Plus, her thoughts on that romantic moment we’ve all been waiting for.
T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones) intervenes, forcefully shoving the racist man to the ground.
The act leaves Peggy and Fortune running for their lives.
Sullivan Jones and Denée Benton on ‘The Gilded Age’.Barbra Nitke/HBO
While hiding out from the angry lynch mob, Peggy and Fortune wait in terror, hoping to escape.
Even with that warning, how shocking is this incident for her?
Denee Benton:The thingabout trauma is nothing can really prepare you for it.
Denée Benton on ‘The Gilded Age’.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
No one can really be prepared to face true abuse.
Thomas declares her fearless, and that’s fair to say.
Oh, 100 percent.
Sullivan Jones and Denée Benton on ‘The Gilded Age’.Barbra Nitke/HBO
You need a little bit of both.
I still don’t think Peggy regrets going, even in the midst of what she found.
There were two lines that really resonate.
And then later when Peggy asks, “Will things ever change?”
Sadly, both of those statements still ring true.
It’s such a heart fracturing intention to hold, but we’re all doing it.
In June, on the Tony Awards,you called Ron DeSantis a “grand wizard.
“Do you see a through-line between that and playing a character like Peggy?
Me and Peggy’s souls were so supposed to meet.
We both inspire and stress our parents out equally.
But yeah, me and Peggy are definitely simpatico.
Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
Peggy and Fortune run away.
But how badly or differently could this have gone?
We all know they’re what would become the KKK, these white terrorist vigilante groups.
They had death and blood on their minds.
And so, that’s exactly what was to come.
One wrong move, and it would’ve been a very different episode.
It’s how that turned out for many people that we come from.
It’s a really important dynamic to honor and tell truthfully.
That’s what Dorothy was saying.
We see it every day with Emmett Till, with police brutality.
One wrong move, and it’s the difference between you coming home and being planned a funeral.
What’s horrific about lynchings is so many of those bodies were never recovered.
They have jars of dirt and names to honor all of those lives that were taken disrespectfully.
I don’t think people understand how living all this history is.
History doesn’t hold enough nuance.
It displays a distance that doesn’t truly exist.
Does that speak to this sense of feeling like history is far away?
It’s what that requires.
Speaking of never quite being ready to hear something, we do see this mob searching for them.
Does Peggy fully comprehend at this point what could happen?
Or is she still not even fully aware of all of that?
The trauma lives in all of our DNA.
If you’re a survivor of any kind of enslavement or genocide, danger becomes clear quickly.
They do manage to escape.
But we’ve still got four episodes left.
Is this potentially going to have any lingering impact or come back to bite them later on?
There were networks of families to get people to safety that were never any official titled organization.
Once they are out of the south, it’s probably hard to find much.
But I am curious more so around the families that are left behind.
On a happier note, this traumatic experience finally leads Fortune and Peggy to kiss.
Were you so excited when you read the script the first time?
We were all so excited and it’s so complicated.
We all know T. Thomas Fortune’s circumstances, but I was really thrilled personally.
I love seeing Peggy get to be taken by passion in the moment.
But I was very happy that she got to get some swoony butterflies.
I hope that there were things that happened in the barn that we didn’t see as well.
Oooo, well, regardless, what does this mean for their future?
Will they even acknowledge the kiss going forward?
Oh, I can’t share that.
It’s a good cliffhanger.
Do you think Peggy wants more?
As complicated as it is.
I’ll be curious to see how she balances all those things.
She’s being brought back to life in a way.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
