Succession, the inside story: could a few scruffy Brits write a glossy, high-end New York drama? Yes and no
The pilot for Succession was filmed in New York in November 2016, just as Donald Trump was elected president. I was across the country in Los Angeles, filming an episode of Veep called Georgia, about the first “free” democratic elections in the former Soviet republic where the opposition wins more votes than there are people. As we filmed our fictional characters listening to the results in disbelief, I stood in my “I’m with her” T-shirt, listening to the real results in disbelief.
A couple of months later, I was prised out of my bottomless pit of despair (and my house) when Jesse Armstrong, who I’d worked with on various comedy shows in the past, asked me to be on the writing team for his new series, which HBO had commissioned.
Armstrong’s original writing team for Succession consisted for the most part of British comedy writers. There was doubt felt in some quarters as to whether this group of scruffy Brits could pull off a glossy, high-end New York drama. And in many ways we couldn’t. After we handed in the scripts for the first few episodes of season one, HBO hastily employed a superrich consultant, whose job was to explain what it was like to be a billionaire to a group of people who were thrilled that someone was paying for their Pret sandwich.
Rich people don’t wear coats, we were told. Their shoes only ever touch carpet, as they move seamlessly from their cars to their jets to their buildings. Also, crucially, they don’t duck (when getting out of helicopters).
In the first season, I wrote an episode set around Thanksgiving. The rich consultant really went to town on me. I had written a line for Logan’s wife, Marcia, announcing that lunch was ready. But rich people don’t make
food-related announcements, apparently. They don’t even know where their kitchens are and they definitely don’t say “Who’s for more sprouts?”, while spooning them on to people’s plates.
I wrote another draft accordingly. This just enraged the rich consultant further. “Where on earth did you get the idea that there would be maids in maid uniforms?”
I racked my brains. From Tom and Jerry episodes (or pornography) did not seem like a good answer.
Apparently, rich people have handsome young men in chinos and polo shirts serving them. There’s an agency and everything. And don’t even get me started on what he thought about my mention of a napkin ring. Let’s just say, Logan Roy would have blushed at the language he used.
Writers’ rooms are a strange mixture of group therapy, snacking and confession. You share ideas but also secrets and fears and humiliations in the hope that it might unlock some character or a moment in the show. We would start the day by recounting what we had done and what we had eaten the night before. These accounts ranged from long, exotic anecdotes about going to a star-studded party because the writer in question was godfather to Yoko Ono’s dog (one of the Americans) to the rather more brief “Nothing. Potato” (from one of the British writers).
We wrote the first season in the belief that nobody would watch the show. And nobody did, really. Or the second season. It took a global pandemic, and the world’s population sitting at home wondering what they could do, for people to really start paying attention.
By the time it came to write the final season, we knew people were watching. When we planned the episodes, we didn’t dare write “Logan dies” on the wall in case somebody saw it and leaked it to the press. Instead, we used a codeword: Larry David. Episode three looked like a fun episode – Connor’s wedding, Larry David.
Once the scripts are written, it would take nine months to film a season of Succession. That’s nine months of early starts and freezing days and night shoots. Hours and hours of waiting. Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook alone could almost field a Succession Babies football team with the children they have had since the pilot.
The great thing about Armstrong’s creation is that every character deserves a spin-off. They each warrant more exploration and could hold our attention. Who wouldn’t want to watch a season of Colin? Or Stewy? Or Gerri and Roman? But I suspect that will not happen.
The final season was a sad and sobering one to write. I think Armstrong and the writers felt compelled to deliver on “the promise of the premise”. The idea of someone taking over is implicit in the title. It would be wrong not to explore that. By a quirk of fate, when Larry David Larry David-ed – and his children started fighting for the crown on our screens – it was just as, back here in Britain, we were watching King Charles juggling the esoteric medieval paraphernalia of his coronation as he took over the family firm.
Logan Roy was never comfortable with the idea of anybody succeeding him, even a natural heir. Directors of some companies use a “poison pill” as a defence strategy to stop people from acquiring or taking control of their company. In Logan’s case, this was not necessary as he had effectively planted a “poison pill” in the DNA of his children. If only they could stick together, if only they could trust one another, they could win. But their father’s legacy means that they cannot stick together and they cannot trust each other.
In the final weeks of filming, there was a palpable sense of loss, almost grief, on set. The cast and crew all felt that they had been part of something special and were sad to see it end. And anxious about the future.
And we had come full circle. A deeply troubling presidential election – in the background while we filmed the pilot – came centre-stage in the final few episodes of the show. Logan’s legacy, the dangerous delusions of rightwing media, was shown to be toxic and far-reaching. Of far more importance than a fistfight between two spoiled boys. And now, another troubling election in 2024 looms.
Georgia Pritchett is a writer and coexecutive producer on Succession. She has also written for shows such as Veep, The Thick Of It, Miranda, The Shrink Next Door and Smack the Pony