Ben Ahlers on Being a ‘Gilded Age’ Tech Bro and Fashion World Cred

Beh Ahlers isn’t sure why everyone assumes he’s much shorter than he actually is.

“I don’t know if it’s the boyishness or if it’s a camera-angle thing or what,” Ahlers, 28, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But I’m 6-foot-2.”

Maybe it’s the character he plays on HBO’s The Gilded Age. Ahlers is currently in the midst of his third season as the humble footman John Trotter — “Jack” to his colleagues — to sisters Agnes (Christine Baranski) and Ada (Cynthia Nixon), fading socialites in 1880s Manhattan. It’s a deft portrayal of an orphan who found family and belonging through a life of domestic service, but whose talent and determination offers the promise of something more.

Ahlers can relate. He grew up in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he was immersed in community theater from a young age. He went on to study musical theater at University of Michigan and later was enlisted by the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the Berkshires, where he performed alongside a future co-star (more on that later).

His first Hollywood break came playing a street artist on 2019’s The Village, a short-lived NBC drama about a (modern-day) residential community in Brooklyn. The following year, he was hand-selected by Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes himself for his much-ballyhooed follow-up to Downton Abbey — and Ahlers’ life changed forever.

Ahlers recently caught up with THR, where he spoke of parallels between himself and Jack, and let us in on a newfound fascination with fashion, where he serves as muse to labels like Berluti and Amiri.

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You’ve now been Jack Trotter for a little while. How old were you when you started on The Gilded Age?

I auditioned when I was 23, and now I’m 28. It’s a bigger show, so it takes a while to shoot. It’s been cool to grow up with Jack, because a lot happens in your 20s.

And you’re living this parallel life in a New York of another time, where your character is also coming into his own.

Totally. And a time very similar to today, with the crazy changes in technology and industry and the reorganization of wealth and trying to figure out your place inside of it. It’s been really neat to have Jack there as a reflection point throughout that process. In addition to being ambitious and hungry and believing in a dream beyond his current station, he’s also so playful and optimistic and connected to his work family.

You could almost call him a tech bro of the Gilded Age.

You really could. Those tech kids, I’ve met a few of them who are 18 years old running multimillion-dollar companies. Young people today have such an advantage growing up with technology and being able to see new windows of opportunity that some of the more established folks miss, because it all changes so quickly.

What I’ve learned from my entrepreneurial friends is that if you’re setting out for success as the primary target, you’re most likely going to fail. But if you’re actually just trying to address a problem that directly impacts your life, you’re going to wake up every day trying to solve it. And in this case, Jack just wanted to wake up on time in order to pour Christine Baranski’s tea in a timely manner.

Just to explain to the readers, he’s trying to create a new kind of clock.

He overslept his alarm in season two, and this had happened a few times. He was like, “Why aren’t these alarm blocks more reliable?” This is super technical, but I studied with the Horological Society of New York to have a better grasp on this. They were very helpful.

How cool.

They brought us in to go through a watchmaking workshop over the course of an afternoon where we took apart a watch and put it back together. And they were so thrilled to be represented, because they take their craft so seriously. The escapement, which is a key part to the clock running on time, would run on oil and eventually that oil would become sticky, so it would start to delay the release of the escapements. And my character Jack developed one that could run without oil.

As we now know, that kind of breakthrough could really change the world and change your character’s life. And as you say on the show, in a line that really sums up the series, “In America, you don’t have to live the life that your parents led.“

Totally. What’s so fascinating is that this show is written by a Brit. England today still is so heavily baked in class. Even if you do accumulate wealth, you’re never accepted into those tiers above. It was a distinctly American invention around this time for somebody to rise above their station. We take that for granted today, as the American dream has been so thrust upon us. It is the romantic ideal of this country, but at that time, it was such a new idea.

I get a sense that it’s heading somewhere big for Jack.

I’m hoping so. I think the thing to keep in mind is that Jack was raised by this staff. He lost his mother in the Peshtigo fire, as we learned in season one. He’s been estranged from his siblings. Coming from Iowa, as I did, it’s been a difficult navigation knowing how to welcome new opportunities in life while also both being grateful and respectful to the place you came from.

You mentioned Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes. I had the honor of having him on my podcast. He made me laugh so hard. He was not what I was expecting from the creator of these shows. A very down-to-earth guy in every sense.

Truly, and such a curious man. Similarly, entering season one with the ideal of Downton Abbey looming so large — the gold standard of prestige television — I was expecting to meet basically a royal Lord. I was shocked by his humility, as well. He’s such a multifaceted artist because he started, as many writers do, because he was an actor not getting as many opportunities as he’d hoped.

There’s that quick wit you mentioned, a sense of humor that is so distinctly British, and I think it just punctuates throughout our entire series. And there’s this deep appreciation for culture and the way these countries developed, especially as an outsider looking at the United States. I think you see that respect in his work.

He’s also been at every end of the success spectrum. He told me a story about when he was struggling in L.A. as an actor, and he had so little money that he and a friend used to go to Hamburger Hamlet and split one hamburger for lunch. It made me laugh — because I’m thinking about these banquet scenes that he writes.

Only a guy who had to split a hamburger to make ends meet in L.A. would then take the opportunity to actually feast when he could, artistically. We share a birthday, we found out.

I follow you on Instagram. You’re almost like a model or something. You know how to dress, you know how to pose, and you’re in all the right fashion places, like Paris men’s week. So how did that start?

Well, to be honest, coming from Iowa, there was little conversation around style. And when I got to New York, especially being thrust into the world of The Gilded Age and the exquisite work done by Kasia Walicka-Maimone, our costume designer and her entire team, I started to learn that fashion was just another means of expression. It was just another art form.

I do have so many different types of characters inside of me, and I think fashion allows you in just one afternoon to try on a completely different persona — to literally try on a different hat and see what that does to you.

I started working with a great stylist named Donté McGuine, who has really pushed me in directions I wasn’t anticipating but have really loved. I was just in Paris last week with Amiri. There’s something so inherently theatrical about it. Growing up in the theater and studying theater in college, it’s just a supplemental artistic path to scratch that itch in between acting gigs.

How tall are you?

This is so helpful to have in print, because no one believes me. I’m 6-foot-2. I don’t know if it’s the boyishness or if it’s a camera angle thing or what. They’ll interact with me on Instagram and assume that I’m 5-foot-9 or something.

Well, that certainly puts you in the ranks of being a runway model. Has anyone asked you to do that?

I haven’t pursued that avenue yet. Honestly, it scares me. When I go to these fashion shows, not only do I look at the great work from the designer, but I’m also so fascinated by the different subtleties and character of the runway models. I would be very self-conscious in that environment. But I’m definitely not ruling that out. I’d have to embrace it as another challenge.

What are you working on between Gilded Age seasons?

I just finished a play last Sunday. I was in Baltimore working on [Mad Men creator] Matthew Weiner’s playwriting debut. He wrote a play called John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only. The Baltimorean audience was so grateful to have such high-quality theater in an out-of-town tryout environment like that.

You played Booth, I assume?

Yeah. What was so tragic, in addition to obviously the catastrophe of the Lincoln assassination, was that the Booth family was the premiere American acting family of the 1800s. John was third-fiddle to his brother and father, a hungry, wounded narcissist who wanted to solidify his legacy because he could never keep up with his older brother.

If it makes it to Broadway, it will be the first time in history where two plays about the assassination of Lincoln were running concurrently.

I know. People are asking me, “Is it Oh, Mary?” I tell them, “Let’s just say it’s like Oh, Mary, but for straight, white dads.”

I guess I have one little gossipy question, which is, does your Gilded Age co-star Louisa Jacobson’s mom Meryl Streep ever show up on set?

No. Meryl has not shown up on set. I think that would be a big day for all of us.

Louisa and I have been friends since we did the Williamstown Theater Festival in 2018. I’ve gotten to know her family a little bit over the years. Meryl is just as effortless and inspiring as anybody could imagine.

At Williamstown, Louisa and I did this little play. We had small parts. Two years later, Gilded Age came across my desk and I read it. I texted her immediately. I hadn’t spoken to her since the play. I just said, “Hey, there’s a part here that I think you’d be perfect for in this new show from Julian Fellowes.” And then she texted me back: “Ben, oh my gosh, I’m in final callbacks for it as we speak.” Before I went in for my initial audition, I found out from the casting team that she had gotten it.

We’ve gotten to grow up alongside each other through this process. I’m over the moon for her.

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New episodes of The Gilded Age release through Aug. 10, streaming on HBO Max. Follow along with THR’s season coverage.