‘The Gilded Age’s Morgan Spector says he’s a ‘service top’ creatively

It’s been almost a year since Morgan Spector sent The Gilded Age fans into a tizzy when he declared during a roundtable that he identifies as a bottom, creatively. But in a new interview, he clarified he’s more of a “service top.”

The actor — affectionately known as “Railroad Daddy” because of his portrayal of a railroad tycoon who rules 19th-century New York City — went viral last July for his eye-opening comment while on a Los Angeles Times Drama Talk roundtable with actors Amy Ryan, Carrie Preston, Maya Erskine, Jess Hong, and Giancarlo Esposito.

When asked if he’s ever given the writers room suggestions to flesh out his character, George Russell, Spector said, “I really am the kind of actor who likes to show up and just do what I’m told. I’m very much creatively kind of a bottom, so not really. I think that’s kind of what I’m in it for. ‘Please tell me what to do and just let me obey.'”

Unsurprisingly, Spector’s comment made the rounds on social media thanks to influencers like Evan Ross Katz, who posted a screenshot of the moment on his Instagram account. “To quote Samantha Jones: ‘Hello, 911? I’m on fire!'” Katz aptly captioned the post at the time.

In a recent interview with GQ Hype, Spector clarified his comment, asserting that while calling himself a bottom was a joke, the meaning behind his statement applies.

“I like being able to use my intuition and my intelligence to plug into somebody else’s ideas, learn their language, learn their way of communicating, figure out what the thing is that they’re trying to make, and then deliver that,” he explained.

And then, with a laugh, he said, “I guess it’s more of being a service top, creatively, than being a bottom.”

Clearly, Spector loves to make Dad(dy) jokes.

Despite the actor’s levity, he faced accusations of queerbaiting after the comment went viral since Spector isn’t queer and has been married to actress Rebecca Hall since 2015.

Although Spector understood the criticism, he questioned, “Straight guys can’t bottom?”

“I mean, people can play with dominance and submission in heterosexual relationships,” he continued. “We’re living in a moment now where we’re exploding ideas of gender. We deconstruct, these things are not fixed…. It’s theater, baby. We’re all playing in the same sandbox in a certain way.”

Viewers of the Gilded Age could certainly attest to Spector having no trouble with a man submitting to the desire of their partners in heterosexual relationships. His and costar Carrie Coon’s onscreen marriage proves that power dynamics can be incredibly fluid no matter what the decade.

When speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2022, Spector gushed about the couple’s refreshing dynamic and his onscreen wife, Bertha (Coon), an unflinching and ambitious an adversary in the show’s cutthroat world.

“They find in each other their equal and their match. There are some moments in the season where little fissures open up between them, but they’re things that exist within a marriage,” Spector said at the time. “They’re not the kinds of things that you would concede to somebody who’s trying to threaten their marriage. On the level of George’s deep feeling for Bertha, he does mean every word he says.”

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The self-proclaimed “wife guy” told EW that George and Bertha’s relationship is one that reflects his real-life love with Hall.

He said, “This idea of parity in a relationship — of real equality and creating the infrastructure in your relationship to have good communication and shared labor so that you can actually both be free to find the fullest expression of yourself — is totally a value in my relationship. And one that I share with George, as different as the Russells are and as different as their time is.”

“That is how I imagined George and Bertha. We see a lot of unhappy marriages in fiction,” he added. “They’re interesting and they’re dramatic and they are unstable in a way that can lead to really compelling storylines, but writing good marriages is actually really difficult. It requires some subtlety and is really fun to play because it’s not like there isn’t difficulty and complexity to relationships that are fairly stable. Because that requires constant balancing.”

The Gilded Age season 3 premieres Sunday, June 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.