“No one writes a snob like Julian Fellowes,” Baranski tells EW.
Sound a bit familiar?
But Baranski is quick to point out key differences between Agnes and Violet.
Alison Rosa/HBO; Nick Briggs/PBS
“She is really an aristocrat.
Agnes is old money in New York, but she doesn’t have aristocratic background.
But, she is really holding on to the old value system.
Both these women are elitists and snobs.”
Still, Baranski welcomes any comparisons to Dame Maggie Smith.
“It was intimidating,” she says, knowing such parallels would be drawn.
“Any comparison to Maggie Smith to me is just awesome.
To me, she’s incomparable, and I have idolized her since I was in high school.
“I followed her career,” Baranski adds.
“There’s a career that I would aspire to or hold as the gold standard.
That’s all I’ll say.
you’re able to draw whatever comparisons.
What prompted you to talk to him?
Do you remember what you said?
They were Drexels and are very much a part of the Gilded Age.
Anyway, [with] Julian, I just wanted to meet him.
That would not be very subtle.
How do you thinkThe Gilded Ageengages with that paradox and how does Agnes fit in?
In 1882, it’s rather immediate.
The economy in the North was booming after the Civil War.
They didn’t have titles.
They didn’t have a Dowager or a count or a lord or a lady.
They had their money.
So money is a lot of whatThe Gilded Ageis about.
This was a chance for you to reunite withCynthia Nixonafter playing together on Broadway inThe Real Thing.
Did your sisterly bond come quite naturally or did you do certain things to develop it?
We did have this history, ages ago and I mean, ages ago 1984.
I played Cynthia’s mother, and we had a happy working relationship then.
But my god, she was a Barnard student, and now, she’s playing my sister.
That’s part of the pleasure of doing this, really researching a human who lived in another era.
You’ve noted that this is your first period piece on screen.
Oh I forgotChicago, but really, when I say period, I mean another century.
What was the most challenging part?
And was it different from doing a period piece onstage, which you have done a fair amount of?
The thing about the stage is you have time to rehearse.
On the stage, you have weeks of rehearsal and previews.
So, we lost our momentum and then had to start up again.
So, I would say doing this work without any time to rehearse it.
And then just entering that world and feeling natural in it.
Oh my god, it’s just an embarrassment of riches.
All these actors are trained in the theater, and so, they’re not afraid to assume characters.
They’re not afraid to speak in a certain way that is different from the contemporary way of speaking.
It felt like an acting repertory company.
We all knew each other, and it was just easier to mesh.
I can’t explain it, but it felt like an acting troupe.
A lot of women in Hollywood feel like their careers are over at 40.
But that’s when yours really started.
A martini-swilling, witty woman who was fabulously dressed and audacious in her behavior.
I experienced a very positive bump after the age of 40.
In so many ways, my career in film and television was just beginning.
It doesn’t really get any better than that.
I keep sailing the waters of film and television.
At the end of episode 1, Agnes is clearly very set in her ways.
Can you tease the rest of the season?
Does she have much capacity for change?
It remains to be seen, but she’s not all one dimension.
You’ll get the broad brush strokes first.
We have to understand what the stakes are by Agnes feeling as strongly as she does.
Because much of the tension of this show is the tension between the old money and the new money.
That character really functions in that way.
You’ve played a lot of smart, wisecracking women onscreen.
Which of your former roles would you say is most like Agnes?
I call Agnes a walking declarative sentence.
She simply knows her position, and she adheres to it.
There are good reasons why she feels the way she does, and Beverly was like that too.
It wouldn’t have occurred to her that she was wrong.
She also had a chilliness to her; she wasn’t an effusive woman.
I’m glad I played Beverly in advance of playing Agnes.
What would Diane Lockhart ofThe Good Fight/The Good Wifemake of Agnes?
Diane is smart enough to know that Agnes was very much a woman of her time.
Agnes' trajectory [is] having to marry a man that she didn’t love for save herself.
She was well born, but she had no money and she saved her sister as well, financially.
It was disaster for women at that time not to marry and not to have money.
You just slipped through the cracks.
Can you tease the rest of Agnes' journey this season in three words?
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
