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For a series steeped in excess,Successionendedwith modesty.
No dream sequences, no art-cinema editing, no jumps forward or backward in time.
Just people taking out their issues on other people, who all in turn have their own issues.
He doesnt know what to make of it all, andneither do we.
Its just the final chapter in these characters stories.
But everything was almost by necessity and definition a slow boil toward that final boardroom scene.
I dont know about any of the other possible endings Jesse Armstrong might have entertained.
I specifically didnt ask.
And theres a danger for me as well.
Lets start with Barbados.
Its a really important scene, because it is the tragedy of hope.
We tried to take the audience to a place where they believed these three could have a happy ending.
Its really the happiest and the closest weve ever seen the Roy siblings.
That we could have that kind of moment together was an indulgence, and I love the indulgence.
We ran the whole scene from start to finish including Jeremy drinking it.
At a certain point, I gave him the out.
I said Listen, Ive got you drinking this stuff.
By the time I called cut, he would lean over and retch into the kitchen sink.
It was so disgusting!
The sink in the kitchen was absolutely unbelievable.
Id walk into the kitchen and want to throw up just because of the smell.
What could they have put in that smoothie that Jeremy Strong would not have drunk?
Jeremy will always go there.
Two acts of violence define the second half of the finale.
The other is Kendall trying to gouge his brothers eyes out after Roman makes the remark about his children.
Were both of those attacks written into the script?
By that point in their relationship, the power dynamics have evolved somewhat at least in Gregs head.
He thinks he has a winning hand, that hes cornered up by playing the card of calling Kendall.
He feels hes had his golden ticket snatched away from him.
These guys fight like adult men who dont actually know how to fight.
But you’ve got the option to sense real and dangerous anger, particularly from Nicholas Braun.
But its still there, and you could feel that in the aftermath as the adrenaline starts to subside.
In the staging of that altercation in the office, you keep cutting to the boardroom.
How many cameras were covering all of that?
Was it all done simultaneously like a three-dimensional play?Yeah.
What was the process?With that sort of scene, I will generally almost always start close.
How many takes total were done of the brothers fighting?Quite a few but fewer than youd think.
They went into that really hard and fast.
Our camera team is very efficient.
We started to play quickly after that once I knew we had the rawness and the brutality of it.
Do you think Kendall got up off that bench?Its a great question.
None of us could answer it.
But there is a version where he goes and throws himself in New York harbor.
I dont feel good for any of them.
Its a truly tragic ending.
Youve got so many layers of connection and disconnection.
I have to be very careful in those circumstances so that I dont start getting whimsical.
We shot both on the same day, because both were on the soundstage.
And because both scenes were shot there, it was a necessity to schedule them on the same day.
Was everything that happened around that table scripted?
The master take was very, very long, because they were having such fun.
I was so emotionally affected.
I was crying like a child.
I found it very poignant.
Did Mencken win the election?
When you leaveepisode eightandinto nine, it seems very much like hes on his way.
That was Jesses decision to put the line in there.
I wont speak for him and his reasoning.
For me, it was because we couldnt bear the idea of that character walking into power.
So this idea that we could resolve itover two, three days after the electionfelt inaccurate.
This became a Zeitgeist show.
Why isnt it doing more of this?
Why isnt it reflecting this thing that happened?
Im not part of that Zeitgeist conversation.
I dont find it helpful to get sucked into Twitter or whatever people are saying.
The tragedy, and by an odd extension, the alchemy of comedy, comes from stasis.
And yet I suspect that somehow, through the brilliant writing and brilliant acting, we have achieved that.
Isnt it hope that the characters will learn in the same way one watches a soccer game?
Another is season two, Tern Haven.
That episode was just such a joy to shoot particularly the big dinner-table scene.
That was me channeling Robert Altman, whom I just love.
It was where I met Will Tracy, and we went on to makeThe Menutogether.
The end of the season in Croatia was so special and the craziness of shooting on that massive yacht.
Season three, Italy: Thelast two episodeswere such an adventure.
There was an intensity to getting those last two scenes, and Im really proud of them.
Season four, Ill remember the almost panic and anxiety of having to finish something.
Im still in that emotional hangover now.
I dont see any hope for them ever escaping.
Thank God its funny as all hell, because otherwise it would be too bleak.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
