Exclusive: Claybourne Elder on the Legacy of John Adams in THE GILDED AGE and What He'll Miss Most

On Sunday, July 27, 2025, a collective gasp was heard from viewers who had tuned into Episode 6 of The Gilded Age. Right before the credits rolled, John Adams, the longtime companion of Oscar van Rijn, was struck and killed by a passing carriage. To add insult to injury, he had just promised to assist Oscar, helping to provide a much-needed boost to his career.

After the shocking twist, fans quickly began to mourn the character, posting tributes on social media left and right. Broadway's Claybourne Elder, who played the character throughout the three seasons, has since received thousands of encouraging messages from viewers, praising him for his performance in the series and noting their excitement for his next projects.

Following the episode, we spoke to Elder about his experience on the series, working with Broadway legends, filming his death scene, and the legacy of his character that is sure to continue in the show's fourth season and beyond.

This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

As you began this third season and got the scripts for your episodes, I’d love to hear about what those conversations with Julian Fellowes look like, specifically regarding the fate of your character.

To die on a TV show is so funny because once word gets out among the cast and crew, everybody starts to treat you a little bit like you have a terminal illness. I would run into people, and they'd be like, "Are you okay? How are you doing?" You start to say goodbyes to people because you just never know who you're going to run into next. It is such a strange feeling to be so sad about it and to wish that I could still be involved because I love the people so much. But I also know why it's important and why it has to happen. For what's going to happen to Oscar, it was necessary. 

Also, I didn't get sent the scripts for anything after the episode where my character meets his fate. I was on the inside of the show, and then I became just another person on the outside of the show, wondering what's going to happen. Now I'll be watching the fourth season and will be excited to see what all my friends are up to.

In the episode after John's death, we meet Kate Baldwin, who plays your sister, and we hear about some of the things that he had planned behind the scenes before all this happened. I'd be curious if they ever were to explore an idea of a flashback.

During one of the last conversations I had with Blake Ritson, I said, "I'm going to haunt the shit out of you. Whether it's on camera or off-camera, just know I'm going to be there!"

I was so excited when Kate Baldwin texted me to say that she'd gotten the role. When I was just starting out, I was in the ensemble of the Sacramento Music Circus production of My Fair Lady. She was playing Eliza when I got the call that I'd been cast in Road Show at The Public Theater.

I had become friendly with her, and I was like, "Kate, I'm about to go be one of the starring roles in this show. This is my first job in New York." And she sat me down, and she was like, "This is going to be fine. You're going to be great." I will never forget how kind she was to me about it. So this full circle moment, where she plays my sister at this moment of turmoil in my storyline, was just so meaningful to me. She's the most lovely person, and her performance in the episode is fantastic.

Were there any people that you had known for a long time in the Broadway community, but hadn't actually gotten to work with until The Gilded Age?

Yeah, I mean all of them. It's funny because we all do know each other or each other's work because it's a small community. If you go see stuff, then you're going to know what everybody does. A lot of us hadn't been in shows together, but we might have done a reading or a concert or something else, so showing up on set is like going to theater camp or going to a family reunion.

But there were a couple of people. Phylicia Rashad and I had done Sunday in the Park with George at City Center, and I hadn't seen her since then. It was right before my son was born, and she was so sweet to me, always asking me questions about him. I hadn't seen her in so long, and I didn't run into her until the premiere of the first episode. We were standing next to each other on the red carpet, and we both turned and gave each other a big hug. And a lot of my best friends work downstairs on the show. Celia Keenan-Bolger and Doug Sills, and I never run into each other on set, but we would end up in the same place at the same time in Newport together and hang out.

There are so many clusters of characters in the show. Who did you find yourself hanging out with the most on set? 

There were stints we did out of town in Albany and in Newport. They're shooting lots of different scenes on those days. During the first season, we were shooting really early in the pandemic, and so we had to go into quarantine. Even if we were going to shoot one day, we would have to go way early and would all end up being in a bubble together.

There are a lot of people that I didn't spend a lot of time with onscreen that I spent a lot of time with off camera. But the bulk of my time was with Blake Ritson, who plays Oscar. We got to be so close and such good friends. We always checked in with each other throughout the year and just spent so much time together. One of those things that I will miss is going to work with him. He just makes everything so fun. He's such a character.

So much of the connection between those two characters lives in subtext. How did you find and develop that dynamic?

Before we would go to shoot, he and I would get on Zoom with each other. We would read our scenes together and have little chats about what we thought and felt. Oftentimes, our director Michael Engler, would have conversations with us about the context. It always felt like we were given so many tools and research, but Blake and I did a lot of the work together.

We have these little secret things that we started in the first season. One that sticks out is that we always smoked each other's cigarettes, which, for the time period, was very risky. In our very last scene together inside the club, we passed a cigarette to each other, and it's kind of our secret thing. We developed a lot of that stuff on our own.

One of the major things that happens after John’s death is that we, as viewers, and Oscar himself learn that John has left him his summer house and some money. I’m curious if you believe he had thought about any possible repercussions for this decision, especially in a time when something like that might have raised eyebrows or suspicions from the people around him.

To me, John was an interesting dichotomy of brave and socially conscious. I think that is what I loved about him so much, and about the way he was written. He was paradoxically going to try to live some sort of life that was authentic to who he was while still trying to be in culture and in society. He was still going out and being in public. It wasn't just like he was hiding in the brothels downtown.

He helped Oscar many times, and clearly, they were great acquaintances and knew each other very well. I think that this was his final act of defiance in a small way to say, "This is what I'm going to do," and letting the world know that, while also encouraging Oscar to do the same.

Do you think there could have ever been a world in which they could have shared those things out of the spotlight without his death?

I think, yes, it is possible. However, I think that Oscar needed to have a big change. He clearly wasn't going to do any of that. Anybody lucky to live long enough is going to be touched by tragedy. We know what it's like and how that shows us what's important. I think it was necessary for that reason. He needed a shakeup in his life to see what was very important. And I have to say, I'm very excited to see what happens next season to him. I would like to think that something good can happen to Oscar, and this could be the catalyst for a change in his life where he stops seeking out things that are going to hurt him and starts seeking out things that are good for him.

Looking at the scope of your character, were there any moments or anything with your character that were cut that didn't make it across the three seasons that you can recall?

No, not in particular. Oftentimes, things are written with extra beats in them that can be cut for time if they need to or extended, but what we deal with is just what's on the page. There are always going to be things that you love that get cut. And that's true from take to take, too. You might love something you did in a take, but it does not look like you think it does.  I watch the show, but I always fast-forward my scenes. I don't want to watch myself.

In fact, I just recorded my first album, and right now, I'm comping the vocals. Having to just listen to myself sing all day is torture, and always on the show, I don't end up watching my scenes. My manager recently cut together a little reel of it, and he was like, "Just watch it." And I watched it, and I was like, "Oh, this is so beautiful. It's so great." I think that something about the project being over made me want to watch the reflection of what I did on that.

You shared a gallery of photos on Instagram from your time filming, and there was one in particular about being picked up and thrown on the sidewalk for your death scene. Had you done stunt work like that before?

No. When they told me how it was going to happen, they said, "Do you want to try doing the stunt yourself? We'll always have a stunt double ready to go if you decide at any point you don't want to." And I was like, "Let's do this!"

I had a stunt rehearsal in gym clothes with the harness over it, and they picked me up and threw me down three or four times. I was like, "Yeah, this is going to be fine. It'll hurt a little or be hard, but it'll be fun." And then we get to the day, and the harness has to be really, really tight, so it was cutting off the circulation to my arms and my legs. They get all my clothes over on top of me, and then we go out and we start doing it.

I fly up in the air and fall down, and an automated camera robot follows me the whole time. But they have to time it all exactly right. Before we even rolled the camera, we had to do it 10 times just to try to get the arm and everything moving. And there was one wire that kept knocking my hat off, so we had to make all these adjustments for that. I had to hit the ground and not bounce, and I had to make sure the hat fell off in the right way, and all this stuff. I have a lot of outtakes of it not working.

Looking back at the whole experience, is there something that has stuck out to you that's been particularly meaningful? 

So many things. One of my last days on set, we were shooting a party scene, and I knew it was going to be my last day on set with Kelli O'Hara and Carrie Coon, and all these people that I loved working with. Everyone knows how sad you are, and they were all so lovely and nice to me. Kelli gave me the biggest hug and was like, "You're about to do something even more incredible than this, and I'm so excited to see what it is because this needed to happen." It felt sad, but I've also just felt so thankful that I'd been a part of it at all. 

It really is the most amazing group of people to work with. Sometimes TV sets can be a little broey, especially if you're working on shows. But this set is full of lovely people who just want to talk about theater and want to support each other. The other person who was so incredible that last day was Donna Murphy, who is my spiritual guide. I love her so deeply. The great thing is, I might be off the show, but those friendships aren't ever going away.

Earlier, you mentioned your new album. Can you talk more about that project and when people can expect to hear it?

I started touring my solo show after Company closed, which is a cross between standup, a piece of theater, and a cabaret act. It is about a crazy thing that happened to me during the run of Company when I was reunited with this person who had done a random act of kindness for me. The show is about the nature of goodness and kindness, and what it was like to leave Mormonism as a gay guy and then have the rest of my life. I thought, "Oh, I'll do this for a few months because I'm just off a Broadway show." And now three years later, I'm still doing the show because it just keeps getting booked places.

Somebody came forward in the last year and said they wanted to pay for it to be an album. We've made the music into an album, and there'll probably be an extended version where you can hear the show itself and also hear the studio recordings of the songs. It's called If the Stars Were Mine, and it'll come out sometime this late fall.

What's it been like recording it?

So challenging and exciting. The people who agreed to come and record on it are incredible musicians. The music itself is musical theater, jazz, and pop. I tell people that it's sort of like being inside my head. It's a little ADD, but it all makes sense to me.

All three seasons of The Gilded Age are now available on HBO Max. The show is created, written, and executive produced by Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) and stars many Broadway and theater performers, including Audra McDonald, Kelli O'Hara, Donna Murphy, Nathan Lane, and more.

This season, more Broadway alums join the series, including Victoria Clark, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Phylicia Rashad, Kate Baldwin, and Andrea Martin, to name a few. Take a look here to learn about all of the Broadway stars this season and check out BroadwayWorld's exclusive conversation about Season 3 with Donna Murphy, who plays Mrs. Astor in the series. 

Photo credit: Karolina Wojtasik/HBO