Remember all that talk aboutThe Gilded Age, the much-anticipated follow-up toDownton Abbeyfrom writer/producer Julian Fellowes?
“The important word is gilded.
It’s not the golden age, it’s the gilded age.
‘The Gilded Age’.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
And that tells us it was all about the surface.
It was all about the look of things, making the right appearance, creating the right image.
That’s what was really what distinguished the era.
‘The Gilded Age ‘.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
What happened after the Civil War was over was how these enormous fortunes grew out of it.
You saw these enormous railway fortunes, shipping fortunes, copper, coal.
But they were more modest.
‘The Gilded Age’.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
They were living in houses in Washington Square that were not enormous.
They lived respectable lives and that was New York society at the time.
But for the new arrivals, that wasn’t enough for them.
They wanted to do something bigger and better.
They started to build these palaces on Fifth Avenue and gradually pushed further north.
So you had these great rivalries between the new families and the old.”
But her employ raises an eyebrow or two.
“Viewers will see these different worlds and be able to connect the past to the present.”
They were all thinking and feeling and having opinions about their employers and plans for their own lives."
We want viewers to feel and see a landscape that is from the past yet believable and accurate.
The show takes place in late 19th century America when the country was moving into a modern era.
The Gilded Agedebuts Monday, Jan. 24, at 9 p.m.
It will also stream on HBO Max.
