The Cast Of The Gilded Age Is Stunning In Real Life

HBO's "The Gilded Age" doesn't just reimagine the lavishness of 1880s New York — it recreates the feeling of a country on the brink of transformation. The series invites viewers into a world where chandeliers glitter like ambitions, silk rustles with secrets, and every dinner party is a silent battle for social supremacy. Creator Julian Fellowes — also behind "Downton Abbey" — crafts a vision of America's upper crust so vivid it feels mythic, a portrait of opulence built atop the hum of progress and inequity.

But the true magic lies in the cast. Beneath the corsets, cravats, and coiffed hair are the actors who make up this ensemble. The hit show features Broadway veterans, award-winning TV icons, silver screen legends, and even a few relative newcomers. If there's one thing the stars of "The Gilded Age" all have in common, it is that they are all nothing short of stunning in real life.

Bertha Russell isn't climbing the social ladder. Rather, she's rebuilding it from the ground up. With her razor-sharp diction and unflinching poise, Carrie Coon turns Bertha into a general on the battlefield of society. As Coon said in The New York Times in 2023, "If Bertha had been of another time, Bertha would have been a C.E.O., an executive, a senator. She's an ambitious woman in a time where there was no place for ambitious women besides the social sphere."

Outside of the world of "The Gilded Age," Coon stays busy. From "The Leftovers" to "Fargo," she's built a career out of mastering complex women. Her Emmy-nominated role in "The White Lotus" Season 3 showed she could dominate modern decadence just as handily as period opulence. Though she might look right at home in Bertha's gowns and corsets, Coon prefers to keep things as casual as possible when she's not filming a scene or attending an A-list event. As she quipped to Town & Country, "I would describe my personal style as disheveled working mom." But don't let her fool you: When Coon does hit a red carpet, she sure can turn out a cool and glam look like no one else.

Known as the "train daddy" to Bertha's "opera mommy," railroad tycoon George Russell is loosely inspired by figures like Cornelius Vanderbilt. Beneath the starched collars and steely business meetings, actor Morgan Spector gives George a quiet ache, especially in his scenes opposite Carrie Coon. Together, they play one of television's most mesmerizing couples — strategic allies in public, and fiercely vulnerable in private. "I care about George and Bertha's marriage—I like it," Spector told GQ in 2025. "Both Carrie and I have wonderful marriages that we love, and we both brought some of the care that we have for our own marriages into this marriage." "The Gilded Age" actors' real-life partners are both in the biz too: Spector's wife is actor Rebecca Hall, and Coon is married to writer and actor Tracy Letts.

In the real world, Spector's magnetism feels effortless, and his style is second to none. When he made his Met Gala debut in 2024, he arrived in a bold red Willy Chavarría suit that featured large flower appliqués — and people certainly took notice. When asked about his look, Spector told Vogue, "I like classic men's clothes—excellent tailoring, the kind of textiles that feel good in the hand, but I also like seeing what someone like Willy can do with those elements that's wilder and more interesting than the standard suit."

Cynthia Nixon has traded cosmopolitans for corsets, but her intellect remains her sharpest accessory. As Ada Brook Forte on "The Gilded Age," she brings quiet endurance and understated strength to a role that could easily fade beside the towering Agnes van Rhijn. Instead, Nixon makes Ada indispensable.

"I've always felt connected to Ada, frankly," Nixon said of her character in a 2025 interview with Vulture. "The world thinks I'm Miranda [from 'Sex and the City'], but by the time I started playing Miranda, I had been acting for 20 years and I had a specialty in characters very much like Ada: shy, hopeful, optimistic people who were basically wearing a sign that said, 'please don't hurt me.'"

Though she may play "shy" well, she is no shrinking violet in her real life. The truth about Cynthia Nixon is that in addition to being an Oscar short of the EGOT, she ran for governor of New York in 2018 and has spent decades using her platform to champion education and equality. Her aesthetic mirrors that intelligence: crisp suits, natural fabrics, and clean lines that feel both timeless and practical. While her "Gilded Age" wardrobe couldn't be further from her everyday style, that arguably makes it all the more fun to dress up as Ada. "The day I most get excited for is when the costume for the day shows up," she told Marie Claire. "I'm always in awe of the workmanship that goes into any one piece of clothing that I wear; the detail is staggering."

As Agnes van Rhijn on "The Gilded Age," Christine Baran ski's old money energy leaps off the screen. Baranski — whose long filmography includes "Cybill," "The Good Wife," "The Good Fight," and Tanya in "Mamma Mia!" — is one of the best in the biz when it comes to playing power and panache. 

"So when I'm exploring a character, I look for as many deep secrets as I can to explore—not just their strengths, but some of the not-so-obvious things," she told Vanity Fair in 2025. "A lot of the characters I play are women who out in the world have to present themselves in a powerful way."

Agnes is no exception. As she noted on an episode of "Live with Kelly and Mark," her "The Gilded Age" character can be the most powerful person in a room without ever getting out of her chair. "It's in my contract. I don't walk," she quipped. The TV icon also shared that she could hide all of her daily necessities underneath the skirt of her billowing gown. "You can have bottled water, you can have a peanut butter sandwich, laptop, cell phone, your script," she quipped.

On "The Gilded Age," "Hamilton" star Denée Benton plays Peggy Scott, an ambitious journalist. Peggy isn't just a young writer navigating Gilded Age racism and sexism — she's the moral heartbeat of the series. "I connected to Peggy so immediately off the page that I felt a sort of voracious protectiveness of her," Benton told Elle in 2022. "I really wanted her to make Black women feel proud and feel seen in the dynamic nature of her interiority."

Her performance is quiet yet revolutionary, carving out emotional space for a story rarely told in costume drama. Peggy's determination doesn't read as rebellion; it reads as survival. Benton's grace under pressure — her poise, her precision — makes the character unforgettable.

Outside of the show, Benton radiates confidence, and her style is chic as can be. Reflecting on the nearly backless pink and red Carolina Herrera dress she wore to the Season 3 premiere, she told WWD that she's enjoyed getting a chance to show her sartorial range on red carpets. "Sometimes I try to go really counter to it so that the world knows what I look like, not in a corset," Benton said. "But every once in a while I think I like to wink towards it in a way."

Louisa Jacobson might be Hollywood royalty — she's the daughter of Meryl Streep, after all — but she brings an independent light to "The Gilded Age" as Marian Brook, whose journey from ingénue to self-possessed woman anchors the series. "She's quite wide-eyed about the high society in which she finds herself, but there's a boldness and a fire to her that's slowly coming out, too," Jacobson said of her character in a 2022 interview with Vogue. Jacobson plays Marian with refreshing sincerity. She's romantic but never naïve, moral without being moralistic. The result is a heroine who reflects modern sensibilities inside a period setting.

Though Jacobson is technically a nepo baby, she's certainly put in the hours to get where she is today. She studied at Yale and the British American Drama Academy before stepping into the family trade, a move that speaks to her discipline. Her personal style also leans disciplined, but as she told Cero magazine, wearing the ornate costumes on "The Gilded Age" has made her eager to "take a little bit more risk" in the fashion department. "I am pretty safe with what I wear," she said. "I love the sartorial direction that fashion is headed in womenswear—the androgyny of it all is very appealing to me as a queer person!"

Gladys Russell may be the baby of the Russell family, but Taissa Farmiga makes her debutante story unexpectedly layered. She captures the tension of a young woman desperate to define herself within the gilded cage her mother built. Reflecting on the changes her "The Gilded Age" character has gone through, especially in Season 3, Farmiga told Marie Claire, "The high was super high and the low was super low. You really get to feel everything so intensely. ... I'm grateful to spread my wings a bit and get some nice meaty scenes and see this girl grow."

Audiences have watched Farmiga grow up, too. Her career took off when she was a teenager thanks to her work in hit projects like "American Horror Story" and "The Bling Ring." Her sense of style has grown along with her. "I think that, before you walk out the door and into the world, you have to feel good," she told AnOther magazine in 2017. "You have to figure out who you are, and I think fashion can help you do that. When you have more of a sense of who you are, you can take on the world." 

Kelli O'Hara is Broadway royalty, and in "The Gilded Age," she plays Aurora Fane — a woman who knows the rules of high society well enough to bend them. The stage veteran has enjoyed getting the chance to dig into the character season after season. As she said on "The Broadway Show with Tasmen Fadal" in 2022 (via Broadway.com), "I cannot tell you honestly what they intended for Aurora, but what I know is what I want for Aurora. I really desperately want, as we go forward, for Aurora to be surprising and not just typical."

Aurora's warmth masks a strategic intelligence that often goes unnoticed by her peers, and O'Hara exudes the same poise. That said, don't expect to see her in bustles or corsets in real life. "I'm a hippie in some ways," she told Broadway Style Guide in 2015. "I like lots of layers and scarves and jackets and hats and flowy things. I do two different things. I want to be comfortable and I want to be a mom, but then when I go to work, I love dressing up." And when she does dress up for award shows and the like, she keeps it glam in satin gowns and soft palettes.

Harry Richardson's Larry Russell is the rare heir apparent who earns our sympathy. Torn between his father's empire and his own ideals, Larry's story is one of quiet rebellion. "I think he was very eager in the last two seasons to step out on his own and to make a man of himself, and [in Season 3] he gets to explore that—along with some pitfalls and complications," Richardson told Town & Country in 2025.

On "The Gilded Age," Richardson plays Larry with intelligence, but also shows vulnerability in a world obsessed with hierarchy. In his everyday life, Richardson embraces a more laidback vibe. "There are people who will have seen the whole show and they'll be talking to me for a while, and have no idea I'm in it. So with this show in particular, I think I resonate a lot with Larry, but I don't know that I look much like him," he told Anthem magazine in 2025. "I'm more of an Aussie hippie, kind of skating around."

Oscar van Rhijn might be scheming his way through society, but Blake Ritson makes deviousness look divine. His "The Gilded Age" character is a master manipulator, charming yet calculating, wielding wit as both shield and sword. Every smirk is strategy, every word deliberate. "He's very socially adept, so he's got an array of masks for every social event, but there's a lot going on within him," Ritson told Vulture. "He's quite a troubled soul."

When he's not in character, Ritson carries a quiet sophistication. A screen and stage veteran, his credits include "The Crown," "World Without End," and "The Count of Monte Cristo." Needless to say, the guy loves a period piece, and he sure seems to appreciate the stunning costumes crafted for these projects. When asked about the intricate and ornate outfits he gets to wear on "The Gilded Age," he shared that he was impressed by how intricate and involved each piece is. "They're not just beautiful, they're detailed," he told Collider in 2022. "I love them, but there are so many tiny buttons."

Dorothy Scott is a quiet force on "The Gilded Age," a woman whose composure and compassion transcend the chaos of 19th-century New York. Legendary actor Audra McDonald doesn't just play Dorothy Scott, she anchors her. "I find it a great and fulfilling challenge, even with 'The Gilded Age,' to learn how a Black woman of my character's stature in that time would eat her food," she told Newsweek. "It's all about specific character work, how a person is moving through the world at any particular time in any particular era."

A record six-time Tony Award winner, McDonald has spent decades showing audiences what excellence looks like on stage and screen. She's also a mentor, activist, and advocate for inclusion in the arts. And when it comes to her personal style, she never misses a beat. When she attended the 2025 Tonys, for example, she took the red carpet by storm in a glimmering, sculptural Christian Siriano gown. As her stylist, Jake Sokoloff, said on the "Dressed Rehearsal Podcast," "We kind of really tried to find things that felt chic, elevated, strong, and maybe a little bit sexy." Mission: accomplished.

On "The Gilded Age," Donna Murphy plays a fictional version of Mrs. Astor. Before she landed the role, Murphy dove headfirst into researching the American socialite. "She was infamous for really being very tight-lipped about many, many things, although she's certainly been quoted. She did very few actual interviews herself," Murphy told Broadway World. "And, when she did, she spoke with this very high bar of what she viewed as having integrity and what needed to be maintained for this society to be one of value."

Murphy not only has two Tony Awards for her work in "Passion" and "The King and I," but she's built a filmography that includes everything from "Tangled" to Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" series to "The Bourne Legacy." Oh, and let us not forget that she played an integral part in the "Center Stage" cast. While she's brought glitz and Old Hollywood glam to red carpets for decades, her personal style is not as... gilded as her "The Gilded Age" counterpart. "Kasia Walicka-Maimone, who designed the costumes, had this idea that, as much as possible, there would be a golden aspect to Mrs. Astor. You'll see a lot of gold and bronzes in her costumes," she dished to Vulture. "You'll see other colors, but those elements are almost always present."

Ben Ahlers' Jack Treacher may not come from money, but he exudes a different kind of wealth: sincerity. Jack's decency makes him stand out amid the show's power brokers. Ahlers's quiet focus gives "The Gilded Age" its working-class conscience. He's the audience's reminder that dignity doesn't require grandeur. 

With roots in theater, Ahlers transitioned seamlessly into film and television, nabbing roles in "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina," "The Last of Us," and beyond. What's more, his personal style has evolved along with his career. "I do have so many different types of characters inside of me, and I think fashion allows you in just one afternoon to try on a completely different persona — to literally try on a different hat and see what that does to you," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2025. "I started working with a great stylist named Donté McGuine, who has really pushed me in directions I wasn't anticipating but have really loved."