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Claybourne Elder had a great personal experience to extract when he landed on the role of John Adams, the fictional grandson of former president John Quincy Adams, who is portrayed as a gay man in the nineteenth century elite in New York in the “golden age” of HBO.

“Growing up in Utah as a Mormon, there was a lot to hide who I was, hiding how I really felt,” said the actor, who is gay, News. “One thing about John is … I wasn’t interested in hiding who he was. He wanted to find a way of living his life within the construction of the system.”

“The Gilded Age” is written and created by Julian Fellowes, the intellectual author behind “Downton Abbey.” The series, which concludes its third season on Sunday, offers an exciting vision of the “boom” of New York City in the 1880s.

BARBRA WILO/HBO

John appeared in the premiere of the period of the period of the period as a possible love interest for Marian Brook (played by Louisa Jacobson), who has escaped poverty by moving with his wealthy aunts Au Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon).

In a turn, John secretly begins with Agnes’s son, Oscar Van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), who intends to maintain his hidden sexuality when marrying a woman.

For season 3, John and Oscar’s romance has cooled. Even so, the spectators were surprised to see John fatally beaten by an apple cart pulled by horses in the episode of July 27, “if you want to cook an tortilla.”

The episode of last week, “ex-communicated,” he found Oscar learning that he has inherited part of John’s fortune while extending to avoid revealing details of his relationship at the funeral.

“It’s funny to be killed in a television program, because everyone treats you as if you have a terminal disease,” Elder said. “It’s also like attending their own funeral, because you hear many people about what your story meant for them.”

Karolina Wojasik/HBO

When it came to firing John’s death, Elder took the opportunity to make his own acrobatics, even if he required to be tied to a harness and repeatedly demolished by the study team, an experience he documented for posterity on Instagram.

“At first, I thought, ‘I can do this.’ But after being in the harness for four hours, I could no longer feel my legs,” he said. “Finally, I thought, ‘ok, I’m ready to be dead.’ But if you’re going to go [as a character on a TV series]I prefer to go out with an explosion. ”

John’s death occurs just when “The Gilded Age” is enjoying an increase in the audience, and the series was renewed for a fourth season last month. Although Elder is not sure if John will reappear in flashback sequences or otherwise, he jokes that his character “will chase Oscar’s shit.”

“I don’t know if it’s going to be in camera or spiritually,” he said, “but John is going to be there, see him.”

Karolina Wojasik/HBO

As for Ritson as a stage partner, he added: “What I will miss most will be to work with Blake every day. We have become such good friends and we love each other a lot. It was a lovely experience and made it very easy.”

Like other members of the “The Gilded Age” cast, Elder first jumped to fame in the theater, appearing next to Jake Gyllenhaal in the Broadway Renaissance of “Sunday in the Park With George” in 2017 and, more recently, the winning Renaissance of Tony of “Company” in 2021.

With his time in “The Gilded Age” in the end, at least for now, Elder will return to the stage with his tour concert, “if the stars were mine.” He recently recorded program songs as a solo album, ready for launch at the end of this year.

Pink/HBO Alison

He also awaits a time of inactivity with her husband, the playwright and theater director Eric Rosen, and her 8-year-old son, Claybourne “Bo” Philip Rosen-Elder, while carrying out new projects that reflect other aspects of the LGBTQ+experience.

“It’s great to be a gay character in an HBO program, have that visibility and that show,” he said. “It is also important to tell a story that is important for 30 people, if you are going to change and affect someone. There are many of us trying to be the painting on the canvas of another person, when it is much more difficult to make the painting.”

“When I was a child, I didn’t know that there were homosexual parents. I didn’t know that it was possible until I was in my 20 years,” he continued. “So I want the children in a rural city like mine [my work] And say: ‘Oh, that is possible. I can have a family. I don’t have to leave like a gay person, give up all these things I want. For me, that’s important. ”

Sam Pickart