Copley’s Carrie Coon talks ‘The Gilded Age,’ Stan Hywet Hall and ‘White Lotus’

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Copley native Carrie Coon is having quite the year.

After a major and memorable role in the latest season of “The White Lotus,” the talented actor returns as robber baron wife Bertha Russell in “The Gilded Age,” which debuts its eight-episode third season Sunday, June 22, on HBO and streamed on Max.

Created by Julian Fellowes (“Downton Abbey”), the new season begins with Bertha emerging victorious from the opera war, setting her sights on a crown of a different kind.

We recently caught up with the 1999 Copley High School graduate, who later majored in English and Spanish at the University of Mount Union in Alliance, to discuss Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, Rizzi’s Pizza and her recent “The White Lotus” character, Laurie.

Carrie, congrats on the series. Going into the new season of “The Gilded Age,” it really seems as though your character, Bertha, is flexing.

That’s so funny. I do think she’s always flexing, but what I also find this season is there are a lot of cracks in the veneer because she gets really isolated. Typically, her safe space was with George (Morgan Spector), but now they’re not communicating really well. And that actually as an actor is really interesting to play because it gives her so much more vulnerability this season.

Is Bertha’s situation a cautionary tale of be careful of what you wish for?

Oh, boy, she’s not even paying attention. She’s just in pursuit of the things she wants to the detriment of everyone around her. She’s very single-minded, and she feels the end justifies the means, but not everybody agrees with her. She’s looking around saying everything worked out, what’s the big deal and realizing that she’s really just lost touch with the needs of her family — which she believes, by the way, she’s doing it out of love for her family. It’s just a very practical definition of love that maybe other people don’t subscribe to.

Considering Bertha is already privileged for the time, it’s as if now she wants a fantasy on top of another fantasy — pushing her daughter into royal nuptials.

I think for Bertha, her real fantasy would be running a boardroom or being the CEO, but those worlds are closed to her. So what do women do with that intellectual power, with that energy? They only have one place to put it — philanthropy and, of course, their families. So who can blame her for putting this hyper-focus on Gladys’s marriage when she knows that the world is not set up to support or protect her daughter. And if her daughter is to have a fulfilling and meaningful life, she must have some power and influence. And the only way to get that is your marriage. Bertha understands the world — she’s quite savvy about it — and she really does have her daughter’s best interest at heart, even if you disagree with the way she goes about achieving her goal.

Being from Northeast Ohio, were you aware of Cleveland’s Gilded Age history? Also, even though it dates after the late 19th-century era, Akron’s Stan Hywet Hall does kind of boast that same vibe.

Absolutely, as a kid coming from Copley, Ohio, Stan Hywet Hall was an extraordinary exemplar of what it meant to be wealthy. It blew my mind they had a swimming pool in the house, their telephone was hidden in a globe. There were Christmas decorations everywhere during the holidays. That did seem like this lavish lifestyle that was so far from me, so much so that I really didn’t know anything about the architecture or the time period until I took the show. I was a literature major. I love Henry James. I love Edith Wharton. I’ve read all of those books, so I had literary knowledge of the period but I did not have architectural knowledge. So I’m looking forward to applying all of this retroactively to Cleveland next time I get to visit.

It seems like visiting Stan Hywet Hall was an obligatory elementary school field trip.

It was always field trips. We might’ve gone once with my grandmother to see the Christmas display, but I loved visiting, and I even ended up performing there. When I was in college, I was in a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the gardens one summer with a Shakespeare company. I was just playing a fairy.

When you do return home, are you visiting Swensons Drive-in and Skyway Drive-In?

We’ll hit the Swensons, we’ll hit the Skyway, but also I’m really close to Rizzi’s Pizza. So we always have Rizzi’s pizza and chicken, a place where all of my brothers worked at least once. That’s kind of our go-to because that’s really close to my house. And I still need to get up to Marble Room. My little brother (Aaron) is the head chef. I’m really proud of him. It’s a hard industry.

Speaking of a hard industry or troubled existence, even though nearly 150 years separate Bertha from your fabulous “The White Lotus” third-season character Laurie, do you see any connective tissue between the women?

Well, maybe the most basic connection is the idea of gossip and toxic friendship. Bertha is essentially friendless. Every relationship she has is very transactional. And Laurie is also feeling very isolated. The women who come up to me to relate to “White Lotus” — they’re all feeling left out, they’re all feeling like a Laurie. Also, I ask the question: How far have we really come? As it stands right now, women’s rights in America vary according to geography. And what Laurie is struggling with at work — which you don’t really see as much in the show because it’s been cut down — is some male gatekeeping at her law firm. Now, whether she’s also in her own way is a great question. Maybe they’re similarly myopic in pursuit. Maybe Laurie has been ambitious in her career and neglected her daughter’s needs — we don’t know. And Bertha, obviously, has been single-minded in her pursuits and neglected sort of the warning bells going off around her and her family. So there might be some story to be told there. I always make sure Bertha’s wine glass is half empty, too. There might be some maybe historically appropriate alcoholism from Bertha. So there’s a parallel to Laurie. They did a lot of drinking back then.

Finally, do you think Laurie would be watching “The Gilded Age?”

(Laughs) Oh, sure. She probably is somebody who turns her brain off. She probably watches “Real Housewives.” She watches “Love Island.” She’ll turn on “Gilded Age,” anything that’s not too taxing for her.

Season three of “The Gilded Age” premieres at 9 p.m. on Sunday, June 22 on HBO and streams on Max.