interviews

The third season of HBO’s The Gilded Age is giving fans even more drama and more love stories than before, including Denée Benton’s Peggy Scott.

This season, Peggy is finally finding true love with the handsome Dr. William Kirkland, played by Jordan Donica. The two, along with the rest of the cast, talked with Blavity’s Shadow and Act about how Peggy and William’s story unfolds, as well as a scoop on some of the other drama happening this season.

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Peggy finally gets the love she deserves

“Just as we see with the Russells and the Van Rhijns, we are gonna see a new generation of Black Americans rising and claiming their power and deciding for themselves who they want to love and how they want to love,” said Donica. “And I mean, I said it to Denée when we were doing ADR, and I said when we were doing it, she’s [Peggy’s] so easy to fall in love with. You know, it’s not just physically, not just the eyes, but her intellect and her brain. We’re gonna see a man who falls in love with all aspects of this person.”

Benton added that “we finally get to see Peggy openly giggle and blush.”

“It sounds so frivolous, but after seeing so much grief that Peggy’s gone through and the weight of what she’s moving through in the first and second season just as a Black femme living through the times we’re all living through, I think it’s gonna be really special to watch her feel chosen and to feel like she’s chosen for everything that she is,” she said, adding that viewers will get to see “what it’s like to see her loved for how big her dreams for herself really are, and I think that that’s sort of radical in its own way.”

Peggy’s strength and vision shine through

Benton also described how Peggy is able to keep believing in herself and her dreams despite living in a hostile time for Black Americans.

“I think one of my favorite things about Peggy is the relentless vision she has for herself,” she said. “It is almost unwavering, even in the moments that we watch her deal with the unbearable, like losing her child, losing her, her family for a time, her parents, she’s like, ‘Yes, but I have a purpose. I have a vision for myself and I’m gonna keep taking the steps towards it.’ And I think when we watch her walk away from Fortune at the end of last season, I always say she’s not walking away. She’s walking towards herself. And I think it’s beautiful that we see her find the love that she deserves from a place of choosing herself, which sounds so, you know, Eat, Pray, Love. But there’s something energetic about it…’cause I think about that question too.”

Benton continued, “My therapist asked me about it, you know, like, why is it so important to feel chosen? And I think for Peggy, we keep seeing her make these sacrifices to choose her dreams and choose herself and choose the way she needs to show up. And her eyes light up for the first time when [William] asks to read her writing. It’s something about, ‘Oh, he’s choosing what I’ve already chosen in myself and that’s why I can trust this love.’ And I think that’s beautiful.”

How Sonja Warfield brings lived experience to the writers’ room

Co-writer and executive producer Sonja Warfield also told Blavity what it’s like to work with creator/writer/EP Julian Fellowes, especially as a Black writer with so many personal ties to the lives explored in The Gilded Age.

“It’s really like nothing I’ve ever done. I mean, writing is really intimate business, and I thoroughly enjoy writing and working with Julian,” she said. “I think I’m uniquely qualified to do this job and to work with Julian because of just so sort of some things in my background. I went to this private girls schoo,l and I had a very classical education, and I was a debutante. And I come from a Black elite family in northeastern Ohio, Cleveland, in fact, where John D. Rockefeller grew up for part of his life. And so this was not an unfamiliar world to me.”

“I watched a lot of documentaries on the Vanderbilts [and] one of my favorite authors is Edith Wharton. I loved reading Edith Wharton novels,” Warfield continued. “And so I think Julian and I, there was something between us. We bonded, and it worked out. And I also spent time in England writing with him, and so I spent a lot of time with him, and he created the show. One job as a writer is to write with one voice. It’s two different people writing it, but to write with one voice and the more I got to know Julian and his voice and spend time with him, I think that really helped our process. We have [a] really quick process too. If I’m there in England visiting, we’ll talk over breakfast about something and work that whole episode out.”

Watch the full interviews with the cast of The Gilded Age, including Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Harry Richardson, Taissa Farmiga, Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon and more, above.

Love Island USA Season 7’s self-proclaimed “hooper,” Jeremiah Brown, took his last shot in the villa before the men in the villa decided to dump him after America’s voting.

After being blindsided by fellow OG cast members Ace Greene, Taylor Williams and Nic Vansteenberghe, he was unceremoniously sent out of the competition after dealing with an intense, multi-week connection with Huda Mustafa, and having just found a new connection with bombshell Andreina Santos.

In an exit interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act Managing Editor, Trey Mangum, Brown broke down his initial feelings about his elimination, what he thought about America splitting him and Huda up, whether he thinks Ace is running the villa, if America saw his authentic self and much more.

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Take me back to that moment when Taylor is giving his spill on the person they are dumping. It’s like in real time, you begin to put the pieces together like, “Oh, they’re talking about me…I’m going home.” Do you feel betrayed by the other boys? You and Ace had a few exchanges where he called out what he perceived as ulterior motives, and on one occasion at least, he used the word “scamming.” Do you feel betrayed, and overall, what are your thoughts on their reasoning? 

At first, and it’s still a little bit, I definitely felt betrayed. As they’re talking, I’m hearing, “We don’t want to rob anybody of their experience,” AKA Austin not finding anybody yet, which is fine. But the second I hear we don’t want them to recreate old habits or follow old habits, I’m like, “Oh, f**k me. I’m cooked.” I’m like, “Come on, guys. Y’all tell me not to hoop. Y’all telling me to hoop. I can’t win.” I was like, ‘Damn.’ The second they said that, and the fact that it’s coming from Taylor, too, it wasn’t Nic or Ace, because they knew they were going to vote me out. It was like, “Oh, it might be Ace or Nic,” because those I have more prominent relationships, whether they’re bad or good. But yeah, I felt betrayed. I’m not going to lie. And the more I think about it, they’re probably doing the competitive thing, the strategic thing. In terms of ulterior motives, they said that at first, but in hindsight, it’s like I’m the one that put all my eggs in one basket.

Photo by: Ben Symons/Peacock

I could have got out of there real quick. When I went to do the door thing with Iris, I could have been gone. There were so many times I could have been gone because I only had one girl, and they always had an A and a B…Bella and Sierra for Nic, Chelly and Amaya [for Ace]. So it’s like for me, it could look safe at first, but then once I seen the way the show was going, I was like, “Nobody’s safe.” So [they’re weren’t any] ulterior motives. I had a real connection with her [Huda], and it was real. So yeah.

I know you’re not fully caught up on what was happening in the villa, but from what you do know and from your experience, do you think Ace is “running the villa”? A lot of fans think he is playing this Big Brother-style game. Did you see that while you were in the villa?

Yeah, a thousand percent. It was hard. I have a lot of respect for dude, and he’s a great personality. He’s mad funny. At the same time, every day, having to hear what I’m doing wrong and what to do was just annoying. Yeah, it was just tough. I’m going to do what I want to do as I did. But yeah, just having him tell Nic and Taylor what to do and then them listening and then that reflecting back on me, because every conversation was [me having] to fight two people…I got to argue with three people, and I’m just like , “Bruh.” But he’s definitely telling everyone what to do, and I get it. That’s his way of giving advice, it seems. At least that’s what he told me. So yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. He’s definitely the ringleader of the guys.

When America first paired you with Iris, what did you interpret in that moment? Did you think America was trying to send some sort of message with that pairing? Did that make you rethink what may actually have been seen by fans?

It made me rethink everything. That’s why that night I couldn’t even really go to her. The few things I knew was going on with me that I haven’t quite expressed yet kind clicked in my brain when I got recoupled. And my ego was like, “Yeah, see bro? She’s toxic.” But then, looking back, it’s like it doesn’t matter who was right or wrong. It was just not a good situation for us to be in, and I think America saw that and tried to help both of us out and took us out of it. And ultimately, it did, because I found my joy after that. So yeah, shout out America.

There’s been a lot of discourse online about the intense, hot/cold relationship that you and Huda had. What are your primary reflections right now on that relationship, the up and downs, and even the moment that you realized that wasn’t going to be your endgame in the villa?

That’s a great question. I will say Pancake Day definitely showed me a lot. I was just like, “OK, now I got to really see what’s going on and get to the bottom of this because I can’t be trapped in that toxic situation.” We got too intimate too soon, and instead of trying to say, “Let’s slow down…we’re damn near dating in three days, let’s relax,” I kind of just went with it because I liked her so much. And not to say I went with it against my will. It was just like I should have said, “Yo, these expectations that you have for me, I’m not there yet,” and I should have communicated that instead of saying, “Let me try to be that guy that I’m not ready to be.” That’s the main takeaways…I was just trying to be somebody too early for myself, and it just backfired.

Photo by: Kim Nunneley/Peacock

And how did you process the moment when you first learned she was a mother? That was a big part of story during the season as well.

Honestly, in the moment. It was kind of not easy, but it was like, I can’t see her kid, so I don’t think I could process it fully. But the amount [that] I could process it was cool because, honestly, my sister just had a baby, and watching her be a mother has been so beautiful. And so I think that definitely changed my perspective because me personally, I’ve never gone, not even after, but I’ve never been with a single mother or a mother at all. So it was very new to me, but in the moment, it was just us and the villa. So it was easy for me to be like, “Oh, that’s fine.” In the villa, it was a lot to take in, but it seemed cool. It seemed like it came with a lot of pros.

I know you’re not back on social media yet, so don’t know if anyone has told you, but in the last few days, a lot of people have began sharing videos of you talking about books, and so many fans said they wished they were able to see that side of your in the villa. Do you think you were able to show up in the villa as your authentic self, or do you think there are parts you would have liked to showcase more in the competition?

No, that makes a lot of sense. And it was like for the first week, it was good, and me and Huda were having conversations. She was kind of asking about myself, but then for a week there, between Pancake Day and Charlie leaving, it was a lot of just conflict resolution or me just getting to know her, and I communicated this to her. I was like, “Since the date, you haven’t asked me a question about myself in five days,” and that means a lot to me. But then I think when I started talking to Iris and Andreina, that’s when people, that’s when I got to actually talk about myself and my family and what I care about. So I think the last four or five days, ever since me and Iris’s date, I was my joyous self again. So I got to communicate how I want to communicate [and] talk about myself a little bit. So yeah, I would say I definitely didn’t get to fully express who I am. I was just on the comeback story cusp. But I think enough at the end there, people will see who I really am and that’s like all I can really hope for. Towards the end they’re like, “Oh, this guy’s actually cool,” type s**t.

Who in the season right now are you still rooting for in the villa, grudges aside? Who are the people you think would go all the way?

I’m going to start with this. I think Ace and Chelley have a real thing going on. They danced around each other for three weeks, but at the end of the day, the cute stuff they did, I felt like it was genuine. So I think Ace and Chelley have a good shot. Maybe Taylor and Olandria, but I heard that’s kind of shaken up right now. Honestly, I want Austin to have a crazy comeback story because, as unhinged as he is, he had my back through everything. So I want to see Austin win. Iris and TJ, I’m wishing them the best. They seemed really cute before I left. And honestly, I hope Amaya finds somebody because she is hilarious. She’s intense, but she is hilarious.

Even though you did miss out on Casa Amor, how do you think it would have gone for you, considering you had such a strong connection leading into it?

I’m not going to lie. I would say I definitely would have explored everything. I can’t say if I would’ve liked anybody, but I definitely would’ve been hooping, because me and Andreina talked about that. We’re going to do friendship, best friends first and do it the right way, essentially. So we had a lot of conversation about that, and so I was really ready to explore that option, her and any bombshells that came into Casa Amor. So I would’ve been hooping. Not saying anything would’ve happened, but I definitely would’ve been out there seeing what the word is, for sure.

Love Island USA airs new episodes each day except for Wednesday on Peacock at 9 p.m. EST.