Julian Fellowes attended The Gilded Age‘s Season 4 premiere at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where he thanked Casey Bloys for believing in the series from the start.
“I have a special place in my heart for Casey Bloys, our protector, our gladiator, our defender from very, very early days,” Fellowes said before the screening. “Anyone who enjoys the show owes him a great deal. I certainly do, and I say that with both pride and happiness.”
Deadline reported in 2019 that, after NBC ordered the series, the creator’s vision for the period piece proved too ambitious for the constraints of broadcast TV. Universal TV shopped the series, and it landed at HBO in a competitive situation. The series finally premiered in 2022, with Season 4 debuting on Sunday, November 1.
During the presentation, Fellowes also gave a shout-out to NBCU’s Pearlena Igbokwe as “one of the first to recognize” the specialness of the series. He also mentioned Bob Greenblatt for not letting it rest and for making the series, and called HBO’s Francesca Orsi “wonderful” for bringing the series home.
Fellowes said that he had always been interested in the Gilded Age, calling it “a very interesting period of American history,” adding, “I think it was the beginning of modern America, and it was the moment that America decided they didn’t want to copy Europe and have five generations before anyone could be invited for dinner and all that kind of thing.”
“Whatever one says about the so-called robber barons, the fact is, within a few years, the century would begin what we would know of as the American century,” he continued. “And in both world wars, the voice of America was the loudest at the peace table, because America had arrived, and it was the big, giant new power of the world.”