We’re seeing a new Sue this season, at least on the surface. What is your take on her evolution from season one to season two? 

It’s about a year and a

half [between seasons], and in that time she has gone from being a destitute orphan to being a well-moneyed, married Amherst woman. And so all of a sudden she doesn’t have to be pragmatic in the ways she was before, and in that time, she has gone through some more trauma. She completely reinvents herself as this glamorous hostess. The fun of this show is that it is historically accurate to Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson. She did become this extraordinary hostess, but we get to imagine how that might have come about and look at social media and fame through the lens of the 1850s. For Sue, notoriety and these parties and this new person she’s created are an escape from her inner emotional reality. I think it’s very relatable to today. There are a lot of people out there who find an escape from all kinds of horrible and challenging environments by creating these social media platforms and these other selves that exist only in social media in the same way that Sue is aiming to exist only in the social sphere of Amherst. 

Sue has a brand-new home this season, The Evergreens, and a gorgeous new wardrobe to match. What were your initial reactions to seeing this new side for Sue?

The team did such an incredible job on that. It’s also incredibly accurate to what the house was actually like. As a cast, we visited The Homestead and The Evergreens, which really are just a stone's throw away from [each other]. In fact, this is making me think I need to do an Instagram post at some point of my facial expressions in my first fittings for the show. I’m just permanently like this [drops her jaw].

What is so fun about playing this part and working on this show is that not only do we get to wear these incredible dresses, incredible and uncomfortable dresses, [but we also] get to watch the costume team make them. This year, our costume house was in our set building, so I was able to go downstairs and see our tailor cutting the newest waistcoat for Sue. Every time I came in for a fitting, I’d get to watch them elaborate on the initial idea and sometimes collaborate. Jen Moeller, our costume designer, was just so wonderful to watch. Such an empowered woman asking me, “What do you think this should be? What fabrics speak to your soul? What do you think she should be wearing in this moment?” And then watching her take the little morsels of ideas where I go, “Maybe that.” She then takes and builds this world of a dress that I then get to wear. 

Sue has so many amazing fashion moments this season. Is there one that particularly stands out to you?

So there was one dress that didn’t end up in the season. It’s a dress that goes on in an Emily fantasy, so maybe it will come back next season. We nicknamed it the watermelon dress. It looks like if you threw a watermelon on the ground and it just splattered open—all of the colors of the watermelon were in this dress. It was incredible. Of what we see this season, I have a gold corset that I wear at one point that is so beautiful, and the outfit I wear for our intellectual party that happens in episode five with the little glasses and the waistcoat. I felt pretty awesome in that.