Just after The Gilded Age’s Season 3 finale last Sunday, three Gilded Age stars appeared at the ATX TV Festival . Christina Baranski, Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector turned up in Austin, Texas to talk about robber barons, wealth inequality, fabulous costumes and more. Baranski is, to me, a total queen. Queen of the world! All hail Christine Baranski! She’s funny and amazing and her presence on The Gilded Age is fantastic. Anyway, during the conversation, Christine said something which has gone viral this week. She was talking about the comparisons between the Gilded Age and our present hellscape, and she brought up the all-female Blue Origin mission.
Christine Baranski is unimpressed by the Blue Origin space mission. The Gilded Age actress appeared on a panel event for the HBO series at ATX TV Festival in Austin, Texas, on Monday, Aug. 11. There, she briefly chatted about the depictions of wealth on TV, including the hit HBO series, as well as its impact in mainstream media, prompting her to call out Blue Origin flight NS-31.
On April 14, Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin, launched flight NS-31 with six passengers aboard: Katy Perry, Gayle King, philanthropist Lauren Sánchez Bezos, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn. After the group’s 11-minute voyage to the edge of space before returning to Earth, the women and Blue Origin faced criticism for their trip.
Four months after the controversy, Baranski, 73, shared her thoughts. During the panel, The Good Wife alum said she would love for The Gilded Age to continue, because there “is such an exploration to be done in terms of the corruption that goes on, the buying of government influence, which is happening now.”
She then pivoted, adding, “And the grotesque displays of wealth? Sending women into a spaceship for what? So they can do their makeup? What the f—?”
“Don’t get me started,” she said in the voice of her character, Agnes van Rhijn. “I’m going to sound like Agnes.”
Something I think about a lot as a mega-fan of The Gilded Age is the difference in what it means culturally to be wealthy then and now. In the real Gilded Age, there was a concentration of wealth, but they actually built libraries and opera houses and threw beautiful parties and balls. These days, wealthy people (mostly the nouveau riche) make asses out of themselves publicly and it all seems so gaudy and tacky. Was it tacky back in the Gilded Age too? Did people walk into one of those Gilded Age mansions and say “lord, this is too much?” The Blue Origin thing was grotesque, and it also just felt so culturally bankrupt.
Christine Baranski is right: we’re living in a second Gilded Age where Donald Trump has invited billionaires to pay to play.
— Stand Up America (@standupamerica.com) August 13, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- 2025 Tribeca Festival – HBO series Season 3 ‘The Gilded Age’ premiere inside at Cipriani 25 Featuring: Christine Baranski, Louisa Jacobson Where: New York, New York, United States When: 12 Jun 2025 Credit: Dave Allocca/Starpix/INSTARimages
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- 2025 Tribeca Festival – HBO series Season 3 ‘The Gilded Age’ premiere inside at Cipriani 25 Featuring: Christine Baranski Where: New York, New York, United States When: 12 Jun 2025 Credit: Dave Allocca/Starpix/INSTARimages
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- 2025 Tribeca Festival – HBO series Season 3 ‘The Gilded Age’ premiere at the BMCC Theatre Featuring: christine baranski Where: New york, United States When: 12 Jun 2025 Credit: TheNews2/Cover Images
I love you, Christine! Well-said and true. Also, thanks for not messing over your face.
She’s definitely done stuff to her face though right? She was so amazing in The Good Wife and still looks just as good as she did then.
Yes, @kitten I think so too. But, more like what I wouldn’t mind doing at some point. Where I look refreshed, not off the assembly line. I did sound a bit judge-y, when I feel it’s up to the individual, but some faces are sad/cringey.
Yes agreed- VERY good work.
There are key differences between the Gilded Age and our own. Some of the wealthy industrialists of the GA did recognize that they had certain obligations to the society they were raping and pillaging. There was a respect for education, especially higher education which gave us Carnegie libraries and the Rockefeller Foundation. Now, it’s just pillage and plunder without conscience or concern for anyone, much less for the middle class or poor. This is different in both degree and kind which makes it so horrifying. The Gilded Age was a truly evil era which sometimes seems innocuous compared to today.
They still had no issues exploiting workers, paying a lesser wage to children and women, letting them all work in dangerous conditions that maimed and killed thousands and women workers would often be sexually assaulted and raped… And if workers thought about striking, they could get killed, many have. Upton Sinclair wrote very well about factory workers living conditions: they were horrible. The uber rich have always been a problem
The Carnegie libraries are some of the most beautiful building in the US.
When they do comparisons of gilded age wealth in today’s dollars it’s still a lot but nothing like it is today. All this hoarded/accumulated wealth and for what? Bragging rights on the latest yacht?
My only beef with the ongoing criticism/mockery about the all female Blue Origin flight is they did the same stunt flight with all male passengers, they all looked just as foolish (I mean come on, that pic of Bezos in his flight suit and cowboy hat?!) but that was mocked for a week or so and people mostly moved on.
I love her have since I was a little kid, and she is spot on. I will also say that up until the 80s the mega rich paid their fair share of taxes and moved the country forward, and yes they donated libraries and museums. It was still gross but somehow now it seems worse.
Yes in 1944 the top tax rate was 94%!
JFK dropped the top tax rate to 65% and Reagan first to 50% then to 28%. It’s been bouncing around the 30s every since.
It seems worse because back then rich people were donating libraries and museums but now rich people like Trump want to just take them. Rewrite history in the Smithsonian, control the JFK library.
If and when this shit stain is gone, we need a Dem POTUS to take over the Donald J Trump library and dedicate it to detailing every one of his misdeeds from family separation to Jan 6th to the Federal takeover of our cities. And there needs to be a Wall of Shame for every corporation, university, law firm that capitulated to him.
Old money wealth whispers. New money shouts.