Carrie Coon‘s biggest beef on season 1 of The Gilded Age wasn’t with Christine Baranski, her character’s nemesis, but with her own wardrobe.
The actress recently opened up about her battle against the restrictive period corsetry and brasiers worn by her character Bertha Russell during a Gilded Age panel on Saturday at Austin’s ATX TV Festival. When asked what kind of notes, if any, she’d received from notoriously meticulous series creator Julian Fellowes, Coon reflected, “He’s not around that much. But I can say that when I was pregnant in season 1, if they knew he was watching, they spent a lot of time trying to tuck my boobs back in.”
Coon joked, “They were a little offensive.”
Coon was joined by her costars Baranski and Morgan Spector, who plays her character’s husband, the unscrupulous railroad tycoon George Russell. “I was personally scandalized,” Spector joked.
“I could rest my chin on them,” Coon continued. “That was a real coup for the costume department, but, I don’t know. I feel like sometimes he’s weighing in on etiquette stuff.”
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The Gilded Age chronicles the deliciously petty in-fighting between ascendant and established members of New York City’s upper class in the late 19th century. Co-starring Cynthia Nixon, Taissa Farmiga, and Louisa Jacobson, the series is considerably frothier than Fellowes’ previous TV project, Downton Abbey, but still requires its cast to completely immerse themselves in the period – costumes, etiquette, and all.
“And the dinners,” Baranski added. “The dinner scenes are, I feel like a horse doing dressage. We’ve all done it, but if you take a bite to eat and then you have a line, [you must] try and chew delicately. And then the continuity, the teaspoon has to go back in the cup exactly the way… The dinner scenes kill me.”
Fabio Lovino/HBO
Coon recently appeared on the third season of Mike White‘s uber-popular anthology drama series, The White Lotus. Her Laurie Duffy traveled to the titular resort chain’s Thailand location with two friends (played by Leslie Bibb and Michelle Monaghan) whose bond is rigorously tested.
Though she admitted to being thrilled to inhabit a looser wardrobe for the duration of the Thai location shoot, Coon and her fellow cast members admitted that the intense sun and heat caused their own set of problem. Monaghan called it “the hottest I’ve ever felt,” and Jason Isaacs recounted, “We’re doing intimate scenes, and you stink.”