Everything has been leading up to this – the bloodbath between HBO’s most dysfunctional, despicable family as they fight to the bitter end for the CEO position. After 4 seasons worth of scheming, backstabbing, and WTF moments, the “Succession” finale is almost here. Given everything we’ve witness so far, it seems unlikely that the penultimate episode will be tied up in a neat bow.
All good things come to an end – that statement rings true and yet, when reality hits, our world comes crashing down. At least that was how it felt when Sarah Snook learned that her journey with Siobhan Roy aka Shiv was coming to an end. In this interview, the 35-year-old Aussie actress talks about that emotional moment, and what she’ll remember most about her experience on “Succession”.
Q: Why is this season perfect to conclude “Succession”?
Sarah Snook: (Creator) Jesse Armstrong is a pretty smart guy. When he sees that something is really good and hasn’t yet faltered or slipped or failed in a dramatic way, it’s pretty bold to take it out when it’s at the top. He’s never been pressured to make commercial decisions. That’s a pretty rare experience. And I think, yeah, he’s making the right decision.
Q: Kieran Culkin says you took it pretty hard when you found out that the show was coming to an end.
Sarah Snook: Yeah, I was! I was really upset. I’d only just finished reading the episode in the car on the way to the read-through. And it was strange, because I felt like, oh, well, it’s definitely done, seeing how it ends here [on the page]. But then, when I got there, Matthew was like: “So! Sounds positive! Doesn’t seem like it’s gonna end!”
Then when we got in, Jesse told us it was ending. That’s hard to hear definitively. But also it was good, because I did all my grieving, and catharsis, and crying, then. And then was able to enjoy the shooting of episode 10 more.
Q: How satisfied are you with the conclusion of Shiv’s story over these 10 episodes?
Sarah Snook: Oh, it’s hard for me to say. But as an actor, totally satisfied. Absolutely. There’s been so much complexity and interesting angles to play, and scenes and emotions. And there’s a sense, really, that the characters will go on beyond the final curtain. I really appreciate that from Jesse.
Q: In your recent interview in the LA Times, Jesse talked about how the last series ended with Tom’s betrayal of Shiv by siding with Logan. And as Jesse said, “you feel an earthquake of a power shift”. How was it for you to play that – and play that wordlessly?
Sarah Snook: Oh, great! You follow your instincts a lot with the writing being so good. It’s like a net. So you definitely feel supported by it. If you just let yourself go into it, then amazing things can happen. Magic can come out of that. Yeah, the end of season three was a pretty earth-shattering moment for Shiv!
Q: Speaking of heavy emotion: the opening episode of season four features a devastating scene between Tom and Shiv in their apartment. It’s possibly one of the most gut-punching two-handlers over Succession’s entire run. What are your memories of filming that scene?
Sarah Snook: That was one of our first scenes back to shoot. Shiv has such a mask up, and defences and walls. She’s so interested in being invulnerable. Even with all the statements that she puts out – “we should break up”, “we should not be together” – even though she’s saying them blandly, she’s wanting Tom to disagree with her in a way.
The fact that he doesn’t each time is a little knife. It’s another shatter. There’s just such a miscommunication between them going on. There’s a desperate need for each other, but an inability to express that need.
Q: You have another great moment in the first episode. Shiv says that Logan’s a sociopath but he wouldn’t make a good torturer – “not because he hasn’t got the stomach but because he hasn’t gotten the patience”. As the only daughter, how different from her brothers’ is Shiv’s enmity towards Logan at the start of this fourth series?
Sarah Snook: Good question. I don’t think she’s particularly more or less empathetic towards her father in this moment. I think she feels just as betrayed by him as she does by her mum, and also by Tom. She feels a little bit naked in terms of her family relationships. There’s not too many people she can turn to in a family. And she’s stuck with her brothers for the first time, in a way. And that’s unfamiliar territory.
Q: I actually said “enmity” rather than “empathy”, although you did kind of answer that! But does she feel a deeper hatred because she’s the only daughter, and she’s been marginalised and sidelined and brutalised by the patriarchy more than her brothers?
Sarah Snook: I think for sure, definitely. She’s very similar to Logan in a lot of ways. One of those ways is that Logan’s come from a background of feeling like he was the underdog. He had to fight for what he got, he had to work his way up, and scrap and get to the top in the way that he did. Because he had something to fight against.
Shiv, in a similar way, has that to fight against in her family dynamic. She’s got her father, and her brothers. And being the only woman in a male dominated industry [means] circumstances are against her. And she has ambitions above that, so she has to fight against all those.
Q: Forty episodes, 40 hours: what’s been your favourite scene to film?
Sarah Snook: Oh, there’s a lot! Anything with Matthew or Kieran have been highlights. They’re always the most fun. Always likely to laugh with Matthew, and with Kieren. And any scene where we have the four siblings together.
There’s actually a scene that never made the edit, that was the last episode of season two, when we were in Croatia, on the boat, and we were playing cards. Weirdly, they’ve used the thumbnail for the promotion of the episode, but the scene never made the episode! I think that was my favourite to shoot because you suddenly understood why these siblings love each other, and why they can’t get away from each other, and why they are addicted and seduced by each other’s friendship – but then turned away by each other’s ambition.
So, playing cards with them was just so memorable. On this superyacht, with Dubrovnik in the background – just amazing.
Q: What can viewers expect from this final series?
Sarah Snook: Um… It comes out like a bull out the gate. It’s pretty relentless. There’s high drama. High stakes. It’s a very conflict-heavy season, and [full of] their attempts to resolve those conflicts. I think audiences will be pretty satisfied.
Q: How did you feel filming your final scene?
We shot out of order. So the final scene that we shot on the last day of shooting was one that was quite playful and fun. It was in a kitchen. It may not make the cut, but it was something that was really– It was the right thing to end on. Because there was a silliness to it, I guess.
So, at the end, it didn’t feel like the stakes were as high as they would be with a scene that might have ended with us needing to cry or anything like that. Because once the camera wrapped, once they called cut, everyone was crying anyway! You can’t escape the reality once it’s right there in front of you. It was very sad.
Q: If you think back to that first table read for the first episode of the first season on the day of the 2016 US presidential election, seven and a half years ago: how has being on this show changed your life?
Enormously. Who I am now compared to who I was when I was 27, there’s been enormous changes in my own personal life as much as there have been on the show. And the show has been there the whole time.
I’ve grown as an actor. I’ve grown as a person. I certainly have a different – well, hopefully! – career trajectory. I’ve had a different experience in what I’ve been challenged by in this job. And I’ve done so much travel with the job! I’ve met so many amazing actors and amazing collaborators and creatives! It really has changed my life.
Catch the final season of “Succession” only on HBO (Astro Ch 411) and HBO GO.
