Succession star feels series may not be over, even as finale is set to air
Kieran Culkin doesn’t like spoilers.
The Succession star, who plays the F-bomb-dropping baby bro and potential Waystar Royco successor Roman Roy, said last year that although he liked to know the full scope of a character’s story, with Roman, “I found myself saying to [Succession creator Jesse Armstrong], ‘No spoilers, please. I only want to know as much as Roman knows, and I don’t want to know where it’s going.’”
But when Culkin spoke with Vanity Fair for a recent interview, he said, “This was the only season where I indulged Jesse in letting him tell me what was going to happen with Roman,” and that he “felt confident that if Jesse says this is the end, then it’s the end”.
But then he said something that made it sound like he actually wasn’t so confident that there won’t be more Succession.
“Jesse described to me the whole season before we shot. I asked him one question and when he answered it, I said, ‘Well that sort of sounds like the end of the show,’” Culkin said.
“He goes, ‘Yeah, it does.’ But then he just threw up three different ideas for a Season 5 that he claimed were off the top of his head. I was like, ‘I’m just speaking my mind here. But those all sound, like, really awesome.’”
When asked to divulge the Season 5 ideas, Culkin said, “Nope, not without spoiling the end.” But he did say, “It feels like an ending, but it also feels like there could be more.”
He understands his showrunner’s struggle. “He struggled with it all season while we were shooting. He was like, ‘Really? This is the end. But I’m not sure.’ He didn’t tell us [it was the last episode] until we did the table read for the last episode.”
So is there a chance?
Sarah Snook, who plays the cunning Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, said in March – after news dropped that the fourth season of the HBO juggernaut would be its last – that she was in the dark about the fate of the show until the final table read in January.
“I was very upset,” Snook said. “I felt a huge sense of loss, disappointment and sadness. It would have been nice to know at the beginning of the season, but I also understand not being told until the end because there was still a potential that maybe this wasn’t going to be the end.
“Emotionally, all of us weren’t necessarily ready to be done with the show because we love each other so much,” she added. “But everything has to come to an end, and it’s smart not to let something become a parody of itself.”
In February, Armstrong told The New Yorker about his “difficult” decision to end the series, saying he was deeply conflicted.
“The collaborations – with the cast, with my fellow writers, with [composer] Nick Britell and [executive producer] Mark Mylod and the other directors – they’ve just been so good. And I feel like I’ve done the best work I can do, working with them.
“And HBO has been generous and would probably have done more seasons, and they have been nice about saying, ‘It’s your decision.’ That’s nice, but it’s also a responsibility in the end – it feels quite perverse to stop doing it.
“So I do feel conflicted about that. And I feel sad, and I have the circus-has-left-town feeling that everyone gets who works on a production that’s good, and this one particularly so.
The Succession Season 4 finale is available on HBO Go, Now TV, today