Morgan Spector and Carrie Coon may live in “The Gilded Age” on television, but in the real world, they’re pinching pennies.
The actors, who play wealthy couple George and Bertha Russell on the HBO period drama, called out billionaire wealth during a red-carpet interview with Refinery29 posted Thursday, Nov. 20.
“When you have hundreds of billions of dollars, and you call the president of the United States, he does what you want him to do,” Spector, 45, told the outlet’s senior content director Kathleen Newman-Bremang. “That’s not democracy. We can’t have that.”
Spector’s costar and TV wife Coon echoed his fiscally conscious sentiment.
“There’s no reason to be a billionaire, what do you want?” Coon, 44, said. “You could fix everything, but you are afraid of being irrelevant. This could make you more relevant. You don’t need any more money!”
‘Gilded Age’ star Morgan Spector says billionaires ‘don’t need’ wealth
Spector and Coon are not the only ones in Hollywood who have a beef with billionaires.
Pop star Billie Eilish weighed in on wealth disparities during a frank speech at the 2025 WSJ. Innovator Awards on Oct. 29, where she urged billionaires to “give your money away.” She later aimed Tesla CEO Elon Musk on social media and shared a post that outlined how the tech magnate could allocate his $467.9 billion net worth toward philanthropy efforts.
But for Spector, charity just doesn’t cut it when it comes to addressing income inequality.
“For one thing, they just don’t need it, but for another thing, if we don’t tax it away, those people have far too much power over all of our lives,” Spector said. “Too often, philanthropy actually gives these people power in a private sphere that I don’t think they necessarily merit. I believe in public provision of goods and services.”