Claybourne Elder had a wealth of private expertise to attract from when he landed on the position of John Adams, the fictional grandson of former President John Quincy Adams, who’s portrayed as a homosexual man in New York’s Nineteenth-century elite on HBO’s “The Gilded Age.”
“Growing up in Utah as a Mormon, there was a lot about hiding who I was, hiding how I really felt,” the actor, who’s homosexual, advised HuffPost. “One thing I loved about John is … he wasn’t interested in hiding who he was. He wanted to find a way to live his life within the construct of the system.”
“The Gilded Age” is written and created by Julian Fellowes, the mastermind behind “Downton Abbey.” The sequence, which concludes its third season Sunday, affords a titillatingly fictionalized tackle the “Boom Years” of New York Metropolis within the Eighteen Eighties.
John appeared within the interval drama’s premiere season as a potential love curiosity for Marian Brook (performed by Louisa Jacobson), who has escaped poverty by transferring in together with her rich aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon).
In a twist, John secretly begins an affair with Agnes’ son, Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), who intends to maintain his sexuality hidden by marrying a girl.
By Season 3, John and Oscar’s romance has cooled. Nonetheless, viewers have been shocked to see John fatally struck by a horse-drawn apple cart on the July 27 episode, “If You Want to Cook an Omelette.”
Final week’s episode, “Ex-Communicated,” discovered Oscar studying he’s inherited a few of John’s fortune whereas going to lengths to keep away from revealing specifics of their relationship on the funeral.
“It’s funny getting killed off on a TV show, because everyone treats you like you have a terminal illness,” Elder stated. “It’s also like attending your own funeral, because you hear from so many people about what your story meant to them.”
When it got here to taking pictures John’s demise, Elder jumped on the likelihood to do his personal stunts, even when it required being strapped right into a harness and knocked down repeatedly by studio gear ― an expertise he documented for posterity on Instagram.
“At first, I was like, ‘I can do this.’ But after being in the harness for four hours, I couldn’t feel my legs anymore,” he stated. “Finally, I was like, ‘OK, I’m ready to be dead.’ But if you’re going to go [as a character on a TV series], I’d rather go out with a bang.”
John’s demise comes simply as “The Gilded Age” is having fun with a surge in viewership, and the sequence was renewed for a fourth season final month. Although Elder isn’t positive if John will reappear in flashback sequences or in any other case, he jokes that his character “is going to haunt the shit out of Oscar.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to be on camera or spiritually,” he stated, “but John’s going to be there, watching him.”
As for Ritson as a scene associate, he added, “The thing I’ll miss most is going to work with Blake every day. We’ve become such good friends and love each other very much. It was a delightful experience, and he made it very easy.”
Like different members of “The Gilded Age” forged, Elder first rose to prominence in theater, showing alongside Jake Gyllenhaal within the Broadway revival of “Sunday in the Park with George” in 2017 and, most lately, the Tony-winning revival of “Company” in 2021.
Together with his time on “The Gilded Age” at an finish ― a minimum of for now ― Elder is about to return to the stage along with his touring live performance, “If the Stars Were Mine.” He lately recorded songs from the present as a solo album, set for launch later this yr.
He’s additionally wanting ahead to some down time along with his husband, playwright and theater director Eric Rosen, and their 8-year-old son, Claybourne “Bo” Philip Rosen-Elder, whereas pursuing new initiatives that replicate different elements of the LGBTQ+ expertise.
“It’s great to be a gay character on an HBO show, to have that visibility and that viewership,” he stated. “It’s also important to tell a story that’s important to 30 people, if it’s going to change and affect somebody. There are lots of us trying to be the paint on somebody else’s canvas, when it’s much harder to make the painting.”
“As a kid, I didn’t know that there were gay parents. I didn’t know that was possible until I was well into my 20s,” he continued. “So I want kids from a country town like mine to see [my work] and say, ‘Oh, that’s possible. I can have a family. I don’t have to ― by coming out as a gay person ― give up on all of these things I want.’ For me, that’s important.”
