“I wanted very much to make TheGildedAge distinctively American. And I didn’t believe I could do that without having a Black narrative and a Black family alongside the others.'
The lavish HBO series, which premiered last month, is set in 1882 New York City. Taking a page or two from Edith Wharton, it centers on two wealthy families who live in neighboring mansions on Fifth Avenue and represent opposing forces in New York society: the Old Money Van Rhijns, who proudly tout their pre-Revolutionary roots, and the nouveau riche Russells, who are determined to use their railroad fortune to conquer Manhattan.
Fellowes typically writes his shows on his own, but for “The Gilded Age,” he shared duties with Sonja Warfield, a writer whose credits include “Will & Grace.” “I always say that the behind-the-scenes story of ‘The Gilded Age’ is just as interesting as the show,” said Denée Benton, who plays Peggy, “especially because of all the conversations we were having as a country around who holds power and how we share it. Our show was a really cool example of what can happen when you do.”
They decided to make Peggy a writer, because it is “one area where women have been pretty successful for quite a long time,” said Fellowes. “Women were allowed to be novelists. They were allowed to be poets. And it didn’t seem to offend the masculine sensitivity in the same way.” Benton, who grew up in a middle-class Black family in Florida that prized education, said she related to her character and “the pressure to make your parents proud, while also really getting to lean into the freedom that they fought for you to have, even if it’s outside of what they imagined for you.”
“We wanted to avoid the white savior thing,” Fellowes said. “So Peggy saves Marian, rather than the other way around, which is what it would have been 10 years ago.”
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