How Dan Stevens and Betty Gilpin became a married couple for Gaslit
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Talking to Dan Stevens and Betty Gilpin, you can feel the playful energy that must have powered their portrayal of John and Maureen "Mo" Dean on Gaslit. Bantering back and forth on a joint Zoom call with EW, the two actors alternate between waxing rhapsodic about history and morality and cracking wise at every opportunity.
"Dan died halfway through, so his twin David came in, which was so sweet of David," Gilpin jokes at one point, as Stevens cracks up in the window beside hers.
But seriously, folks: The Deans are central figures in Gaslit's reframed take on the Watergate scandal (based on the first season of Slate's Slow Burn podcast), as their budding romance plays out against the backdrop of appalling political corruption. John Dean was an ambitious lawyer who served as White House counsel to President Richard Nixon at the time of the Watergate break-in — which naturally complicated his relationship with Mo, his eventual wife.
"Over the course of the season, she senses that something is wrong, he's having some affair or something," Gilpin says of her character. "And then she realizes it's not an affair. It's not a hot redhead, it's mass corruption. Nixon is the hot redhead in this scenario."
Starz Dan Stevens and Betty Gilpin as John and Mo Dean on 'Gaslit'
As for John, "He really felt that he was given the keys to the kingdom and accepted into the inner circle of the White House," explains Stevens. "And he gets in way over his head with some characters who he is not comfortable being around and working with."
Perhaps even more so than that of Martha Mitchell (Julia Roberts), the Deans' story encapsulates Gaslit's human-scale approach to the outlandish events of Watergate. "We're so used to having public figures be the larger-than-life, wrestling-character versions of themselves, and I think our job is to show that they were just people who lost their way a little bit and let their egos drive," muses Gilpin.
Read on for more from our chat with Stevens and Gilpin, including details about the Deans that the show had to leave out, why the set was such a playful environment, and how they were "tricked" into giving good performances.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Tell us about the Deans — their relationship gets off to a rocky start, but grows into a strong bond and partnership. Can you tease the roles they play in the story and how their relationship evolves?
BETTY GILPIN: On first glance, she's like, "This is gonna be a quick date. I will never see this person again. I'm not really getting a good feeling about him and his Porsche." And then over the course of the date, [it's like] when you meet someone and see flashes of your future together. I think it's sort of a time-stopping moment for her.
I think it's a real love story between them. Watching Dan play John Dean in all these other scenes where so much evil happens, for me, was like going to the funeral of the man who I was married to who I thought I knew, and then all these mob bosses show up at the funeral too. It's like, "Wait, what was your life like?" You're so deliciously evil in some of those scenes, Dan! I felt betrayed. [Laughs]
DAN STEVENS: Yeah, it's a pretty schizophrenic existence that he has to lead at certain points. He thought he was getting in with the big boys playing politics, and then it turns out he's into some pretty shady business, whilst also trying to cultivate a wonderful relationship. The secrecy versus the openness in the marriage, and the communication versus the clandestine skullduggery — those are two good words — is inherently very dramatic, and sometimes comedic as well.
GILPIN: I'm dying to meet this stripper whose life I'm trying to get the rights to, named Clandestine Skullduggery. She's a really interesting character.
What kind of research did you each do to help shape your portrayal of the Deans?
GILPIN: I read Mo Dean's book A Woman's View of Watergate, and on Dan's recommendation, I listened to King Richard [by Michael Dobbs]. And in the audiobook of this book, they play the Nixon tapes. It's so wild to hear those tapes. But you know, we filmed over the course of seven months, and I have pandemic brain, so at the very beginning I knew a ton about Watergate, and by the end I was like, "Watergate…? Nope, it's gone." [Laughs]
STEVENS: King Richard was published almost as we began production on this, and it was an incredible resource. The audio is chilling. And also, pretty much everybody involved in this scenario got a book deal out of it, so there's multiple angles on this. Reading Gordon Liddy's book, Will, and the things that he has to say about Dean versus the things that Mo has to say about Dean in her book, and weighing up all of these different accounts and opinions — the celebrity circus and publishing tirade that came after this provided a lot of rich material to dive into.
Starz Betty Gilpin as Mo Dean in 'Gaslit'
So with all of that material available, how do you then narrow down your take on the character and your way into them?
STEVENS: At a certain point, you have to leave that stuff behind to an extent. It can flesh out your understanding of the world, and there's certain details that you take and incorporate, but then you also need to abstract that into your own creation, or version of it. The way that Betty and I were able to sort of pop up this marriage and this relationship is not doggedly faithful to various biographical details, but it's a dynamic that you feel comfortable playing with. My greatest regret is that we don't include their dog Gucci, who features very heavily in Mo's autobiography. But I guess [the show] didn't have the budget for a Bichon Frise.
GILPIN: Only one Bichon Frise allowed at a time. Yeah, I mean, [while] all the research and footage and books written about the time are certainly helpful, I agree with Dan that our job is also to illustrate that these were fumbling, dreaming, flawed people just like we are. We're so used to having public figures be the larger-than-life, wrestling-character versions of themselves, and I think our job is to show that they were just people who lost their way a little bit and let their egos drive. Sean Hannity and Martha Stewart are playing Wordle and hating their necks and crying in the bathroom like the rest of us.
The two of you didn't really know each other before starting work on the show. How did you work together to build this marriage and develop your characters' dynamic?
GILPIN: You know when you're at a musical or a concert, and the person starts singing, and you're like, "Oh, thank God, they're such a good singer. We're gonna be fine"? I felt that way with Dan as an actor. It was immediately apparent to me how skilled of an actor he was, and how many tools he had on his actor Swiss Army knife. And it made it so much fun. There's a scene in the pilot that we were shooting at 3 in the morning, and it's so easy for those situations to feel not conducive to fun or creativity, but every scene was so fun. And Dan's just such a good actor that it really felt like school again.
STEVENS: Well, it was odd that I chose to sing everything.
Starz Dan Stevens as John Dean in 'Gaslit'
Dan, anything to add? Do you have any nice things to say about Betty?
GILPIN: Better be a compliment, buddy.
STEVENS: Many, many nice things to say. I think if you're able to have fun with your scene partner on set, that fuels the work, whether the scene is dramatic or comedic. If you're able to trust that you're in good hands and be playful with the script — and [series director] Matt Ross very much encouraged playfulness around the words on the page. He cast the whole ensemble like that, but I think we especially were able to sort of bring the relationship to life by being a little playful around the edges, which I hugely appreciated. Thank you, Betty Gilpin.
GILPIN: Felt more like a compliment for Matt Ross than for me, but let's move on.
How did that playfulness you mentioned manifest on set?
GILPIN: I mean, it was like this. We were just having fun. Matt Ross is also an actor, and there's a certain way to talk to actors and environment to create. We're scared, little self-obsessed children, and we have to be tricked into a good performance. There has to be the right cocktail of compliments and pretending that no one will ever see it, and Matt Ross knew how to make that environment.
STEVENS: Cookies.
GILPIN: Yeah, cookies.
STEVENS: Little incentives along the way. But yeah, [a] of a sense of humor about the work — taking the work very seriously, but also having a sense of humor about what it is that we do, and how inherently fun, privileged, and absurd it is all at the same time.
Women often get left out or sidelined in the big political stories of American history. Betty, what does it mean to you to be reframing the story of Watergate in this way with this character?
GILPIN: I think Martha Mitchell is such an example of how we have gotten it wrong so many times. I think that what we Americans like to do is say, "Only evil people were pushing these voices to the sidelines or were outwardly misogynist or outwardly racist." And I think that what our story touches on is how much those things were in the groundwater for everyone, and how, for Frank Wills' story and Martha Mitchell's story, it was so easy to silence both of their voices and push them to the sidelines because society was built to do just that.
I don't think this story is going to single-handedly right the wrongs of the misogyny that are in the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, but I think that it's a start to give a little more of a spotlight to the people who we wrote off as people who deserve one line or erasure. I think Martha was a pretty incredible figure. And I think Mo Dean had one. [Laughs]
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Gaslit premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.
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