The people behind Downton Abbey are working on a new period drama
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30th Sep 2019
Updated September 30, 2019: After a long pause, The Gilded Age, from Downton Abbey’s creator Julian Fellowes, is finally starting to come together.
Variety reports four of the main cast members have been announced. Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon, Christine Baranski, Something’s Gotta Give’s Amanda Peet and Morgan Spector have all reportedly been cast in the forthcoming series.
Per Variety, the series was originally an NBC production but moved to HBO earlier this year and has been given a 10-episode order.
Baranski is set to star as a character named Agnes van Rhijn, who Variety reports is described as “a proud and stubborn aristocrat who will never accept the world has changed, and that ancient values are being replaced by new ones.” Per the publication, Agnes was left penniless but “managed to catch a husband just in time”.
Sex and the City’s Nixon is slated to take on the role of Baranski’s character’s sister, Ada Brook, a character who is “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.”
Peet will play a character called Bertha Russell. Bertha “comes from the ordinary middle-class,” but managed to marry a gent called George, who has turned out to be a “financial genius”. Bertha is now “determined to use her money and position to break into a society that resists change at every turn.”
Spector will play Peet’s character’s husband, George Russell, “a classic robber baron of his own time… fond of his wife and his children, but utterly ruthless in business.”
No date has been announced as yet for when The Gilded Age will premiere on our screens.
February 2, 2018: It was the cultural phenomenon that took over our TV screens before Game of Thrones, The Crown, House of Cards and yes, Riverdale. And now, the creators of Downton Abbey are back—with another period drama we’ll no doubt be binging ASAP.
Named The Gilded Age, the story follows rich families in the late 19th century as they navigate their lives in New York—in particular, a young heiress named Marian Brook who is trying to make her way to the best social circles.
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes is set to write the show, and said in a statement the project was a “fulfillment of a personal dream”.
“I have been fascinated by this period of American history for many years and now NBC has given me the chance to bring it to a modern audience. I could not be more excited and thrilled. The truth is, America is a wonderful country with a rich and varied history, and nothing could give me more pleasure than be [sic] the person to bring that compelling history to the screen.”
The show is set to be released in 2019, and we’re hoping it comes to Australia very soon afterwards.
In the meantime, you’ve got one year to brush up on your period dramas.
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