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Carrie Coon discusses the unraveling of Bertha Russell’s carefully constructed world, the contemporary relevance of The Gilded Age, and the deeply personal experiences that informed her performance in The Liberation.
For three seasons of The Gilded Age, Carrie Coon’s Bertha Russell has been a formidable force, relentlessly pursuing social advancement while carefully maintaining control over her family’s place in New York society. But in Season 4, the woman who has spent years orchestrating the lives of those around her finds herself confronting something she cannot control: the potential collapse of her marriage.
While Bertha has always possessed an uncompromising ambition, her marriage to George Russell has historically provided a rare space where she could lower her defenses. With that relationship fractured, Coon found herself exploring a version of Bertha who is more emotionally exposed than ever before.
"There's nothing better when you're playing a character than have them have a change in fortunes, right? To have them be in extremis," Coon explained. "I loved those intimate moments I had with George where Bertha, that's the only place Bertha can really be vulnerable."
With George increasingly distant, that vulnerability begins manifesting in unexpected ways.
"In season four, she's more isolated than she's ever been. And what I think is interesting is that that vulnerability ends up kind of spilling out into other places."
The deterioration of the Russells' marriage is particularly complicated because ambition has always been central to their relationship. The very quality George once admired in his wife has become a source of conflict.
Yet Coon believes Bertha's priorities have never been clearer.
"She is rock solid in what is number one priority and it's George and her family and her marriage," she said.
For Coon, the complexity of their relationship is what makes the characters so compelling. George's emotional withdrawal creates a profound imbalance, leaving Bertha struggling to understand how to repair a marriage that once seemed unshakable.
"That always feels like a real marriage to me, the things they wrestle with. And I love that part of the show."
One of the season's most emotionally challenging storylines involves Bertha's daughter Gladys, whose life is placed in danger during childbirth.
For a character whose entire existence has been defined by her ability to manipulate circumstances, the experience presents an entirely unfamiliar kind of helplessness.
"What we see is Bertha has absolutely no control," Coon explained. "There is no skill set she has in that moment that applies to the situation and there's nothing she can do to change it."
Coon credited her scene partner Taissa Farmiga with bringing extraordinary emotional intensity to the sequence, particularly through her commitment to maintaining that energy even when the camera was focused on other performers.
"That's a gift," Coon said. "It's not easy to bring that energy when you're shooting a scene like that for hours and hours and hours."
The storyline also carries contemporary resonance for Coon, particularly in its examination of women's limited autonomy over their bodies.
"Even when you're in a period piece, there are real world issues to draw from," she observed, connecting the historical circumstances of the characters to ongoing debates about reproductive healthcare.
That connection between past and present is something Coon sees throughout the series.
"Artists are ultimately the keepers of history," she said. "TV and film are a really important part of those cultural conversations always and they can't help but be political."
She also pointed to the show's portrayal of extreme wealth and economic inequality as particularly relevant to contemporary society.
"The way just a few people control the destiny of the masses" is a theme that connects the Gilded Age to the present, she noted.
Bertha's authority has always been communicated through more than dialogue. Her posture, movement, and elaborate costumes all contribute to the impression of a woman determined to command every room she enters.
Coon explained that some of Bertha's imposing stillness is a practical consequence of the restrictive period clothing.
"You're in your power and your stillness because stillness is all you have."
But when Bertha moves, Coon deliberately distinguishes her from the established aristocracy.
"Christine Baranski glides, which is a symbol of old power, and Bertha swaggers," she explained. "That really is a direct physical representation of old money versus new."
She also believes the series has developed a distinctive visual and dramatic identity as it has progressed.
"I watched the first episode of this season and I felt that we'd really found a specific rhythm and vocabulary that I don't think is happening anywhere else on television."
Beyond The Gilded Age, Coon takes on a dramatically different role in filmmaker Guy Nattiv's The Liberation, portraying Rita, a woman whose search for personal freedom leads her into a deeply complicated relationship with a spiritual community.
The film draws inspiration from the experiences of Nattiv's grandmother, a Polish Holocaust survivor whose unresolved trauma shaped much of her adult life.
Coon emphasized that the film is fictionalized rather than a literal recreation of the woman's experiences, but that the real-life testimony provided an essential foundation for her performance.
"What really got me most curious and interested in playing her was her testimony, which was four hours long," she explained.
The film examines a period when the psychological effects of the Holocaust were not widely understood or openly discussed, particularly in relation to post-traumatic stress and generational trauma.
For Coon, Rita's journey is both tragic and radical. She was particularly interested in the contradictions of a woman who finds the courage to abandon the structures of her previous life, only to surrender her independence in a different way.
"I find walking away from your family especially in that time incredibly radical," she said.
One of the most personal revelations of the conversation emerged when Coon discussed the importance of breathing in The Liberation.
In the film, Rita begins developing a new relationship with her body through breathwork, gradually discovering physical and emotional sensations that had previously been inaccessible to her.
For Coon, those experiences reflected her own journey as an actor. During graduate school, she began working with a voice teacher who introduced her to techniques that fundamentally changed her understanding of her body and voice.
"I think I understood that I had really never taken a deep breath in my life and that I had a dialect. I mean, there's just things I didn't know about myself."
Coon also spoke candidly about how breathing and meditation helped her address compulsive skin picking, allowing her to develop a healthier relationship with physical impulses.
Those practices subsequently transformed her approach to performance.
"It's been absolutely transformative in my life and as an artist too because I can make choices now about where my voice lives in my body," she explained.
The deeper vocal register audiences associate with Bertha Russell is a direct result of that work.
"To play Bertha Russell who walks into a room, you know, in her baritone, which is powerful, is just—I get to make that choice now."
Asked whether Bertha's distinctive voice might never have existed without those techniques, Coon was unequivocal.
"Never. No, you wouldn't. I probably wouldn't be cast in the part without it," she said. "I wouldn't have a career without it. It's really transformed my life."
Physical expression also plays a central role in The Liberation, particularly during a sequence in which Rita attempts to dance alongside other women in the community.
The scene required Coon to portray someone whose body had been conditioned by decades of restriction and self-consciousness.
Ironically, the challenge for Coon was suppressing her own natural physical freedom.
"I'm actually quite reckless and quite open with my body and I was an athlete," she explained. "What was hard for me about that moment with Rita was finding the restriction."
Working with a choreographer, Coon developed specific physical limitations to communicate Rita's discomfort, imagining that her ribs and hips were attached and that every bold movement would be followed by immediate embarrassment.
As Rita gradually begins moving more freely, the physical transformation reflects her growing emotional liberation.
Coon also drew inspiration from women in her own family whose conservative upbringing would have made such an experience profoundly uncomfortable.
For the actress, the opportunity to communicate a character's psychological journey through movement was especially rewarding.
"I love any kind of physical when a film or a television show invites me to use my whole body because as a woman, I don't think we're asked to do that enough on camera."
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