When Carrie Coon was in Thailand filming The White Lotus, she had a lot on her mind. Trying not to sweat on camera in the nearly triple-digit temperatures. Preparing to deliver her pivotal monologue that would serve as a thesis for the entire season. Staying in touch with her family across the world in New York. But also: staying completely out of the sun.
Coon had only 48 hours between her last day on the Lotus set and her first day of shooting season three of The Gilded Age, and it was imperative that she arrive looking like a socialite in the 1880s and not a modern-day lawyer fresh off a weeklong vacation in southeast Asia.
“I could not get a tan,” she says from her home in Pound Ridge, New York, where she lives with her husband, playwright Tracy Letts, and their two young children. “I stayed inside all day, I only ventured out to the beach to swim in the evening, and even then I did it with long pants and long sleeves.”
Coon as pale-as porcelain Bertha Russell in The Gilded Age.
Courtesy of HBO
Coon ultimately arrived at The Gilded Age‘s Long Island set pale enough for the part, that of Bertha Russell, a nouveau riche status seeker loosely based on Alva Vanderbilt. Still, despite working on the HBO series since 2021, she struggled to transition from the “slouchy drunk” vibe of the Lotus set to the more austere atmospherics of 19th century Manhattan. “I don’t need a lot to get into my work, and I don’t take it home with me, but the first few days this time were terrifying. I was just like, ‘I don’t know who I am right now.’ ” Here, then, a helpful reminder: Though Coon, 44, has long been a widely respected actress — receiving her first Emmy nomination for the 2017 season of Fargo — most of her career has been a slow burn, at least before Lotus put booster rockets on her profile.
She grew up in Copley, Ohio, the middle sibling of five — her mom was an ER nurse, her dad an auto parts supplier — went to the University of Mount Union, then decamped for Madison to earn an MFA in acting at University of Wisconsin. She stuck around after graduating to do some regional theater, then headed for Chicago, where a role as Honey in the Steppenwolf Theatre production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? brought her to Broadway; roles in everything from Gone Girl to The Leftovers followed.
Then, in 2021, came the gig on the The Gilded Age, which has been something of a slow burn of its own. The first season of the Julian Fellowes drama, which followed Coon’s newly moneyed character as she clashed with her blue-blooded neighbors on Fifth Avenue, was both panned and praised for its ability to craft entire episodes around plot points like, “Will anyone come to Bertha’s housewarming party?” (They didn’t.) But enough fans adored it that HBO greenlit a second season in 2023 (which landed a few Emmy nominations), and now a third.
The new season, which premieres on HBO Max on June 22, sees Coon forcing her daughter (Taissa Farmiga) to marry the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb), edging the character even further into villain territory. Coon knows that some of her choices won’t be popular with the fans. “She’s just judging her daughter all the time,” she says. “But I like where we are by the end of the season, because the two really start to see each other.”
Contending with Bertha’s arc this season has had Coon pondering her own life, like the responsibilities of parenthood, the realities of climbing a career ladder and what an elaborate hairdo can do for one’s self-esteem. “Why aren’t we all wearing wigs all the time?” she wonders. Of course, hairpieces were not part of the wardrobe during the White Lotus shoot, at least not for members of the “Blonde Blob,” as creator Mike White affectionately referred to Coon and her castmates Leslie Bibb and Michelle Monaghan. Still, Coon found a way to slip elegantly into the role anyway — and nail that season-defining monologue about how “Time is the only thing that gives life meaning.”
Coon in The White Lotus season three.
“Mike was after something very specific and I knew we wouldn’t go home until we got it,” she says of that critical line reading. “But the conditions were so punishingly hot. That dining area was like a greenhouse. What you didn’t see were the piles of sodden tissues that we were using to pat ourselves down between takes.”
At least she didn’t get a tan.
This story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
