As Agnes van Rhijn in The Gilded Age , Christine Baranski embodies a New York matriarch bound by stringent class division and societal contest—something the show’s creator Julian Fellowes so famously explored within the British aristocracy in Downton Abbey . Baranski conveys both generations of painful suppression and a wry humor as Van Rhijn—a woman upholding a family legacy while supporting her sister ( Cynthia Nixon ), niece (Louisa Jacobson) and son (Blake Ritson). A two-time Tony winner, an Emmy winner and 16-time nominee, here Baranski talks shooting Season 3 and reveals juicy details about her upcoming Season 2 of Nine Perfect Strangers with Nicole Kidman .
DEADLINE: Last time we sat down for a proper chat was for The Good Fight . What a show..
. CHRISTINE BARANSKI: Yes! Somebody was just asking me how Diane Lockhart would feel about all of the things happening in American politics. I said maybe we could have ended The Good Fight with Diane watching the first woman president be sworn in as the season finale.
The Season 7 or Season 8 finale could have been a happy ending. DEADLINE: That would have been epic. Congratulations on this latest, your 16 th , Emmy nomination.
BARANSKI: I think it’s so funny, because the very first time I was nominated after 13 episodes of Cybill , I won. I remember arriving late because the traffic was so bad. I barely got in my seat.
My category was up first. I won and it was just, “Oh, OK, that was easy. And then, 15 subsequent loss.