Australian Succession star Sarah Snook opens up on show’s end
Australian star Sarah Snook has opened up about life after Succession and why she sees herself as an “Antipodean dark horse”.
Australian actress Sarah Snook has revealed that the end of hit TV show Succession was “devastating” for her.
Snook, whose performance as media heiress Shiv Roy on the hit show garnered acclaim, told Variety in a new cover story that she had hoped the drama would continue on into a fifth season, even while the cast were filming.
“I knew it probably could end, but thought it could go one way or the other — and also, it’s nice to hope,” she told the outlet.
But a read of the script for the show’s finale, and Snook knew it was over.
“I arrived and was like, ‘That’s it. It’s done,’” she said.
“And I walked in, and Matthew [Macfadyen who played Snook’s on screen husband, Tom] was like, ‘No, I don’t think so. I think that’s quite hopeful! The last handhold, maybe there’s potential for what’s going to happen with Tom as CEO.’”
But when Succession’s creator Jesse Armstrong told the cast officially the show was done, it was “devastating”, Snook said.
“I’ll never have an opportunity to speak those lines, or get given new lines, new jokes, new worlds for Shiv and Roman to exist in together,” Snook told the outlet.
“Just sadness for never getting a moment to play with these brilliant actors again.”
The 35-year-old Australian said she watched the show’s finale from the Melbourne home she shares with husband, Dave Lawson, the couple’s baby daughter and Snook’s mother, stepfather and sister.
“I cried,” she told Variety, “because I was sad for Shiv. She just tried so fucking hard, and ended up where she is — in this kind of gilded cage, next to the thing that she wants. And the journey’s not over for her. It’s not over for any of them, but still, she’s in the orbit of the CEO, and that will be really painful for her.”
Snook also revealed that initially she wasn’t even going to audition for Succession.
“I didn’t want to be just the handbag of the show who was the only female in a setting of white men in business,” she said.
“I truly thought for a long time that they were just using me as a bargaining chip to get someone who was more talented, or more expensive.”
Recently, the series landed 26 Emmy nominations (including Snook’s third nomination for the show).
And while Snook’s career is on fire – she’s currently appearing in Apple TV’s The Beanie Bubble – she says it wasn’t always so.
She recalled the “disappointment” of not snaring the lead role of Lisbeth Salander in the 2010 screen adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a role that eventually went to Oscar-nominated actress, Rooney Mara.
Snook recalled even flying to Los Angeles – after having to swap her shifts in a Sydney cafe – to audition alongside Daniel Craig.
“I was like, ‘What the fuck am I doing here? I’ve done nothing — I’m working at a cafe!’”
“Alison Pill was shooting a film with Woody Allen at the time. And then Léa Seydoux was there as well — she’s like, ‘Oh, I’m doing that too!’ Rooney Mara had just done ‘Social Network’ with David Fincher. Andrea Riseborough, I think, was there?
“I was this Antipodean dark horse – I have no right to be here!”
Ultimately, the role came down to Snook and Mara.
Snook says not playing Salander was “only disappointing in the way of I didn’t win — but it wasn’t a disappointment in terms of my life.”
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Originally published as Australian Succession star Sarah Snook opens up on show’s end
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