Harry Richardson Knows Larry’s Not Ready for Marriage — Yet
Sunday night’s The Gilded Age was that rarest of things: a Larry episode! His story line had it all: Romance! Women’s boxing! Westward expansionism! With his sister in England and his business associate’s clock patent sold, the railroad scion leapt on the opportunity to propose to his neighbor and crush, Marian Brook, in a swoony, sun-dappled scene. Immediately after the fact, Larry asked for her aunties’ blessing, then went out on the town to a house of ill repute with the boys, including the newly rich Jack Trotter. Their wedding will have to wait, though, as George is sending his son to Arizona to do what Clay couldn’t and convince the miners to sell their land. Harry Richardson, who plays Larry, is thrilled to have so much to do: “We get to see more sides to him, not just as the brother or the son who’s interacting with the Russells, but we see how he’s moving in society and some questionable ways in which he’s doing that, as well as how he’s trying to carve a name out for himself in the business world.”
I think a lot of viewers are nervously expecting Larry to screw over Jack somehow. Are you offended that people think Larry is going to do something shady?
My understanding of Larry has always been that he has this purity to him, so when I was reading the scripts, I wasn’t as presumptive about it being negative. I was thinking more about people at the time taking advantage of each other because they are in a privileged place of being able to open certain doors. It was very beautifully executed and beautifully written, the fact that Larry didn’t actually take any more of what Jack would have been offered. It’s a testament to the writers of the show that people really got into the drama of “Is he going to mess Jack over?” We get to witness the complexities of the societal differences and how people are benefiting off each other without depicting a purely villainous act.
Do you think Larry pursuing this business opportunity on his own is why George tapped him to step up in the family business this episode?
George has witnessed Larry showing his strength and coming into his own, and he realizes this might be a time for him to step into a more prominent position in the family business. His father is quite proud of the way he’s starting to move, and it’s indicative of their changing relationship from the first season to the third.
But it’s happening at a time when we’re seeing George really start to flounder with the business, making erratic and emotional decisions.
Morgan Spector’s incredible at juggling the stoic strength of George Russell while also showing the cracks in this man’s human experience and the amount of stress and responsibility he’s struggling under. Morgan plays this patriarchal figure who’s trying to hold everything together while also trying to create a business and a network of transportation that the world has never seen. That’s coming with a whole lot of complications and betrayal and pressure and disaster.
In their scene together, George says he sees himself in Larry. Where do you see George in Larry? Is there any Bertha in Larry?
That’s something I’ve been excited to see as the show has gone on: In what ways is Larry just like his parents, and what is he learning from them, and what is trickling down into his being? Larry is really seeing the power and strength and nobility and sometimes mischievous business acumen in his father, and he’s learning from it and replicating it in his own way. What he gets from his mother is the conflict they have between each other. She has taught him to stand up for himself and what he believes in and to fight back. He has a beautiful strength in the way he stands up for his sister and stands up for himself and confronts his mother. I think he learned it from her.
Tell me about filming Larry’s proposal to Marian.
That was really magical. We were in this beautiful park under this big romantic tree and on a revolving stage, spinning through this gorgeous fairy tale. I almost felt like you could hear the strings playing while we were doing this scene. I was surprised by how emotional it was as an actor to experience that.
What do these two see in each other? Why are they a good match?
Marian has this self-assurance and strength in herself. They have that in common, that they’re both this new generation who are not just going to do what the older generations say. Instead they’re trying to carve out their own path, and their own morality, and they’re trying to have their own independence. Larry is incredibly attracted to her self-drive but also her intelligence. On some level, they’ve met each other’s match. They’re on an even keel. It’s not just some societal move or economic move but based in a long-standing friendship that they’ve developed over the years, which was quite rare at that time because men and women weren’t necessarily encouraged, if they were unmarried, to be friends. Yet because they’re neighbors, and because they’ve had these run-ins, they’ve been able to have this youthful friendship, which is a great foundation for love.
Are you familiar with Larian shippers in The Gilded Age fandom?
Yes, I have become aware of it. It’s beautiful to see people support the two of them together. I think, on a human-experience level, it’s somewhat a profound thing. We’re all looking for examples of how to show up in love in our own lives, so it’s beautiful when people gravitate toward shipping two characters they see parts of themselves in. It’s about more than the show. These two characters are trying to navigate how to be together with a lot of complexities that we all deal with — societal expectation, fear of rejection, trying to have autonomy and not be judged, the fear of opening your heart with the potential of it being damaged. People are rooting for them because we’re also rooting for our own hearts.
What was it like to film that scene at the Haymarket?
It was really wild. It was this incredible splendor of characters and energies in this beautiful place. I did relate to what Larry was going through; everyone was buzzing when we came into that room. Since the first season, we’ve been talking about what young men were up to socially with women before they were married. In our research, we often came back to the prevalence of gentleman’s clubs. I thought the setup there was really incredible: It highlights some of the work that needed to be done for Larry to be ready to be a husband, the fact that he wasn’t quite aware of how that would feel to Marian, or the fact that he hadn’t quite confronted whether white lies were appropriate in the relationship or that they were going to cause damage down the line. I also have compassion for this lad who’s being dragged along to a bucks party.
So you’re saying you can relate because you’ve also had nights where you’re dragged somewhere wild by a group of guys.
I literally just got back from one of my best friends’ bucks parties upstate, which was actually somewhat tame, but yeah, I relate to that experience. If Larry had his way, he would have just focused on the fact that he got engaged that day, but he had some obligation to go and celebrate. It was beautiful the way he brings Jack along with him and is trying to say, “Welcome to other parts of the world! You can choose how you carve out your life.”
It’s been fun to watch you and Ben together.
We have a great friendship in life.
Who has the biggest gulf between your real accents and what you do on the show: you, Australian doing American; or Ben, American doing, basically, Newsies?
Ben is admirably doing a different accent to everyone else, just this incredible Brooklynite accent from the time. So maybe Ben, purely because he’s by himself out there.