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JULIE SMITH YOLLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ABOVE: Douglas Sills
is Monsieur Baudin in HBO’s The Gilded Age.
The big reveal came for Sills’ character, French Chef Baudin, during the season finale on March 21, along with the bonus announcement that The Gilded Age has been picked up for a second season. Sills already has the first three scripts. “I’m looking forward to reading the upcoming episodes. Being in a Julian Fellowes’ production is kind of like being in a scavenger hunt — you don’t decide your destiny for the next year; he does,” said Sills, who grew up in Detroit and then Franklin Village. Fellowes is also the mastermind behind the Downton Abbey franchise.
As Monsieur Baudin for the first eight episodes, Sills’ character oversees the lavish menus of railroad tycoon George Russell (Morgan Spector) and his social-climbing wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon) in New York City, 1882.
Filmed over nine months during the pandemic, and under strict safety protocols, The Gilded Age was shot on location around New York City, and Sills’ scenes in the servants’ kitchen were shot at the Elms mansion in Newport, Rhode Island.
“The series has been fun to work on. I have often been tossed things that more mainstream performers might not be comfortable with. Creators often turn to me to create something from the past, something quirky — the crazier the better,” says Sills who has starred on Broadway in War Paint, Living on Love, Little Shop of Horrors and in his Tony and Drama Desknominated performance as The Scarlet Pimpernel.
“Doing dialects isn’t new to me. Besides French, I’ve done British, Slavic, Southern and Latin/Hispanic, to name a few. Working with an accent coach, studying period manners, working with a chef coach — these are all things that an actor revels in and what I went to grad school for,” said Sills, who received his MFA in classical drama at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. “The time period that the show is set in, with the war of the classes and the haves and have nots of the society at that time, is all candy for an actor.”
The Zotz fizz candy surprise came for Sills and viewers in the season finale. Just days before the “coming out” debutante ball for George and Bertha’s daughter (Taissa Farmiga), Monsieur Baudin confesses to George Russell that he isn’t French after all but, rather, plain ol’ American Josh Borden from Wichita, Kansas.
“Having a secret identity is something that is not difficult for me to play. I’ve always had a double identity as a gay Jew living in a straight, Christian world. For people who grew up in the ’70s, if you were gay, there wasn’t a place for someone like me in a Conservative synagogue. I knew I had to make my own way and carry my Judaism where I went,” said Sills who attended Congregation Shaarey Zedek with his three siblings.
FALLING IN LOVE WITH THEATER
Sills first found his way to theater after performing in the talent show at Camp Tanuga in Kalkaska, Michigan, which was co-owned by Sills’ uncle, the late Bernie Friedman, and being in musicals in high school at Cranbrook.
“I always got cast as the gentile. I never looked Jewish enough or gay enough or straight enough or sometimes too gay. Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough,” says Sills, who played a disciple in Godspell in 1977 the summer before his senior year at Cranbrook. “Godspell was a funny show for me to produce and be in. Listen, Jesus was a Jew before anything else, right?”
Sills’ comedic mastery has served him well in a field that is becoming much smaller for Jewish actors.
“If they want to be in performing arts, they’ll be writers, producers, directors or agents. You just don’t have enough power as an actor,” Sills says. “Most Jews will say it’s too hard to make your mark and be competitive. Most Jews are looking to have a place where they have control over their professional destiny.”
To be a successful actor, Sills advises, you need excellent comedic timing.
“It’s what’s going on around you, the lens that you look through at the world — at your house, with your relatives. It’s the oral tradition of telling a good story — like Milton Berle, the Marx Brothers or Mort Sahl did. Then you ask, ‘Is the person a J.K. — Joke Killer?’ Does the performer know where the funny is? As a Jew, oftentimes, you and the writer know where the funny is,” Sills says.
“As a performer, I’m a member of two minorities — as a gay person and as a Jew. It’s a lot that you carry around — the fear of being excluded, humiliated or beat up,” he adds. “That basic tension or fear leads to a lot of humor.”
Sills had to go on an acting hiatus following the death of his father, Arthur Sills. Douglas came back to Michigan fulltime from 2007-2010 to run the family business, First Holding Corporation in West Bloomfield, with his sisters, Claudia Sills and Susan Sills. At that time, they digitized 45 years’ of documents, which was particularly helpful during the pandemic and while filming The Gilded Age.
“I would be in my trailer in Newport having a Zoom meeting with staff and partners about design elements of the new ground-up apartments in Ferndale or reviewing the resurfacing of a parking lot or remodeling Ann Arbor apartments or discussing the refinancing of an office building, and I’d have The Gilded Age script out in front of me, highlighted, with the latest changes for that day’s filming,” Sills says. “So, to be able to participate in both creative and more logical enterprises going on at the same time, and at such a high level of craft, is a profound privilege.”
For now, Sills is enjoying his return to performing and working alongside his fellow Broadway peers, all who were unemployed due to the pandemic. This pause in the theater world proved very fortuitous for casting directors Bernard Telsey and Adam Caldwell. The Gilded Age is packed with a roster of Tony Award winners and nominees, including Broadway legends Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald, Kelli O’Hara, Nathan Lane, Donna Murphy, Michael Cerveris and Celia Keenan-Bolger. KeenanBolger, who also grew up in Detroit, plays Mrs. Bruce, the head housekeeper of the Russell family.
“You never know. There’s talk that there could be a shidduch with Chef Borden and Mrs. Bruce in season two,” Sills says with a laugh.
(From left) Sid Friedman, Michael Bank, Carey Gluckman and Douglas Sills in the Camp Tanuga Talent Show, 1977.
Douglas Sills produced the musical Godspell in 1977 and was a disciple in the ensemble.
Season 1 of The Gilded Age is now streaming on HBO Max.
