MARCH 31 • 2022 | 95

As Monsieur Baudin for the 
first eight episodes, Sills’ char-
acter 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 main-
stream performers might not 
be comfortable with. Creators 
often turn to me to create some-
thing 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 Desk-
nominated 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 clas-
sical 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 syna-
gogue. 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 the-
ater 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 per-
forming 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 per-
son 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 mem-
ber of two minorities — as a 
gay person and as a Jew. It’s a 
lot that you carry around — the 
fear of being excluded, humili-
ated 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 full-
time 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 apart-
ments or discussing the refi-
nancing of an office building, 
and I’
d have The Gilded Age script 
out in front of me, highlight-
ed, 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. Keenan-
Bolger, 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. 

Season 1 of The Gilded Age is now 

streaming on HBO Max.

(From left) Sid Friedman, Michael 
Bank, Carey Gluckman and 
Douglas Sills in the Camp Tanuga 
Talent Show, 1977.

Douglas Sills produced the musi-
cal Godspell in 1977 and was a 
disciple in the ensemble. 

