, while Larry (Harry Richardson) has been able to choose his own path to love, Marian (Louisa Jacobson) becomes distraught over a lie she uncovers that she no longer wants to go through with their previously happy engagement. During this interview with Collider, co-stars Farmiga and Richardson discussed Gladys’ emotional roller coaster for Season 3, Larry’s love adventure, finally coming into her own, the responsibility of privilege, the business pressures on Larry, and their experience shooting Gladys’ extravagant wedding.
Season 3 of HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age’ Really Dives Deep Into Who the Characters Are

“We need a bunch less exposition to explain and set up the world.”

Collider: Season 3 feels like the season where you can just jump right in with everything and everyone, and there’s a lot going on. What were you guys most excited to explore with Season 3 and for fans of the series to get to see? TAISSA FARMIGA: It feels like we finally have time to dive into the characters. We need a bunch less exposition to explain and set up the world. Now, we get to see the people be people. I’m just excited for fans to be along for the ride. Gladys is on an emotional roller coaster. I’m not talking about a little kiddie one. She’s going all around every single human emotion you can experience this season. As an actor, for me, it was incredible – incredibly exhausting and very rewarding – to be able to portray someone who I’ve gotten to know over the last two seasons before this, in Season 3. The Gilded Age has been a part of our lives for five years now, so to really get to a point where this young woman is, she hits rock bottom in the middle of the season and now the only way she can go is up. She really does start to light up. That was just beautiful to play, as an actor. I’m super grateful. HARRY RICHARDSON: I’m really excited for audiences to see Larry’s adventure. I really think Gladys is the emotional heart of all this pressure of society. She does take it on such a beautiful roller coaster and such a beautiful, in-depth ride into how complicated it was for young people in this time. The previous seasons are so opulent and so world-building and so beautiful, and this one has real depth and human experience, and real heartache and tragedy, and loss, and grief, and complexity. I’m super excited for that, across the board.

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One of the things I really love about Gladys’ arc is that we almost get to watch her spine straighten. She finds herself and really finds some happiness and joy in it somehow, which I really appreciated because it could have gone so disastrously. FARMIGA: It could have gotten worse. She gets pretty damn low in the middle of the season. I think she’s just numb and lost. There’s so much pressure on this young woman who just wants the freedom to make her own decisions. But when she’s given the decision, she doesn’t know what to do because it’s not really her decision, at the end of the day. RICHARDSON: It’s her duty. FARMIGA: Luckily, she does her duty. She finds a bit of a spark of happiness. RICHARDSON: Lucky for The Duke, really. As hard as it is for her to go off and deal with The Duke’s family now, she’s managed to survive Bertha. FARMIGA: Yes. She left one jail for another. Gladys is like, “Argh!” It really gives her an opportunity to bond with her mother when Bertha comes. That’s one of my favorite episodes of the season. For Gladys to finally come into her own, she thought she had to be a different person than her mother. But in the end, it’s actually being more like Bertha that brings Gladys true happiness. I hate to say it and Gladys hates to admit it, but thanks, mom. RICHARDSON: For both of our characters, it’s a very interesting exploration into the fact that we do stem from our parents. As much as we push back against where we come from, we’re standing on their shoulders, and their parents’ shoulders, and their parents’ shoulders. There’s a lot of brilliance that comes with the privilege of these two young characters’ lives and there’s also a lot of responsibility. It’s easy for them early on to push back at it and be like, “No, I don’t want any of that.” But really, they’re maturing into realizing, “Oh, this is where we come from and this is who we are.” FARMIGA: This is the privilege we have, and this is the opportunity we have. RICHARDSON: And this is the responsibility we have. They’re trying to figure out how they’re going to then bring something to the table culturally.
The Pressures of Love and Business Are Interwoven for Larry in Season 3 of ‘The Gilded Age’

“He wants to find a way to stand on his own two feet.”

Image via HBO

It’s interesting to see how that affects Larry because the expectation on him is more in business, whereas with Gladys it’s more in love. Harry, what is it like for Larry to have that pressure? FARMIGA: The weight of both is super heavy. RICHARDSON: I think both are interwoven into that time period so intensely – love and business. Gladys is also on an exploration of business. There’s so much money intertwined with their relationship and there’s so much power intertwined with it. FARMIGA: The only way a woman can do business in that time period is by negotiating through her husband. RICHARDSON: Totally. Last season, we saw Larry have his mother squash a relationship that he was exploring, and this year he thinks that she’s doing that again. As much as he’s trying to find that business wise, they’re interwoven. He wants to find a way to stand on his own two feet, so then he can also say, “I can marry who I want, and I don’t have to listen to anybody’s input.” It’s a really complex navigation for both of them.

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He finds this relationship with Marian and he is in love with her, but there are also miscommunications and misunderstandings between them, and it comes close to all falling apart because of that. RICHARDSON: I think communication is key. That’s the remedy that could be there for them. And also, the lack of communication is the main detriment towards their dysfunction and their heartache.
Shooting Gladys’ ‘The Gilded Age’ Season 3 Wedding Put Taissa Farmiga Through an Intense Week of Emotions

“We all learned that Taissa’s well of emotion is infinite.”

Image via HBO

What was it like to actually shoot the wedding? FARMIGA: It was an intense week. This wedding is maybe 15 minutes of screen time, if that, and we filmed it over five to seven days. I felt like the scene would never end. I kept having to put this wedding dress on. It’s beautiful. It’s extravagant. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience something this grand. But also, it took 25 minutes, every time, to put on this wedding dress. If you do that two or three times a day, that’s an hour, every day, of just putting on a wedding dress. I was pretty sick of it, by the end. RICHARDSON: We all learned that Taissa’s well of emotion is infinite. The fact that she was crying for five days straight when we were doing it, it was healing for all of us. FARMIGA: It was an experience, to be honest. RICHARDSON: It was in a sacred church and it was very moving FARMIGA: Right before they would call, “Rolling!,” I would work myself up. Gladys is walking down the aisle, and she’s just exhausted and the tears are there, but it’s not an active act of crying and weeping. It’s slow tears, so I had to work myself up. Before they’d say, “Rolling!,” I’d start wailing, and it was in this beautiful church where it just echoes. I felt so bad that there were so many people there just hearing me grieve, but it was a really cathartic experience. I think I’ve blocked some of it from my memory because it was so, so intense. It was good. As an actor, it was an insane experience. It was exhausting but super fulfilling. I’m grateful to have been able to flex those muscles. RICHARDSON: You could feel it. All the actors that were involved were all in the moment together. It’s a really special experience when it’s not just a two-hander, it’s a 150-hander. Everyone was right in that moment, and it felt like theater. It felt like magic. FARMIGA: It was special. You don’t get to experience that all the time, where everybody is on the same emotional wavelength. It was very interesting to see the familiar faces in the crowd. They were trying to be happy because it was the wedding day, but as soon as they saw my face, you could see the smiles slide off. It just fueled my own heartbreak.

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‘The Gilded Age’s Taissa Farmiga Breaks Down Gladys’ Emotional Season 3 Wedding: “She Might as Well Go Cry in a Castle in England”

Farmiga also talks about the sibling dynamic between Gladys and Larry, what Aunt Monica brings to the Russell house, and that elaborate wedding dress.

That one moment felt like watching her go from child to adult. I kept wondering, “Is anybody going to step in and say anything?” FARMIGA: I know. The moment when the pastor or bishop is like, “Who’s handing off this woman?” and George Russell gives Gladys away, that’s it. He told her that it was too late to say no, but she remembers that moment and it’s just heart-crushing.

The Gilded Age

Release Date

January 24, 2022

Network

HBO Max

Directors

Deborah Kampmeier, Salli Richardson-Whitfield

Morgan Spector

George Russell

The Gilded Age airs on HBO and is available to stream on HBO Max. Check out the Season 3 mid-season trailer: