Few actors can deliver a withering one-liner like Christine Baranski. Her crisp diction and icy stare are used to great effect in the third season of
Few actors can deliver a withering one-liner like Christine Baranski. Her crisp diction and icy stare are used to great effect in the third season of The Gilded Age as she looses zingers like this: “Society is not known for its logic, especially where women are concerned.” Baranski’s Agnes Van Rhijn has relinquished her status as head of household to her newly-endowed sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon)—but she isn’t fading into the background.
Neither is Victoria, the other wounded affluent lady Baranski plays this summer. The stylish, secretive guest can be found on season two of Nine Perfect Strangers, engaging in some unorthodox wellness therapy in the Alps alongside her estranged daughter Imogen (Annie Murphy). Like Agnes, Victoria’s got a way with words: “Everything is optional, darling. Life is optional,” she tells Imogen. Later, she compares the Vatican to the Golden Globes: “Darling, they’re both just money laundering schemes with fabulous wardrobes.”
Who doesn’t love to watch a wealthy woman behaving badly? But that’s not the only card in Baranski’s deck. “I’ve been around for a long time—and always ever-evolving,” says the Emmy and two-time Tony-winning actor, recently dubbed “America’s treasure” by Stephen Colbert. The Juilliard-trained performer, who turned 73 in May, once told Vanity Fair that her greatest regret is that she “can’t remember every detail of what has been a wonderful life.” Below, Baranski shares a few lasting memories from a four-decade career on stage and screen.
Vanity Fair: You typically play sophisticated, wealthy, sometimes emotionally distant characters—and yet people still feel connected to them and you as a performer. How do you pull that off?
Christine Baranski: People with great strength still have vulnerabilities. Sometimes a very sturdy exterior or a forceful personality can hide a lot of pain. So when I’m exploring a character, I look for as many deep secrets as I can to explore—not just their strengths, but some of the not so obvious things. A lot of the characters I play are women who out in the world have to present themselves in a powerful way.
Given your reputation for playing elegant women, what would you say is the most déclassé or down-to-earth thing about you?
Oh my goodness. Most people don’t know I’m a very deafening Buffalo Bills fan.
I’m from Kansas City, so I hope you won’t hold that against me.
Oh no, the Chiefs! It does amuse me that I’m from a blue-collar neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. We’re a sports town. I now have four grandsons, and I’m the deafening person cheering for them on the sidelines at their games. I think people would be surprised that a woman who puts herself together like this and loves opera is actually a rather deafening sports fan, particularly football.
What was it like to return to The Gilded Age when the show’s third season wasn’t guaranteed?
I know, we were rather on tenterhooks. But at the end of season two, my character has lost all her money. And suddenly Ada, my sister, loses her husband, which is tragic. But she then inherits all this money, which saves the household. We’re overjoyed that we’ll be able to maintain the lifestyle that we have, but the final moment [of the season] is Ada realizing that she holds the purse strings and going to be calling the shots in the household. And we just thought we’ve got to have a season three, because it would be so fun to see these two women in this upended power vigorous.
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