Taissa Farmiga Explains Gladys’s Last-Minute Twist in <i>The Gilded Age</i> Season 3 Finale

Spoilers below.

No one likes to admit that their mother is right, especially when it comes to their love life. That includes Gladys Russell (Taissa Farmiga), an ultra-wealthy heiress who didn’t have the power to avoid marrying the noble suitor her mom Bertha (Carrie Coon) picked out on The Gilded Age. But in the season 3 finale, while George (Morgan Spector) and Bertha’s marriage lies in tatters, Gladys is actually happy. She thrives as a wife and duchess and is excited about the next stage of her life: motherhood. Yep, Gladys is pregnant.

“Gladys wanted freedom, and in the end, she finds it by becoming a mini Bertha, but maybe with a bit more heart,” Taissa Farmiga tells ELLE. It is a far cry from Gladys running away in the middle of the night at the start of the season when Bertha forbade her engagement to a banker. “The means that Gladys finds her liberty is by becoming closer to her mother and closer to the person that her mother is, and that, to me, was incredibly funny and rewarding,” says Farmiga.

However, Bertha’s unrelenting drive, which was once an aphrodisiac to her robber baron husband, has become a wedge in their family. “Ambition is my parents’ love language. If they didn’t both have that, they wouldn’t be right for each other,” says Farmiga. “The difference is Bertha knows what it’s like to be in the body of a woman at this time, and she’s looking out for her daughter and loving her in the way she can.” Farmiga also notes that Bertha can be “such a selfish bitch” but the lofty dreams are Bertha’s attempt to secure long-term security for Gladys. Playing opposite Spector and Coon is inspiration enough to land these heightened emotions. “When I’m sitting there with Morgan, and I’m pleading with him, ‘Father, listen to me.’ He’s there, you see it in his eyes, and he’s so present,” she says. “It’s the same with Carrie. I don’t think I could be luckier to have the parents that I have.”

Gladys and the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb) have sailed from England to attend the end-of-season ball in Newport, which Bertha hopes will show a united Russell family to prove the tabloid gossip wrong. Behind closed doors, George is recovering from an attempt on his life, and he still cannot forgive his wife for forcing Gladys to wed Hector. Larry (Harry Richardson) is equally angry toward his mother, leaving Gladys as Bertha’s only ally within the family. How the tables have turned.

Behind the scenes, it is far more harmonious. Quite literally, in the case of Farmiga’s on-screen brother with Richardson often providing the music. “Harry Larry [as Farmiga called her co-star] always has a musical instrument in his hand or his backpack or on his chair,” says Farmiga. The Gilded Age cast is famously bursting with theater actors, which explains the playful mood on set. “I’m telling you this mix is unlike any other ensemble I’ve worked with,” she says. “Everyone knows a true sense of camaraderie, and people are showing up to have a good time together—there’s no egos.”

Here, Farmiga talks to ELLE about stepping into Gladys’s power, the bombshell finale, late-night antics on set, and a few daring items she’d like to see in the fourth season.

I had a call with the [creator] Julian Fellowes and [executive producer] David Crockett, maybe four months before we started filming. From an actor’s perspective, I was curious what Gladys was going to be up to this season. Boy, was I given a roller coaster of a ride. First reaction was “Oh shit! I’m excited.” As an actress, it’s incredible to play the roller coaster of emotions. If you look at my career, horror and genre projects are something I’ve done a lot of, and I love them so much because of the intensity of the emotions. Everything is so amplified by what’s going on in that genre. Gladys has been living her own horror story in this season.

Taissa Farmiga as Gladys in The Gilded Age season 3.

For Taissa, it’s terrible. Right now, I got that pit in my stomach when you asked me the question, because I was picturing the last fight from [episode 5]. You understand both of their perspectives, the love and pride they both have, how strong they both are, but it’s hard when you see two people you know who are supposed to be connecting completely missing each other. Sometimes you have to step back and be like, “Maybe I was wrong.” Not to speak for him, but I think George would like to even hear the words, “Maybe I was wrong.” That’s not something I think Bertha will ever, ever, ever say.

As for Gladys, I’m not sure she’s in the know about her parents’ relationship and the distance. She was living in her own little world before she even left New York City, the self-induced prison she put herself in because she just couldn’t deal with the desires and expectations of everybody around her. I think she was a bit naive about what’s going on.

That scene was intense to play because I came in for the last bit of it with my big reveal. Gladys comes in bursting to tell this news, and she comes face to face with her mother, who is heartbroken and crying. It’s not quite the reaction Gladys expects. I think that proves that Gladys has no idea what’s going on between her parents currently.

From my perspective, Gladys is truly happy. She never wants to say her mother was right, but her mother was right, and she connected with the duke. She’s finding a partnership. Part of the credit has to be given to George because, in the negotiations for marriage, he made the offer to give Gladys an allowance. That planted the seed for a partnership because the duke has a reason to want to connect with her, even if it starts with something as shallow as money. He’s not a bad guy, but he married someone who was crying down the aisle.

Farmiga says it was “intense to play” Gladys’s pregnancy announcement scene.

On a show like this, the cast is so damn big that we don’t often get to work with each other. You have all these reconnecting moments, and it feels like you’re a bunch of kids at summer camp, and it’s super fun. The wedding was a funny experience for me because emotionally, I was in a very different place from most of the other actors. But also physically [I was in a different place]. I was wearing this wedding dress that had a 10-foot train (the veil was also 10 feet long), and the weight of the train [meant] I had no mobility. I was not self-sufficient at all. If I wanted to walk around, I had to have three members of the wardrobe department help me. Finally, they came up with a very simple solution: they got a cloth shopping bag and put the veil in that so I could walk around by myself.

There was quite a bit of time when I was isolated, which worked for Gladys’s mindset. Normally, it’s a riot to all get together. Even so, we had some good laughs. I usually had to cut it off pretty quick when they say “rolling,” and then go wail and cry in the corner, and then come back and be like [mimics crying], “I’m so sorry. What were you talking about?”

It’s any of those ensemble scenes. We were filming the greeting line in the last episode, and someone had gotten a waffle truck or a pancake truck as a present for the crew. We’re filming, it’s almost 4 A.M., and if you give a bunch of sleep-deprived people whipped cream and ice cream on pancakes, the craziest antics come out. One of my favorite [things] in general, there’s this dance called the Russell Bustle Dance—because you always have those big ass bustles in the back of the dress—and she [Coon] kind of gets down, and she’s twerking with her bustle. Whenever Carrie starts doing that, you know that someone has given her sugar, and it is about to get crazy.

Despite the serious nature of the show, Farmiga says the cast gets involved in the “craziest antics.”

Oh, my God, yes. Usually, there’s bathrobes [available] that we put on backwards. It’s like an apron or a baby bib to let us eat, so if we drop something [it’s okay]. The costumes are one-of-a-kind, especially the gowns—you don’t have backups of anything. You have to be careful, but after hours and hours of filming, there are plenty of times when we shouldn’t be eating in these magnificent gowns, but also we’re really freaking hungry, and Carrie just ordered empanadas. I think there was someone keeping watch to make sure no one from wardrobe was coming in, which, again, I probably was an asshole for eating in the dress. But I was so hungry, so tired, and I was so tired of crying, I was like, “I just want empanadas.” I’m leaning over. I’m using my core strength to try my best to prevent [spillage].

I don’t know if I can pick one. I was once asked, “What was the feeling you had when you realized you were diving back into season 3?” And I was like, “Oh, shit. Corsets.” They are kind of a pain in the ass, but they look so good that you can’t complain. [Costume designer] Kasia [Walicka Maimone] and the rest of the wardrobe department are so accommodating to make any adjustments to make it as comfortable as possible.

The one thing Farmiga wasn’t looking forward to on Gilded Age season 3? “Corsets.”

One of my favorite outfits this season was in episode 6, when Bertha comes to Sidmouth Castle, and there’s the dinner scene towards the end. Gladys was previously commanded by Bertha, and now at Sidmouth, she’s managed by the duke’s sister. Finally, with Bertha’s help, she stands up and puts her foot down, and says, “This is my position. This is my place. You have to respect me.” There was a different dress they had put in my trailer that was waiting for me after rehearsal, and it was the first time in all of three seasons that I was like, “This doesn’t feel right.” It was supposed to be this purple, flowy dress, and it felt very much like a previous-season Gladys. It’s the only time I’ve ever spoken up on this show. They changed it for me. They put Gladys in this amazing dark blue, lacy, kind of sexy for the period gown. I loved it so much. It’s the moment that Gladys had to be a boss ass bitch. I’m so happy they let me give my opinion, and they changed it for me, because I think it made the scene.

It was wild. Everyone said I should take it home. I felt so odd. I was like, “I wouldn’t be able to keep staring at myself constantly.” First off, I don’t think I have a place big enough to bring this portrait home. I remember the first time I saw it was unexpectedly. We were filming in Albany. I think I was in Troy, New York, for fitting, and the wardrobe department is in an old CVS or something. I walk in, I see all these people are in a room, I stick my head in because I saw someone I knew, and I was like, “Holy shit!” Around me, were 11 life-size portraits of me, all different sizes, to determine what size the portrait should be.

My God, what an experience it is to walk into a room where everyone’s staring at a giant, magnificent portrait of you. I was like, “What is my life?” I was there to fit the wedding dress. I’m in jean shorts and a tank top, and look nothing like 1880s Gladys. The contrast was funny. I felt really cool and also just a bit observed.

Farmiga says she “felt so odd” seeing her portrait in real life.” .

We’re left with the cliffhanger of Gladys’s new condition. I don’t know if they would pick up soon after that. Are they gonna pick up with Gladys having children? That will be a total mindfuck to go from being someone who wants freedom for her mother to all of a sudden she’s the mother. That would be an intense change. Otherwise, I’d love Gladys to start wearing suits, but I don’t think that’s in her future.

That’d be fun. I’d love to see her in a different, crazy world like that. I don’t think it’s possible, but it’d be amazing. Imagine she walks into some gay club and is surrounded by a bunch of incredible lesbians. That’d be such a fun storyline to see. My God, I wish!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.