There’s nothing more dangerous to a social climber than another social climber who knows how to play her game. That’s what Mrs. Russell discovers in The Gilded Age’s second season when her former maid, Turner, reappears as Mrs. Winterton, newly married into old money. Back in season one, Turner had a thing for Mrs. Russell’s husband, but the robber baron stuck by his wife despite her advances — though he didn’t reveal them to his wife. Now, once Turner runs into Mrs. Russell in her new guise in high society, she has the chance to upset her former employer by dropping hints about her entanglement with Mr. Russell. In a show as chill as The Gilded Age, that’s some hot, upsetting gossip. It throws Mrs. Russell for a loop and sets the stage for more confrontations between her and Turner down the line.
That was all very exciting news for Kelley Curran, who plays Turner on the series and had no idea where The Gilded Age would take her character when they picked up her contract for a second season. “It wasn’t until I got the script for episode two that I understood how she was coming back,†Curran says, “so that was a pretty incredible shock.†She discussed her surprise at Turner’s new life, how she imagines she found a husband in Europe, and the differences between playing characters from The Gilded Age’s upstairs and downstairs worlds.
After the first season, I assumed Turner might’ve been written off of the show. When did you learn she was coming back?
I knew she was coming back in some form because they offered me a contract. I knew Julian Fellowes does that wonderful thing of playing a long game with characters and trusting the audience to remember, so when they picked up my contract, I thought, Okay, something’s going to happen. She’s too messy and delicious in this pristine world for them to give up on her, but I had no idea how it would manifest, so that was thrilling to realize that she’d come back in full force, in full diamonds.
What was it like to try on her new glam wardrobe?
It was exciting because, in season one, as Bertha’s lady’s maid, Turner was essentially her personal stylist, so I knew that this was a woman with great taste. Talking about that with our costume designer was really thrilling. Because she’s married into old money now, I think Turner has more respect for old money than new money. She’s more aligned with Agnes van Rhijn in that way. She dresses in a way that suits that. She’s a young wife and ready to impress people, but there’s a conservative element to her wardrobe this season, which I think is brilliant because it shows her strategy.
The tables have suddenly turned in the scenes between you and Carrie Coon, which must be fun to play.
She’s so much fun to play with, because she’s a force and so spontaneous and delightful. Getting to do any scene with her, no matter what the status is, is a treat. But it was delicious this time around, because I think Turner is a character who feels like she should have the status, even if she doesn’t have it. That’s what was going on in the first season. Now she actually does have a status that Bertha can never have, so she’s one-upped her. It’s such a treat to do so many scenes opposite Carrie, because in the first season, if you look back and watch it, I had more scenes with Morgan. Turner’s focus was on George. Now her focus is on moving on from that and being a really peerless rival to her.
We know that Turner worked for old money even before being hired by Bertha. Do you think that plays into that?
Absolutely. That’s where so much of her resentment stems from. She understands old money and how they operate, and then that job ended when her employer passed away. She needed a job and found the Russells. But I think much of the resentment stems from the fact that she and Bertha come from similar backgrounds. They were women who were probably educated at the same level and could have entered society at the same time, but Bertha had the luck of meeting George Russell, and Turner had the bad luck of whatever happened to force her into service. It’s clear in season one that Turner is thinking, This could have been my life.
Have you thought through what Turner did in Europe between seasons to land this new husband?
One of our executive producers, Michael Engler, and I had many conversations about that, how she found and pursued Mr. Winterton and how quickly it happened. Also, Michael told me to read The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton, and it was wonderful to have that book as a companion. Undine Spragg, the main character, has a sort of unrelenting hunger, and the force of her scarcity mind-set is that if someone else has something, she has to have it. That’s very much the place that Turner operates out of. It’s usually fear-fueled.
Did you think that she had a genuine attraction to Mr. Russell in season one, or was she just trying to play the game?
I didn’t talk to Julian or the directors about this, but for me personally, the stakes were higher if she had genuine affection for George. I think she absolutely misread that it was not a mutual thing, but she’s living under the same roof as a man who’s so powerful, so good at what he does, so handsome, and she gets to witness that all the time. From her perspective, Bertha doesn’t always return his affection in the same amount, or takes it for granted in a way that Turner can’t stand. I think Turner’s also a lonely person, and the moments where she’d catch George in the hallway before she attempted to seduce him were probably the best parts of her day. That made the humiliation harder.
She seems so disappointed in him, like, Why don’t you want me?
It’s like, Why not me? I’m here. I’m naked! Come on.
Turner has a very distinctive physical bearing. She slinks around almost like a reptile.
That was one of the first things — I knew her body right away. Partly it’s because she doesn’t have the resources Bertha has, but she has her body and she has her intellect, and she’s got to build a life out of that, so she weaponizes it. Then part of the physical swagger was just practical. To walk in that black lady’s maid uniform, you have to walk with one foot exactly in front of the other. Maybe that was the genius of Kasia Walicka-Maimone, our costume designer.
Does it feel different now playing an upstairs character? I imagine just practically, you have to spend more time getting dressed and done up for each scene.
It definitely takes more adjustment. There are more costumes to get used to. You have to learn how they each move and where you can hold your neck in them and whether you can sit in them or not, and you want to spend time in each costume so that you can come into the scene equipped with that knowledge. But one of the fun things about downstairs life is that you were always busy with some activity. You were rarely sitting down and talking, you were always moving something or putting something away. It’s wonderful to have little tasks. The rich have a lot less tasks.
How did it feel to surprise the audience with Turner’s grand return?
It was so exciting, and one of the hardest secrets I’ve ever had to keep. I kept it for a couple years. My best friend texted me when it happened, like, “How could you not tell me this?†It’s nice to have that out there. And returning was great, because my first day of filming on season two was filming Turner’s reappearance. It was a big beautiful scene with all these background actors and dancers, and it was a night shoot and we were all seeing each other for the first time in months. All that adrenaline just fueled the moment of her slow walk to the Russells, and now we’re off to the races with these characters.
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