Director Mark Mylod breaks down the exhausting 28-minute take that changed the course ofSuccession.
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They did not anticipate a wedding episode that would become a death episode,finally forcing successiononSuccession.
So the character stayed alive.
Its a phone call, a text message.
That seeking of relief, of clarity, and it never happens.
Because we shoot on film, we need to reload every ten minutes because the camera roll runs out.
And then we went for it for a 28- or 29-minute take.
Weve gotten pretty good at shooting this way.
This was taking it to a new level, doing it over a nearly half-hour period.
Everybody rose to the occasion, and it felt like the right thing to do.
The results we got in terms of the intensity and flow of performance back that up.
Afterward, we all felt both exhausted and like wed gotten something really great in the can.
Much of the episode is shot on the boat where Connors wedding is supposed to take place.
You have all of these people playing extras.
They all have phones.
The extras knew?Yeah.
Can you walk me through the visual calculus of what information to give the audience about Logans medical episode?
We saw a little glimpse of it earlier, but theres only one shot where you see his face.
That was based on instinct on my part.
The idea of putting the camera on a prostrate Logan felt disrespectful to me, instinctively.
Humbling, we are all mortal, et cetera.
I talked to Jesse about this, and he had the same instinct.
Generally if we both agree on something, thats a good way forward.
We needed to see the phone held up against his ear, and his face, at that time.
But that was the only time where I thought I could ethically or dramatically justify it.
Its this odd Stockholm syndrome.
Jesse, once we were sure thats what we had to do, took Brian out for lunch.
Obviously someone of Brians experience took it very well.
But he was sad.
And it took him a long while to come to grips with it.
This was a long period of our lives in terms of duration and intensity.
So much goes unsaid.
I sat around and talked with the cast.
I talked about losing my mum.
But ultimately I rely so much on the actors first instincts and then we calibrate from there.
I dont like to talk too much before we go.
This sounds almost anti-directing sometimes!
That zone is good, that zone is good, that zone is bad.
At some point, Could you go downstairs and find Sarah?
She should be somewhere in the main room.
Sarah, look out for this emotion, this piece.
Ill give them things to sniff for.
But Ill be oddly vague in the first take, and weve come to trust that.
not anticipating them remotely.
In this case, trying to control the death of their father, which they cannot.
And trying to control the flow of information, which again, they cannot.
You mentioned the death of your mother in passing earlier.
The other is the way in which grief or shock sometimes manifests itself as oddly comic.
Most of us have gone through some kind of grief over a family member.
Its rarely like it is in the movies.
Theres a saying that you cant unring a bell.
But of course, TV shows find ways to do it all the time sometimes convincingly, sometimes ludicrously.
But here, you have quite a lot of bells that simply cannot be unrung.
The patriarch is dead.
Could you go for another season?I suppose we could.
That was what was really behind the choice of Logan dying at this point in the season.
Could we go for a season five?Of coursewe could.
Weve got brilliant actors and brilliant writers.
But it doesnt seem like the right thing to do, does it?
Were just finishing post-production on the last couple of episodes now.
I dont think we could have tried any harder to give the series the right wrap-up.
But I sleep very well thinking that weve ended it now.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
