The internet loves to be thirsty. We know this and honestly, we at Alma are into it. (We promise to bring you #HornyShabbatInstagram always and forever.)
And in the wake of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” dropping, it seems that the internet is now thirsting after Jewish actor Morgan Spector.
See for yourself:
My loins are not going to survive this first season of The Gilded Age with Morgan Spector and that beard. pic.twitter.com/44em4bioM6
— Joey Joey Joey (@JoeyMoser83) January 26, 2022
Morgan Spector could run a train right through my-(telegram signal drops)
— Half-Shirt Radical (@EricShethar) January 27, 2022
The Gilded Age also features a ferocious Carrie Coon married to robber baron wife guy Morgan Spector, and please know it is my professional opinion when I say this couple is Hot pic.twitter.com/Q6fW9h3CHV
— Caroline Darya Framke (@carolineframke) January 20, 2022
Morgan Spector looks so much like Jon Ossof I feel like I should pay my bonk tax
— M A D E L I N E (@madelineceee) January 25, 2022
We’re not even sure what that last one means!!! But it does make us feel like this Jewish actor is more than just a pretty face.
Here are 18 things to know about Morgan Spector.
1. Morgan was born in Santa Rosa, CA to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother.
2. His paternal grandmother was an actress at the Yiddish Theatre in New York.
“I would love to go back and see her do Shakespeare in Yiddish,” Morgan once told an interviewer.
OK, insert pleading eyes emoji here.
3. On a more serious note, Morgan’s Jewish family experienced antisemitism first-hand, both fleeing pogroms and losing loved ones in the Holocaust.
4. Morgan was raised secularly, but still feels a connection to his Jewishness.
“We didn’t go to temple. I was not bar mitzvahed,” Morgan explained. “But I read Chaim Potok and Primo Levi. I came to it through culture, through literature.”
5. He started acting as a child and tried to quit acting multiple times.
It wasn’t until a high school teacher convinced him to play Danny Zuko in “Grease,” and then a college professor asked him to play the stoker in Kafka’s “Amerika,” that he decided to stick with it.
“There weren’t a lot of muscular people,” he told the New York Times. “So I was pressed into service as the guy with his shirt off.”
To the teachers who brought Morgan Spector into acting so that he would bless us by being shirtless: Thank you for your service.
6. Morgan studied at Reed College and after graduation enrolled in the acting school of the American Conservatory Theater.
7. He once experienced a very interesting onstage mishap.
“Once I was supposed to play the clarinet onstage and for some reason when I went to play it, no sound came out,” he said in an interview. “I had a two minute solo, probably so I could cover costume changes or something. So I stood there and made ‘I’m playing a clarinet’ gestures for about 80 years.”
Brilliant. Perfect. No notes. (Literally.)
8. He made his Broadway debut in 2010 in the revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” as Rodolpho.
He had initially been cast in an ensemble role, but stepped into the larger role when the original Rodolpho was injured during previews.
You can see his wonderful performance (and slightly ridiculous blond wig) below:
9. According to Morgan, one of his special skills is “having deeply held convictions about any damn thing whatsoever.”
That is… extremely Jewish.
10. Since his debut, Morgan has returned to the Broadway stage twice: first as Dr. Lyman Sanderson in the 2012 revival of “Harvey,” and then as a lover in the 2014 revival of “Machinal.”
11. Morgan started accruing TV credits in the 2010s on shows like “Boardwalk Empire,” “Orange Is the New Black” and “Homeland.”
Check out this very dramatic scene from “Homeland” in which Morgan’s character, Dante Allen, is poisoned:
12. Morgan is married to English actress and director Rebecca Hall,and they had a child together in 2018.
Here they are (sans baby) being a devastatingly attractive couple:
13. When asked what he would want his career to be if he weren’t a performer, Morgan replied with a very interesting choice:
“Treasure hunter. Not an archaeologist, per se. Just a dude with a metal detector searching for buried relics.”
Honestly, we’re very into that idea.
14. In 2020, Morgan starred as Herman Levin, a fervent critic of Jewish assimilation, in the mini-series adaption of Phillip Roth’s novel “The Plot Against America.”
Check out this bonus clip from the first episode:
15. In HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” Morgan plays railroad magnate George Russell.
Check out the trailer here:
16. You can also hear his take on playing the role of a robber baron here:
17. After working on both “The Plot Against America” and “The Gilded Age,” Morgan says he has “resting period face.”
“At this point, I’ve come to accept that I have ‘resting period face,'” he said in an interview with W Magazine — adding, “I thought that ‘period face’ was more of an Ellis Island face, only in melting pot New York or something. So it was exciting to get a chance to do something that’s more 19th century, that sort of buttoned-up era.”
18. In 2022 Morgan starred in a horror film called “Nanny,” which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to great reviews!
