“The Gilded Age” cast and creator talk finally exploring the Black elite in season 3

Key Points

The Gilded Age is movin' on up, er, down to Newport and the world of elite Black families who lived there in the 19th century.

Star Denée Benton opens up about finally getting to bring equal screen time to the Black characters on the show.

Plus, Jordan Donica comments on getting to explore a little-known corner of history.

The Gilded Age is expanding its worldview at last.

The show, which has dealt largely with the so-called 400 Club and the white elites of Fifth Avenue society in New York, brings in a new set of characters for season 3 — Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica) and his parents, played by Phylicia Rashad and Brian Stokes Mitchell, who are all members of the Newport elite.

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"We just got more and more interested in the history of the Black bourgeois community at the end of the 19th century," creator Julian Fellowes tells Entertainment Weekly. "People are not really taught it. They're taught one vision of that society, and the Black bourgeois community has been left out of it, largely. The more we learned, the more we wanted to put it into the show."

From the beginning, The Gilded Age has made more room for characters of color than something like Downton Abbey, which Fellowes also created. Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) has been a main character since season 1, and we've followed her as she's sought work as a writer and journalist.

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Jordan Donica and Denée Benton in 'The Gilded Age'

Peggy's family lives among a Black middle-class community in Brooklyn. "It was exciting to learn about the Brooklyn history when I started the show," Benton says. "It was something I didn't know about at all."

But after working with historian and consultant Dr. Erica Dunbar for two seasons, Benton was hungry for the show to open up further. "It feels like this garden we've been watering since season 1," she says. "Dr. Dunbar and I have been dreaming about what it could be like for the Black world of the show to expand and take up as much space as the white world of the Gilded Age.

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"This season feels like we're getting to see all the flowers blossom of that pursuit," she continues. "It culminated in us getting to speak to family members in Newport who are descendants of families like the Kirklands that have had Black family members in Newport for 11 generations and still have artifacts of their family from that time."

Sonia Warfield, the co-showrunner, explains further why Newport was a unique case in this era. "Because Newport is so small, they had integrated schools," she notes. "Brian Stokes Mitchell's character is based on a prominent Black pastor who became a member of the state assembly or something. We wanted to expand the world, and it is real, and it's not something that we see normally on television and film."

Jordan Donica is new to the cast this season, another Broadway luminary entering the world of The Gilded Age. As Dr. Kirkland, he's portraying a college-educated doctor and well-to-do man. Donica is no stranger to exploring history in his roles; he played Thomas Jefferson in the national tour of Hamilton (though Warfield had no idea he could sing when the show cast him).

"I've always loved doing period pieces to learn about what people like us were doing in different times and spaces," Donica says. "To learn about the free Africans who were never slaves, it's just not something we learn in school, if ever. To learn about that, to portray that, to dive into that history and to live in that world has been a blessing."

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Dr. Kirkland is a new love interest for Peggy. The two meet when he comes to treat her as she suffers from a bronchial infection, safely tucked away in the home of Agnes (Christine Baranski), who employs her as her secretary. The two click, and in episode 3 of the new season, Peggy visits Dr. Kirkland at his home in Newport, meeting his parents, who are extremely stuck-up and look down on Peggy's family's humbler origins.

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Denée Benton as Peggy Scott in 'The Gilded Age'

For Benton, it's a welcome change from so much of the tragedy Peggy has experienced. "We get to see Peggy giggle so much more," she gushes. "I don't know if we ever really got to see Peggy giggle in season 1 or 2, and there's just something radical about getting to see a Black woman have that much levity during that time and get to be romanced."

Still, love story aside, Benton affirms that her experiences with the descendants of these real Newport families enriched her time on the show this season. "It's such living history," she reflects. "And seeing the excitement, pride, and emotion on their faces — that their stories were being told — is a connective tissue with this show that feels like it's infused with a lot of magic."

The Gilded Age airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly