Author: Bryn Elise Sandberg / Source: The Hollywood Reporter
HBO’s Succession premiered to little fanfare in June — but the series about a dysfunctional media family has undoubtedly picked up steam throughout its 10-episode run, which culminates with Sunday night’s dramatic finale.
While introducing the network’s programming president Casey Bloys at the Television Critics’ Association press tour at the end of July, HBO exec Quentin Schaffer noted that while Amy Adams drama Sharp Objects has received rave reviews, critics are increasingly proclaiming Succession the “show of the summer.”
The critical favor comes as a surprise to series creator Jesse Armstrong — a British comedy writer best known for working on Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show and with Armando Iannucci on political satire In the Thick Of It — who says that he’s stayed away from reading what’s been written about the show because he’s still too close from it. Luckily, writers he’s working with have filled him in a bit.
“I wouldn’t have necessarily known that was how it would go,” says Armstrong, who is currently writing the show’s second season. (Succession was renewed for season two shortly after its premiere.) “It’s a show that has an unusual tone and I’m very happy about that, but maybe that presents a certain amount of, like, ‘Hold on. Should I be laughing?’ Some people have asked me that sometimes and I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, definitely!'”
The show, which counts Adam McKay as an executive producer and director, was birthed out of Armstrong’s interest in media conglomerates and the families that run them (think: Murdochs, Redstones.
) Ahead of the first season’s finale on Sunday, Armstrong talked with The Hollywood Reporter about the show’s delicate balance of comedy and drama, the media moguls who inspired the Roy family in the series and what’s in store for the second season.
I’m hoping you can settle an inner office debate of ours. Is Succession a comedy or a drama?
No, I’m not going to solve that [Laughs.] No way. I’m glad it’s a matter for debate. If the show had a voice, it would refuse to say. We’re not unaware of it. In the writer’s room, we spend a good deal of time talking about what’s funny. The shows that I love — like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad — could also be described as comedies in a way. And not every plot line that comes out of a comedic place necessarily expresses itself in scenes that are going to make you laugh loads. But there’s usually an energy — a twist — to the approach which you might call comic.
When it comes to awards consideration, though, you do have to pick a lane.
I will leave that probably to my friends at HBO, or you can declare it what you think it should be. Maybe that will be an issue but I don’t mind. Certainly from one point of view, I think of it as a drama in the scope of what we’re trying to write. We know it needs weight. And certainly in the finale, there are events in there that are not put in a comedy.
How did you know that you wanted to end the season the way you did in the finale episode?
I think we had that particular dramatic set of events up on the board early on. I think I pitched it to the room as like, well, do you think we can accommodate an event like this in this show, given the somewhat comic tone and the kind of cool attitude we take to our characters? Will people care about this stuff happening? And it just always felt right in a kind of musical, symphonic, this-is-where-we’re-heading kind of way. I don’t know how audiences will respond to it, but when I watched it in the edit, it felt right to me in a way. It’s difficult to describe in words, but it feels like a natural place for things to be going.
When did you really start working on the show in earnest?
I’m really bad at dates. I remember that we did the read-through — it was memorable — of the pilot that Adam McKay directed in New York City on Election Day 2016. So that was memorable. [Laughs.] But I had a relationship with Frank Rich, who I develop things with, and HBO. They were my dream home for it — and they picked it up.
You used to be involved in Veep, yes?
I worked on it a tiny bit. I was very busy but I was heavily involved with The Thick Of It [with Armando Iannucci] in the U.K. So I came over and did one episode in the first season because I’m such a big fan of Julia [Louis-Dreyfus] and they were kind enough to say, “You can come over and do one.” I haven’t done anything since then.
Have you done much U.S. TV beside that?
No, not a lot of US. So it was a big deal, doing the show.
How is the appetite different here in the U.S. for content compared to what you’re used to in the U.K.?
Well, HBO is probably different from most other places, I sense. They — and this is not sort of normal showbiz baloney — they’ve just been really, really, brilliantly supportive. They’re not scared to give you a big note, but it’s not like 12 pages of, “Maybe this, maybe that.” It’s like, “This is great. Keep on going with these thoughts,” or, very occasionally, “We think there’s a problem here. What do you think? Let’s have a phone call.” So they were really fantastic, from a creative point of view.
What made you want to make a show like this?
It came out of a bunch of things, creatively, thinking about power and why the world is the way it is politically and culturally. I knew a good deal about Rupert Murdoch, who I wrote a…
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