The Gilded Age finally announces key cast

The long awaited (and overdue) drama The Gilded Age has finally announced four cast members: Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Amanda Peet, and Morgan Spector.

The project by Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) was first hinted in 2012 and confirmed in 2015. It was due to premiere in 2019 on NBC, but later moved to HBO.

The US series begins in 1882 and centres on young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Southern general, who moves into the home of her rigidly conventional aunts in New York City. Accompanied by the mysterious Peggy Scott, an African-American woman masquerading as her maid, Marian gets caught up in the dazzling lives of her stupendously rich neighbours, led by a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife struggling for acceptance by the Astor and Vanderbilt set.

Baranski (The Good Fight, The Good Wife, Cybil, The Big Bang Theory) will star as Agnes van Rhijn, described as a proud and stubborn aristocrat who will never accept that the world has changed, and that ancient values are being replaced by new ones. She found herself penniless as her parents’ plantation was foundering, even before the war, but she managed to catch a husband just in time. Agnes has a son named Oscar, whom she worships, but her worship is not returned.

Nixon (Sex and the City, Ratched) will play Ada Brook, another victim of the collapse of the old south, but unlike her sister Agnes, she never found a way to get out until it was too late, and she was forced back on her sister’s charity. She is not naturally confrontational, but she is capable of standing up for what she believes

Peet will appear as Bertha Russell and Spector will play George Russell.

Despite the moved to HBO the series is still due to screen in Australia on 10.

Source: Variety