Binge on sex and money in new streaming service’s drama Succession
Australian actress Sarah Snook, star of the highly binge-worthy drama Succession, talks about the lure of ‘wealth porn’ as Foxtel's new streaming service launches.
Money and power and sex. Sex and power and money. See how well they all go together?
Certainly, they are the key ingredients in HBO hit series Succession, starring Adelaide’s own Sarah Snook as the only daughter in the billionaire Roy family, whose empire, Waystar Roy, has interests in media, cruise ships, real estate and fun parks.
Snook’s character, Shiv (it’s short for Siobhan), has money, and she craves power. She also likes sex. Lots of sex, “which makes her so much fun to play”, says Snook, who in 2018 landed the role that has since made her a global star.
In one episode, Shiv tells her on-screen husband, the malleable Tom Wambsgans (played by English actor Matthew Macfadyen) that she wants an open marriage.
Key detail: she does so after the vow, and on their wedding night.
“Yep, all right, damn, that’s a bold thing to do,” laughs Snook, when reminded of this scene. “But that’s what I love about doing the show, how it goes off in unexpected directions.”
In another episode, Shiv suggests they have a threesome with the nail technician. She’s on her father, Logan Roy (Brian Cox)’s mega-yacht at the time, and her dad is on board too.
“I know it’s more traditionally masculine to be so adventurous — to have that healthy libido,” says Snook. She pauses, then adds: “But I think there is also something vulnerable in Shiv. The offer to have an open marriage — I think it wasn’t really about the opportunity to have multiple partners. It’s more about the fear of being so completely vulnerable to just one person.
“Maybe it’s nothing about the sex. It expresses itself as sex, but it’s a problematic and complicated relationship that she is having with herself.”
Snook is talking to The Australian from Melbourne, where she has found herself stuck, in a good way, during the COVID-19 crisis. She had come home to Australia to see friends and family during a break in filming and the flight that was supposed to take her home to New York got delayed, and then delayed again.
“I had a suitcase full of summer clothes. My flight out to New York was through Melbourne and in the two days between arriving here, and being due to leave, everything changed,” she says. “So, I’ve been staying with friends.”
Which is fine, but she’s also itching to get back into the high-waisted pants and the turtlenecks that have become Shiv’s on-screen armour in the battle she’s waging against her pitifully weak brothers, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and, to a lesser extent, Connor (Alan Ruck), as their father’s health fails and the empire comes into play.
As the only girl in the family, Shiv knows she’s going to have to make like Ginger Rogers, doing everything better, faster, backwards and in high heels, because this a truly patriarchal family and a company that bristles with masculine energy.
A close cousin of sex is, of course, appeal. Snook’s character didn’t start out sexy. Indeed, she starts out, in season one, as a bit frumpy, working on the political campaign for left-leaning presidential candidate Gil Eavis, who loathes the right-wing politics of her father’s Fox-style TV interests. By season two, Shiv has found her ambition, and her mojo, and Snook, 32, says she’s excited to now have access to a power wardrobe that rivals that of Claire Underwood in House of Cards.
It helps that the camera adores Snook, who in season two debuted a sleek, shoulder-length bob and a series of tight pants suits with heels and blazers and gorgeous jewels. She’s ready now to go to war also with her father’s mistress, Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter), who also rocks a pants suit, with diamonds.
The cut, and the cloth, reek of money, which makes sense. Succession is “wealth porn”: it’s all about baubles and helicopters and lobster feasts, and men sucking the brains out of tiny birds in fancy restaurants — just because it’s rare and expensive.
There is a scene in which a relative, Greg, is told that if he’s cut off, he might end up with as little as five million dollars from the family coffers. He hasn’t grown up with money and so he thinks that sounds okay, but Connor sets him straight: “Five? You can’t do anything with five, Greg. Five’s a nightmare. Can’t retire, not worth it to work. Five will drive you un poco loco, my fine-feathered friend.”
Snook’s own relationship with money is very different. Five million dollars to her — and to most people — sounds pretty good, and she thinks that’s true of most Australians.
“I certainly never grew up with the wealth that Shiv and the Roy family have, and nobody around me at that time had money either,” she says.
“In some ways, while that kind of wealth might exist in Australia, it’s quite private. In America, I’ve found, people are more willing — and maybe have more avenues — to express their wealth. For Shiv, it’s part of her life. It’s a constant. She is not worried about not having money. But the threat of not achieving the things in business, the loss of wealth in that sense, is what motivates her.”
There is a great deal of speculation as to the real family on which the Roys are based on: is it the Murdochs? The Redstones? The Spellings? Others say it’s got to be the Trumps — Shiv has to be Ivanka, surely?
“Oh no, the Roys are their own family,” Snook says. “They have to be. There are real-world examples of dynasties and powerful families and patriarchies, and people look at those and draw parallels. But in terms of playing Shiv, it’s not useful to stick so finitely to one family, or one person, because that’s limiting.”
Which brings us to power. Shiv wants the top job. Her father, who has a weak heart, plays games but tends to agree that his sons don’t have sufficient mongrel to take over the family business. And Snook enjoys playing a woman with immense ambition.
“I think it has changed in maybe the past 10 years — people have become more comfortable with female ambition,” she says. “I’m certainly passionate about what I do and the career that I’ve chosen. You have to be to weather the rejection in a very volatile industry. But I have dreams that I hope to achieve, of course. But for Shiv, it’s a definite ambition for more power.”
Snook is as intrigued as anyone by Shiv’s choice of husband. Tom is not only an emotional masochist, compared to his wife, he’s a weakling. He works for, and is completely intimidated by, Shiv’s father. He gets his mother to read the pre-nuptial agreement — he’s not from money — and has alterations made in his favour. He physically abuses underlings, stooping so far as to use one as a footstool. There is no courage in his decision to deny the rights of those abused on the family’s cruise ships, when he could take a principled stand.
“She married down,” agrees Snook. “But that’s a protection thing, too, probably. He is never going to leave her. She’s the best he could get, probably. Maybe he could find somebody who is nicer, but (were he to leave) she’ll come up with some excuse about how he couldn’t hack my family. There’s emotional safety in that relationship.”
That said, Tom has also delivered one of the show’s most deliberate lines: “I wonder if the sad I’d be without you,” he says during one conversation with Shiv, “would be less than the sad I get from being with you.”
She looks distraught, as well she might. There has been one hint in the series that Tom picked Shiv up when she was down. She certainty wasn’t always so ruthless as she now appears.
Snook, who grew up the daughter of middle-class parents, graduated from NIDA in 2008 and won roles on All Saints and Packed to the Rafters, before moving to the US. She now lives in Brooklyn, New York, and stars in a series that won Best TV Drama at the Golden Globes. She has been as pleased as anyone by the huge success of Succession, and can’t give any hints as to season three because she doesn’t know what will happen before the rest of us see it.
She didn’t know, for example, that her ailing on-screen father would have an affair, or that his mistress would then challenge Shiv for the job she craved, or the lengths to which her father will go to save his own neck.
She is as frustrated as anyone by the interruption caused by COVID-19. The series, which premiered in June 2018, was renewed for a third season, only to go on ice, and frustratingly little can be said about when it might be back.
HBO put out a statement, saying: “We are looking forward to resuming pre-production when it’s safe and healthy for everyone. Where possible, our writers are continuing to write remotely.”
Because Succession is designed to binge and viewers were left hanging at the end of season two, can Snook can give us a few hints?
“No, because (the drama) unravels as close as it might in real life,” Snook laughs. “We don’t know what will happen at the start of the season and once, when there was an opportunity for me to find out, I declined. So no, I don’t ever know what’s going to happen. But I can’t wait to find out.”
Succession is streaming on Binge, Foxtel’s new entertainment streaming service launching on Monday, May 25, alongside films, lifestyle TV and hundreds of top dramas including Mrs America, The Outsider, Big Little Lies, Westworld, Breeders, Chernobyl, Game of Thrones and The Sopranos. Sign up for a free two-week trial at binge.com.au