Michel Gill Talks The Gilded Age, The Dropout, And Other Roles He'd Love To Tackle - Exclusive Interview

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years (and who could blame you?!), you'll be well acquainted with the work of Michel Gill. The actor is currently appearing in HBO's "The Gilded Age," the gorgeous new period drama from the creator of "Downton Abbey." And from March 3, 2022, you'll also be able to watch Gill in Hulu's "The Dropout," which follows the unbelievable story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

Aside from his two major new roles, Gill has been regularly gracing our screens, and his role as President Garrett Walker on "House of Cards" undoubtedly helped put him on the map. Since then, he's starred as Gideon Goddard in "Mr. Robot," Doug Landry in "Ray Donovan," and Robert Haywood on "Chicago Med," among many other parts.

Nicki Swift sat down with Michel Gill to find out all about "The Gilded Age," "The Dropout," and which roles he'd love to take on next.

I watched screeners of "The Dropout." It's amazing. And obviously you play Elizabeth Holmes' dad in it. Had you been following the story of Theranos before you got involved, and how did you prepare for the part?

Yes, I had been following it. I was just mesmerized and stunned, and I've heard about it and had been watching her for, it seems like years, very disturbed from the very beginning, honestly. But of course, she's appeared to be quite the genius with some very cool ideas. And then obviously things changed. I listened to the podcast, The Dropout, and I watched a couple of the documentaries and everything just sort of came together. And I just was very worried for her, honestly.

She's [an] heiress to the Fleischmann's Yeast company and her great-grandfather, at one point when he saw his product not being so successful, he redefined it, remarketed it for it to be really good for the gut as well, which was not true at all. And so, there's this historical legacy that complicates the situation. And then her father, Chris, went down with Enron in the nineties, and he had nothing to do with that, but he had to suffer that along with the humiliation, I guess, of the loss of fortune from before. His father and grandfather squandered the fortune. So he was very sensitive to all of that and was trying really hard to guide Elizabeth into making good choices and having purpose in her life. Because ... even when you have that kind of privilege, I think most people end up realizing, it's so much more important to serve and to have purpose. And he tried really hard to infuse her with that energy, was probably a little rough on her at times in a distant way and a bossy way and a traditional patriarchal sort of way. Expected a lot from her and she felt it, but was also very kind and supportive, because she was an unusual child.

So I approached it just on a human level. What do you do when you come from this past with this legacy, and how do you create an environment that is positive, purposeful, and just make mistakes along the way, but be human about it and vulnerable about it.

Her dad is such an important motivator in the story of "The Dropout," and you got to work closely with Amanda Seyfried, who plays Elizabeth Holmes. What was that like? And how did you develop that bond?

Well, there was also a younger actress playing her younger self earlier in the show. Amanda is an extraordinary human being. I've had the luck, the fortune to work with many people who are in that kind of limelight and, dare I say, stardom and all that stuff. And she's probably one of the most down-to-earth people I've met on sets. So from the get-go, there was a very easy, comfortable rapport.

The woman who's playing my wife, Elizabeth Marvel, she plays Noel, she and I went to Juilliard, and so we have similar backgrounds, and we've met over the years. So it was also immediately very comfortable. You know, you bank on these things in our business, because otherwise you're these strangers passing through, quickly having to determine relationships, and then off you ago. And so as actors, we get on set and we do the very best we can from the get-go to connect, to find similarities, to find all kinds of common ground. And it didn't seem very difficult here. It was just very easy.

And the director, Michael Showalter, was just another part of. It just seemed like we were a part of a previous incarnation of some kind. It just was way too easy, way too comfortable. And we just dove right in with actually one of the most intimate scenes from the get-go, in the first couple of days, which also opened the gates to just being comfortable and vulnerable. So it was a terrific experience. What an extraordinary cast of characters in this production. And I just am thrilled and feel honored.

You are also in "The Gilded Age." What was it like working with the creator of "Downton Abbey," Julian Fellowes?

Oh my God, he's just delightful. He's delightful. Now because of COVID, he couldn't be on set a whole lot. And he was traveling back and forth to the U.K., and he had to be very careful. Everybody had to be very careful. So unless it was absolutely necessary, if it was necessary, the set was very limited. So he was always watching on a monitor, always had notes, if he had them. Whenever he did come to set, he couldn't have been more delightful. Again, it's just like, "Hello!" What a body of work.

And honestly, the scenes in "The Gilded Age" were ... As an actor, you can sometimes learn your lines pretty quickly. And sometimes it's really hard. I've always felt that you memorize things by heart. That's what we were always told as kids, learn this by heart. As actors, we take that very literally. We learn things by and through our hearts. If it has meaning, if it connects, how do we find a connection? And that's when we can find it easy to learn lines. It comes naturally. If it's awkward, if it doesn't make sense, if it doesn't flow, our hearts resist, we struggle. And it takes an extra exercise of just psychological, intellectual, mechanical learning.

And then you appear on set and you just forget your lines all the time. But when you're given a script like this by a guy who knows what he's doing, and who knows character, and who knows story, these lines just flowed into me. And the experiences flowed into me so naturally. "Mr. Robot" was the same. Sam Esmail wrote the same way. And honestly, Beau Willimon on "House of Cards." I've been very, very lucky lately, not to struggle learning lines. And that's just an indication of how brilliant the writing is.

You've had some iconic parts in these amazing shows. It's quite a career so far.

It happened late in my life, because I was busy in the theater, and I was busy being a dad, and my wife and I, Jayne Atkinson, took turns. So yes, it certainly came later on, and I'm glad of it. I mean, it wasn't always easy, but it's just been a joy for the last few years. It's been great.

And with "The Gilded Age," you work with some amazing actors. There's Carrie Coon, Cynthia Nixon, Christine Baranski. What was it like working with them?

Well, I mostly worked with Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector and a lovely actress who plays my wife, Katie Finneran. I haven't worked with Cynthia. And Christine and I have crossed paths with "The Good Wife," and we know each other, and I adore her, and it was always great to see her on set, but I don't have any scenes with her yet. It's just, again, the leadership of Lord Julian Fellowes with Michael Engler and Salli Richardson-Whitfield, everything was just, it always starts there. And the ease and comfort of the period that everybody had.

And we had an extraordinary dialect coach, Howard Samuelsohn, whom I adore and I, in full transparency, have known for 40 years because we went to Juilliard together. We were in the same class, and he is now one of the great dialect coaches in existence. So he was on set, just overseeing this incredible language. Morgan and Carrie were just delightful to work with, as was Katie. I had a great time ... This is a period that I'm very comfortable with, because I've done a lot of period pieces at school and outside of school, in the theater. So, you know, how wonderful.

You also had an amazing arc on "Ray Donovan." What was it like being part of Season 5 and playing Doug Landry, who was kind of a creepy character?

Yeah. It was fun. It was so long ago. So much has happened since. First of all, again, Liev [Schreiber] and I met, 1992.

Oh, did you?

1992. He was a student at Yale. He was in his last year, and I was in a production at the Yale Rep, "Edward II." And he was in the production as a student. So we met then. And so when I came to set, it was nice. It was nice. It'd been a long time, but it was a nice way to reconnect. Again, these are the little things that help in a process. I've been always, from the beginning of my career, I've been cast as some nasty pieces of work that don't appear nasty off the bat.

And I think that that's, as a younger man, I was just a nice, charming kind of guy. And they chose to always cast me, because it was always a surprise when I would turn the corner. And it was great, because I had a lot of it. I did a lot of it, and it was fun to find the subtlety of not giving that away, of how you toe that line, and this is the same thing in "[Ray] Donovan." You can't just appear right off the bat as the quintessential villain. You have to find this humanity and the need of what this character has and what it's all about. And I always find that really, really interesting to be able to play both sides. And then the story unfolds and exposes you. And so it's always great fun.

I love that you have all these connections. You met Liev so long ago, and then you ended up working together.

It's amazing. Yeah. It's great. You end up doing this. You spend enough time in this business, you persist, you stick with it. It's a small world. It's a very small world, and you just run into each other, into one another, all the time. And it's just wonderful. And you're constantly making new friends in these environments that are so vulnerable, really, for us as actors. You don't share these things walking down the street when your puppy meets another person's puppy. It's all about the puppies and you have a "hello, goodbye, it's nice to see you" at first. Here we dive right into, open our hearts, expose ourselves, and so there's this bonding that occurs very quickly, and no matter how long between one project and the other, it's in there forever.

Are there any shows that you would love to be in?

Yes. I was brought up, I'm a first generation American, and my first language was French, and my parents were both escapees of the war. So for the first four years of my life, I spoke French. And then I don't know what I spoke until I was about 16, sort of a mix of English and French. And then by the time I was 16, 17, I started actually separating the two languages and understanding, and in British boarding school. I love the French series, well, it's called "10%," but it's also "Call My Agent."

And of course, "The Bureau," which is over now, but I am just dying to be in a French show. I want to use my French, because it's such a beautiful language to me, and I just miss that part of my brain. And so I'm just looking for things, and their shows are just spectacular. Otherwise, I'm a working actor, and it's less about the show, and it's more about the characters that I want to play. The more complicated characters, if they're out there. I'm so interested in finding the next character, and it's always about where he's coming from. And I won't see it 'til I see it.

Are there any actors or directors that you'd love to work with that you haven't yet?

Oh yes. Of course there are. And you know them all. You know them all. The one director that I wish I'd worked with was Mike Nichols. And I'm just so sorry that I never had the opportunity to do that, but honestly ... there are so many incredible directors from the Coen Brothers to Wes Anderson to Spielberg to De Niro, even as a director, I'd love to see what he [does] ... But everybody, everybody out there that is working that I enjoy watching is just a thrill to me.

I am a troubadour, and although I'm a critical person, and I have a critical eye, I also think that there's extraordinary work going on out there now that this streaming world has opened up. And the talent is exploding, and there are some actors out there that nobody knows that I would love to work with. And everybody knows that I'd love to work with the big names. So for me, it's the project, it's the story, it's the character. And I'm always thrilled. I've been very lucky. I can honestly say that I have never worked with anybody that I regret working with, ever.

That's amazing. That's probably quite rare to be able to say.

Yeah, it's extraordinary. I mean, I have never had a bad experience.

Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know about all of the projects you have coming out?

You know, I think the beauty of "The Gilded Age" is going to be really lovely to see, the backdrop of the world, the colors that infuse the characters. I think it's going to be really exciting to watch, because the way it was shot and the things that I've seen are just spectacularly beautiful. So I look forward to people enjoying the lush, the extravagance, of this production.

And "The Dropout," I just think that it's just such a fascinating story to watch it unfold. Now that we know that she's been convicted, it's just now going to be that much more interesting to watch this unfold before our eyes in this performative way. And I think Amanda [Seyfried] is going to just be, I know she is going to be exceptional, so I really think people will really eat that up.

Yeah. It's a great moment for you to be in these two massive shows. It's exciting.

Yeah, it is. I am ... Can you tell?

You're very busy. I don't know how you do it.

And I've got a puppy. That keeps me busy.

Watch Michel Gill in "The Gilded Age" on HBO and HBO Max every Monday. "The Dropout" is set to hit Hulu on March 3, 2022.