The Gilded Age Director Takes Us Inside Season 2’s Scandalous New Romance

Andy Swift
·2 min read

The Gilded Age loves a scandal, and Sunday’s episode gave us a doozy. Remember that young widow who was looking to hire someone to remodel her house? Well, Larry scored the coveted gig this week — and they’ll be doing most of their work in her bedroom.

That’s right, we’re only two episodes into the new season and we’ve already got ourselves a good old-fashioned forbidden romance, all the better that Larry’s love interest is played by Laura Benanti. But there’s much more to her character, the quick-witted Susan Blaine, than meets the eye.

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“It was important to me that Susan not be a cliché of an older woman, like some cougar preying on this young man, but that we reveal her heart, her deep need to live again,” the episode’s director Deborah Kampmeier tells TVLine. “Larry represents that life. We talked a lot about how she was Larry’s age when she got married and her life stopped. So it’s like she’s been reawakened, and she’s emotionally the same age as Larry because she was Larry’s age when she became imprisoned in her husband’s home.”

Meanwhile, a far less controversial romance was blooming between non-cousins Marian and Dashiell, complete with an intimate moment (by 1880s standards at least) on the dance floor.

“Louisa Jacobson and David Furr both are incredibly charismatic and open and playful and game,” Kampmeier says. “My understanding is that they went to dinner before we were on set together. They really did their work as actors to bring that chemistry, which I thought was really so strong when you see them together. They play so perfectly off of each other.”

Working on The Gilded Age was a “thrilling and gratifying experience” for Kampmeier, who also directed the season’s fourth episode. She’s especially “grateful that [series creator Julian Fellowes] gives so much space for these stories about such real, dynamic women in that particular period and what they were able to do in that time.”

“I always say that my job as a director is to hold space for everyone to do their best work,” she explains. “And when you’re holding space for the best to do their best work, it’s just insanely inspiring.”

Your thoughts on this week’s Gilded Age? Drop ’em in a comment below.

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