The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 8 Precap. Plus! Alexander Skarsgard Drops By to Talk Matsson and Much More!

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Chris and Wos immediately dive into the brutal balcony fight between Tom and Shiv and detail what it revealed about their relationship throughout the series. They then examine Kendall’s current state of affairs and speculate on what’s coming up in Episode 8 (9:31) before breaking down the entertaining Matsson-Kendall party showdown and drawing comparisons between ‘Succession’ and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (17:55). Later, Joanna Robinson is joined by ‘Succession’ star Alexander Skarsgard to talk about playing a tech billionaire, how the HBO series tackles American politics, why he wanted to return for Season 4, and more (30:53). Hosts: Chris Ryan, Wosny Lambre, and Joanna Robinson Guest: Alexander Skarsgard Associate Producers: Chris Sutton and Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to the Ringer's Prestige TV podcast. It's the Succession Precap. It's Chris Ryan and Big Was. What's up, man? You got your Kyrie's on? I'm good. I'm chilling. I'm ready to pillage their village.

Let's go. The reverse Viking. It's what the Sixers are doing right now. I'm sure. I shouldn't say that because this is coming out on Friday. and we might find out that I was wrong about that. It was a cool episode, got a little politics, which I always like to talk to you about with this show.

And we also got a very searing marriage story type scene between Tom and Shiv. Dealer's choice, you want to start with the political aspect of this episode or the marriage aspect of the episode? Yeah, let's build up to that damn. I don't know what you call that. That was just a gutting freaking scene. And anybody who's ever had a pretty bad breakup or, you know, any kind of parting of ways romantically where people, as they say, lay their cards on the table.

Oh, my God. That was triggering. Yeah. You know, it started from the beginning with that for me because I was trying to remember, there was something about the gift that Tom gives Shiv, the scorpion, that really hit home, but not because it's like, It's like the gesture that just starts the avalanche. And it's just like that one thing you do where it's like,

you think you're being funny or you're kind of like taking a little bit of a subliminal at your partner with something. But you have no idea it's going to go out of control like that. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think he was genuinely trying to do something nice. But his subconscious started leaking out. And I think that's what Shiv was noticing. It's like,

of you think you're doing some gesture like what what's really going on inside of you in terms of how you feel about me is actually showing yeah um and and damn i think you know it's like he they've gone through such a weird arc where they're essentially over at the end of season three and then over the course of like the traumatic events of season four with logan's passing and everything else. They've started to rebuild this new kind of relationship. And the Scorpion gift is this like, too much of an assumption is made on Tom's part about the intimacy of their relationship where it's like, we have this inside joke. We have this inside joke that's so inside, you don't even know what it means. And I'm like, you kill me. And I kill you, but you kill me.

You know what I mean? And even all of their sex talk is kind of strained, I think. It'll weird way because this is not a very sexy show. So it's just like people texting each other about their dicks being broken and how you're wearing me out. And I just- Somebody didn't let me sleep last night. But you can see it brewing the entire time with how he's like, I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I just need to go to bed.

And I think at one point he's like, I'm so tired. And she's like, you're not running for president tomorrow. Like, what the fuck do you have to do? Yeah. It's funny because I'm so used to Tom just taking abuse, specifically. from Shiv that I didn't even notice anything was amiss, right? Like, to me, this is the nature of their relationship, you know. But at the end of the big fight, you know, you kind of realized, like, they never did have it out.

There were moments in earlier episodes where Tom is like, can we talk? And Shiv, of course, blew him off. So they never did have it out. So, like, the reconciliation wasn't based on any real candor. or understanding or breakthroughs to use, you know, some therapeutical talk. It was just based on paper and over some stuff. And literally it was just papered over, right? Almost like a bear trap.

Yeah. You know, like literally just papered over and they finally fell through that thing. And it was brutal, bone shattering. Yeah. Honestly, in a weird way, it's like Shiv warned him. I think she had said in the car on the way back from L.A. When they had decided that they were going to host this tailgate party, she was kind of like,

I don't want to get into us. This is just strategy. And he was like, oh, I find strategy sexy or whatever. But she had kind of explicitly told him, like, I'm not going to do this with you.

Like, if you want to come along for the ride and be my wingman and be my fuck buddy, and we can present as this power couple, that's fine. But we're never going to look under the hood here. Yeah. And it's pretty fascinating.

you know, there was like a Vanity Fair article that just came out about how when they shot the balcony scene, they had not shot the Shiv is pregnant scene. So essentially, they shoot the balcony scene and there's the line about like you're not, you shouldn't be a mother. And they had not shot or I guess written the idea that Shiv would be pregnant.

I mean, Sarah Snook was pregnant, but they had not like put that in. So really, really interesting stuff there. That's, you know what's so dope about that is the sort of interplay of obviously they, they put themselves, as far as the characters, you know, they put themselves who they actually are, Sarah Snook in this case, actually being a future mother, right? And like, her reaction in that is like, can you say a worst thing to a woman? And that's what, and her mom had said that to her,

too, like in a previous season, she's like some people just aren't fit to be mothers or shouldn't be mothers or whatever. And she's more or less talking about herself, I think, in that moment, but she's saying it to Shiv. Yeah, and it's funny, man, because there are things that we say in the heat of the moment

to people that we actually do care about that come out of a place of just anger, right? A lot of it is, even if Tom kind of might think that, like, oh, Shiv probably maybe wouldn't be the most cuddliest mom that ever existed. He's only saying that in the way that he is for effect. He's saying it in order to hurt her. Yeah. Right.

But, you know, just that you're willing to go that far kind of says everything about where the relationship is. And, yeah, I don't see these two getting back together. I don't know. Yeah, not a lot of episodes left for that. I don't see that marriage being saved. I don't know about you. It's also, you know, at that moment when the fight takes place, she has just found out that Lucas Mattson is essentially inflated his numbers, doesn't really have the amount of subscribers for whatever Gojo services there are, that there are two Indias according to his accounting.

And she's like, oh, shit, like I just nailed myself to this guy who's like a flaming wreck. Meanwhile, we've got the idiot twins going after it in the penthouse there. What did you think of where Shiv finds herself at the end of the episode where she's like basically all alone? Yeah, that's the part that I found was kind of crazy. Shiv is essentially lying to everybody that she's involved with. Yeah. Right? She's wearing some level of a mask with Madsen.

She's wearing, I mean, the mask that she's wearing around her siblings. and this deal where she's actively working against them. It's not even like she's not telling them her true feelings about what they're doing. She's working actively against them. And even Tom, who was kind of the only person that she was being candid with, she was withholding the news of the pregnancy from him, right?

So there's nobody who she's actually getting to be her full self with. And it's kind of crazy that her and Tom part ways. and now she's definitely completely alone. Maybe they'll find a way that she, you know, finally decides to break ranks with Madsen and move on with her brothers. But even that is an impossibility because we find out that Kendall's like,

no, I'm going it alone. Yeah. You know, everybody is going it alone. One crown, one head. One for them, one crown one head. Kendall's little one line is just, I know. Every single one.

Truly raised by raucous records. You know what I mean? Listen to some Shabam Shadik 12 inches. Just like he definitely is that dude. Let's talk a little bit about Ken. And let's talk a little bit about marriage. Were you excited to see Rava back? Yeah, that was.

You know, I hadn't thought about Ken's family life, his children, you know, anything besides what he's pursuing right now in such a long time. I had no idea. Like, I was like, how old is his daughter? like 15 or six. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah.

No, seriously. Like, what do we even know about these kids? Well, we know his son is named Iverson, which is important. That is very important for somebody like you, for sure. But yeah, that was a great pull, right? Just randomly being reminded that Kendall has a family that he clearly gives two shits about and can't be bothered. And it's just his reaction is so perfect. Oh, my God, dude.

The reaction is somehow his wife or ex-wife or whatever they are is the one who's fucking up in this instance and not him who's the absentee dad. Yeah. Repeating the cycle of his father, by the way. I also love, I think I said this to Andy, but if you ever drop you have no idea how hard I'm working, if you have to use that in an argument like here you've lost.

And let me tell you from experience, like whenever I've been like, You have no idea what I'm doing out there. And it's like, you mean watching Better Call Saul twice? It's okay. You know what I mean? Like, but it's, I thought that was a great scene. I couldn't tell if she was in, there's a lot of birch coffees in New York. I couldn't tell that looked a little East Villagey to me.

But I would think Rava was probably like an Upper West Side cat. Yeah, yeah, definitely Midtown. She doesn't feel very artsy, fartsy. No. You know, village type of person. She's, she's a midtown man. Manhattan kind of gal. And it could be, you know what, upper west,

but I could easily see her Midtown East or something. Okay. That doesn't, that wouldn't surprise me, you know, pretty close to- A beneficiary of the Second Avenue line, you know? Exactly. Exactly. The reason I love that scene, too, is because, you know, they don't really do a sit-down,

the succession doesn't really do sit-down exposition, where they're like, hey, let's just, like, have a character who needs everything explained. ask what's going on and get it all laid out so that the viewer has everything explained. Succession kind of leaves you these little breadcrumbs. And like we hear that Sophie Kendall's daughter was in like a weird altercation with somebody wearing a Ravenhead shirt. You remember Ravenhead is the kind of Tucker Hannity stand in on ATN.

See, I didn't even remember that. Yeah, he's the dude who's like a little bit of a Nazi. Okay, got you. They were like, oh, so he's like, I think he's the one who's like, I have mine comf just as like a book, you know? Right, right, right, right. Just for the bookshelf. That's it. And then I just thought like it was cool how they just mentioned in the description of like the lead up to the election, like the sort of incident at an Arizona polling place or an Arizona election office. And they're like, oh, the O'Malley in the van. And it's like, they don't lay it all out,

but like we're lent to be to believe that Jimenez is up by a few points. And Mencken is doing or is associated with people who are doing some crazy shit out there. rat fucking. Yeah, and I like, I like how they don't like baby food, baby food you. Like, they're not like, here, take the spoon you. Here's all the information you need. I know what's going on, even if you don't know explicitly what's going on. Yeah, 100%. There's some chicanery happening with Mankin and them. And, you know, that's just part of this world, right? I again, I kind of bristle at whenever they do real life sort of stuff.

So that's what I really wanted to get to because we usually talk about the previous episode and I still want to ask you some mats and questions, but we might as well jump in to the coming episode, which is called America Decides and is obviously election night. Are you like, do you approach this with a little trepidation? Are you like a little like, ah, like how are they going to do this? I'm not. Look, I generally understand that. I'm in great hands with the show's creators.

And again, I'm not going to make any grand pronouncements about what they, I don't care what they think about our political system. Yeah. I think they've kind of explained that they think it's a farce. It's corrupt. It's shady. It's absurd how power gets doled out here. And it's certainly not democratic.

I think they've explained that. It also has no impact on their lives. whatsoever. 100% not these people's lives at all. Not in ways that like

would materially matter. But I think it's interesting that they choose to sort of add the rat fuckery elements to Lee Atwater type of elements

to the show. I just don't read too much into what the show has to say about American politics in that way. Like the horse racy you know, blue-red divide.

I think they do a pretty good job of saying, like, it's kind of bullshit. Like, whenever Shiv says, you know, like, democracy. Right. Like, we're not meant to believe that she's serious or thinks that or is, like, principled in that way. Well, do you remember, like, a couple of episodes ago,

which I guess is only a week ago in succession time, but she's like, I want to buy Pierce because I want to have a say in, like, what happens to this country. And it's like, she's describing this sort of crucial turning point in American history and how she wants to be able to, like, trot out this kind of old gray lady type media company that Pierce is assembled. And then, like, we haven't heard about Shiv's concerns about democracy for the rest of the season since the LA episode. So it's kind of like,

or since the, their attempt to buy Pierce. So it's like very much of self-interest. I thought it was cool how they did the Roman is obviously has this like 4chan kind of like streak of like being really into Mancan. Shiv sees herself kind of as more of a limousine liberal centrist who's like

we got to protect Jimenez and blah blah blah and then Kendall is just like whatever like what should go either way it works for me. Yeah. If Nate is going to block my shot at the rim about trying to get the Mattson deal

shut down a regular regulatory business, then I'm down for whoever. Yeah, I think Roman and Shiv are at opposite poles. And I'm of two minds of it, right? Like, who's better? Is the person who recognized that the way things are shitty and are leaning into it, worse than, and that would be Roman, or Shiv, essentially paying lip service to these ideals and, but also not recognizing.

recognizing how anti-democratic it is for her and her dumb-ass brothers to have sway over the republic. I know. Do you not understand how anti-democratic that is? You know, like, I think Roman sees it for what it is. Like, yes, it's very anti-democratic. The whole shit is anyway, it's a farce. There is, these people, normal people don't have a choice or say in what goes on in their lives. We do.

No. And that's fine. where she was like, no, the democracy. It's like, shut up. Yeah, and in that sense, like, Mattson has a pretty good handle on it where he's just like, these kids are just their dad,

but fucking dumber and, like, less responsible. And his sort of vision for it, which I think, you know, there's been a lot of online theorizing. And I feel like now that we're getting into the last few episodes of the series, people really kind of want to make the Breaking Bad Lost thing happen with Succession

that it's like, actually, we're going to find out that Mattson has been playing everybody the entire time or whatever. I don't think Succession does twist that way. I don't think we're headed that way. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity

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your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zep bound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. It's been really fascinating to see Scars Guard and the Matson character become like the fourth lead of this show, essentially. And I thought he was incredible in this episode. Like the way he was

carrying himself, everybody has talked about the Tom and Shiv scene, but I actually thought the Lucas Kendall battle rap was pretty fucking incredible. As a New Yorker man, what do you want to put on a cup? Brough. Brough. So that moment where Kendall just reflexively

just instinctually becomes defensive when this fucking loser from Norway, what are the he's from? He's from Sweden has the to denigrate New York fucking city?

Yeah. The greatest city that's ever existed? There's nothing you can do in New York that you can't do anywhere else. I was like, yo, I have never felt more like Kendall in my life. Even though, of course, I now live in L.A., whatever. I'm, you know, I'm some douchebag, L.A., green juice drinking idiot now, of course. But still in my bones, whenever I hear somebody even kind of say something even remotely, sort of negative about New York.

My antennae go up like, hold up, man. Wait, what did you say about New York? It was so funny when Ken was like, you know we still run shit, right? I was like, come on, Kendall. Let's go, man. Kendall's outside the garden going bing bing bong. That's it, bro.

Like, that New York arrogance just, oh my goodness. That touched, that was great, man. I touched my soul. This is like, wait, like, this motherfucker from Sweden I know it's talking about New York City are you crazy

he's like you know soul is a better city it's like come on man we still make shit in New York let's go oh man so yeah that that's I'm so happy

you brought that up Chris because that hit me to my core whenever you know like back when I used to partake in internet rap discussions I remember when Kendrick dropped control and people was like

well he might actually be the king of New York. I spent days. I spent weeks of my life fighting people over that kind of shit. So, you know, I haven't been in that mode in so long. And so to see Ken step up in the city that way, it took me back. It took me back. It took me back.

I wanted to also ask you about the way Lucas kind of handled himself at that party. the Norway retreat episode was even though he's from he's a Swedish guy, the Norway, he had like a kind of skit as a home game. And now he's on the road.

And I thought Scarsgaard did a great job performing in a different way, you know, on the road. You know what I mean? Like he's kind of a little bit more nervous. Yeah, he felt more insecure definitely

in that room with those people. And I thought that was a like a subtle dig at tech guys. Sure. that the writers are basically like, these dudes are fucking weirdos with horrible emotional intelligence slash people skills.

I don't know why we should give a fuck about them. That's what it feels like the writers are saying about these tech people. Yes. And even the fact that he was like, I'm like going up to Shiv and being like, I don't really know how to talk to people. Like, because she's put him in this room with all these kingmakers and he's supposed to charm them.

Thought he did a good job with Nate. But yeah, like him sitting there, he's got the Kyrie's. on, he's got the gold jacket on, and then he does this like performative leap from the window sill. And it's like, dude, nobody does that. Like, nobody does, like, jumps on

furniture at one of these parties. Like, I don't really give a shit, but like, it isn't what you would see at a party like this. And in that moment, Kendall kind of has him. Like, I think everybody sees that, and they're like, this guy's corny. Like, what's he doing? Yes. Madsen, finally, his mystique is gone. He's been

amassed this episode. Like, he's a fraud. Yeah. And The most sweetly rich part of it is Kendall's like, I knew he was a bullshitter. Because Kendall's full of shit. Yes. Like he can wreck it. He sees, he finally sees himself in this guy. He's like, oh.

But he hates new money. He hates the fact that Mattson is this like new money. New money, man. The way he said that. I fucking knew he was a bullshitter. I'm telling you, new money. The way he says that with the glee, like, I knew he had him. I knew I was better than this dude.

I knew this dude was in the future. Speaking of Ken, obviously a lot of attention on the, on the Schiv and Tom fight. But Kendall just being like, it's just me to Frank and just being like, yeah, we're not going to, it's not going to be roaming. I'm not entertaining these fools anymore. Yeah, it's going to be, we're going to go and we're going to do this power move. That's significant.

I mean, that really is like kind of like, I think that is the roadmap for these last few episodes. 100%, which I'm going to, I haven't seen. I don't have screeners. I don't have any of those things. I don't have a crystal ball. But I'm going to make a prediction here. And it dawned on me when these.

So they're coming up, again, all they're doing are these hairbrained ideas about how to, you know, basically grease the skids, right? Like, mess up the deal. And one of the things they decide to do is APO research. And it never dawns on them that somebody could do APO research on them. Of course. And Kendall, it's going to be a lot worse for you. Yes.

Then sending vials of blood to your public. He told your brother and your sister that you killed somebody. Period. Roman Yeah Sending your dick To Jerry To Jerry

That's out there Not only is it out there The person who you did it to You've alienated And is now Working actively against you What about the person Shiv had signed the NDA?

Oh my goodness I mean it's everybody's got their skeletons And it's about like At the end of the day, it's like, there's something within the realm of the show that when Shiv gets on the phone to Matz and as soon as her brothers leave the restaurant. And even though I think like it's kind of patently obvious that Shiv is working both sides like here, like even like, you know, it's in the, at the party itself, it seems to be pretty well recognized. You have to ask like it's,

to what extent do these people want to destroy one another? And to what extent can Kendall count on if I wind up putting myself in a position where I become my father, can I also control how my brother and sister react to that with them knowing about me and knowing about like what I've done. That would require some foresight vision. That's that's not a thing. He's, remember he said he's tunnel vision. Eyes on the prize. That's how Kendall works.

He can only do one thing at a time. So he's like, oh, I'm chasing this thing. I'm seeing this. I'm seeing this path. He can't see the bigger picture. Because like, again, the APO research thing, it just hit me while I'm watching. I'm like, these guys. And then when.

when their Apple research or their, you know, the way that they go about scuttling this deal isn't just going for like the fundamentals. Like, wait, like, can this dude even actually do this? Instead of interrogating actually some kind of accounting or auditing of the actual business of the guy and not taking him at his face that he's this all-powerful, big dog tech guy.

Instead of doing that, which should have been the first thing that you did, instead of trying to find out, you know, if he has quote unquote skeletons in his closet, they just happen upon the actual real thing that could fuck up the deal by accident. Where they're like, yeah, India. She's like, you fucking idiots don't know. Yeah. This is a fraud. It's a Ponzi scheme.

We don't got those type of numbers in India. Like, just watching these dudes. just bumble their way through this, which is already a stupid, hair-brained idea. Like, again, we say it every single week, but Kendall and Roman actually being charged of something is impossibly horrible.

So I'll push back a little bit because I do think that Kendall has had one single goal, possibly throughout the entire series, definitely throughout this season, definitely throughout the last few episodes, which is like, I just want to run this company and I want it to be me. And so if you look at it that way,

it kind of explains all the flip-flopping on like Pierce, Gojo. Okay. Okay, now we're going to take ATN back. Actually, that has some logic. He's like, it doesn't really matter what is under the umbrella. What matters is I'm holding the umbrella, right? And so to that extent, all of his sort of fluidity about like what his sort of, what are

the tenets of his beliefs? Like there are no beliefs. The beliefs are I have been working my whole life to be my father and now I will. And I don't need my brother. don't need my sister. I don't need my ex-wife. I don't need anybody. I just need this feeling of writing number one on a beach, you know, and floating into the ocean that I run. Yeah, you know what? You're right about that. It's essentially, I'll be willing to jump ship with anybody because I know eventually I'm going to throw them overboard anyway. Exactly. So it's exactly. It doesn't matter what the ship is.

I don't think it's any more sincere with Frank than it would have been with Carl, then it would have been the Roman than it would have been with if Matt's fair. If Mattson came to Kendall and was like, why don't you and I do this together and fuck everyone else? Kendall would just be like, sure, but then I'm going to fuck over you like in two months. And maybe some of that is the mechanics of how the story is told on the show. And maybe some of that is something that Jesse is trying to say about how hollow all of this is ultimately.

And it's really like when you get down to it, these people are just trying to recreate and destroy their fathers. I don't know. Yeah. And the conversation Greg the egg was having with them. Yeah, about firing people. The way he's describing it. And, you know, it's almost like they're talking about playing a video game damn near, right?

Like how I might talk about killing people in grand theft is how this guy is talking about, you know, shuddering jobs, man. Yeah, the show, the show is pretty obvious. It's so ill because I don't remember if it was you or if it was Sean talking about this somewhere where people will be like, oh, the complication of something like the Wolf of Wall Street is that, you know, while you're showing how depraved this is, you're valorizing it at the same time, I don't see how you can make that argument about this show and its opinions about these people. Yeah. They don't make them look cool. They make them look horrible. Oh, yeah.

I think that it's, and I think because even the stuff that they do, that I think if you had shown scenes like the Greg and Tom eating Ornolan underneath with the napkins over their heads, or Kendall getting high in New Mexico, in Wolf of Wall Street, a lot of it is about Jordan's selective memory about what things were like. So, like, when he takes the quailude at the country club and he can't get back to his car

and he thinks he's having a great night, but in fact, he's, like, crashed his car into somebody's house. Like, that's the sort of difference of, like, your own perception versus objectivity. Whereas with succession, you're never like, man, I would be, these people suck, but it would be great to eat Ortolan underneath a napkin. Or these people suck, but it would be great to smoke meth in New Mexico. It's like, this looks terrible. This is awful.

You're just being constantly dragged to something. far-flung place to be forced into a room with these people that want to kill you. And then to make it all better, you spend obscene amounts of money on shit you don't care about. Yeah. And then the sad part is for the Tom's and the Carls of the world, they're like, that's exactly what I'm doing. This is exactly what this is my life's purpose. Yeah. Amazing.

All right. We can wrap it up there. Thanks to Chris Sutton for producing us. We'll be back next week. Thanks, Waz. Talk to you soon, man. Peace. We all have that dream trip.

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Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. All right, now we have a very special guest. She's not really a guest. Joanna Robinson's here.

And she also is on the Prestige TV podcast and also talks about Succession with Sean and Bill. After the episodes on Sunday nights, Joe, great to see you. Always a thrill, Chris. Hello. Tell us why you're here. Well, I'm not a special guest. We do have a special guest here on the podcast.

A very tall Swedish man, not our boss. But Alexandra Scarsgaard, Matson, I've ever heard of him, is here to chat about his character, about politics, about a bunch of other things. We should say that we talked to him, I talked to him right after last week's episode aired to the Monday. So we hadn't watched the next episode yet, but we had watched the trailer,

and we're pretty sure it was about the election. So I talked to him generally about election stuff, but nothing sort of episode specific. There are no spoilers. Alexandra Scarsgaard, big fan of American elections. Yeah, he had great things to say about American politics. He's a big fan. yeah, it's fascinating. He's such a thoughtful guy. We love all of his

work. I think he's doing an incredible job this season. His character has been so fascinating to me, not only for just like the way Lucas has become such a huge part of this show, but also the way, you know, Succession has done a really good job of like sprinkling people in for three to five episode runs and go to the Holly Hunters and the Cherry Joneses and the Adrian Brodies. And we just get like little peaks at people. And then they just straight up were like Alexander Scarsigard, you're the main character of succession for like this season. Yeah, I was really, I did ask him about that about sort of the idea of Brian leaving

and them feeling like they need to bring in a big chaotic presence to sort of fill that absence. And I think he's doing a great job. Well, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. So let's go to Joanna's interview with Alexander Scarsguard. You can hear Joe with Bill and Sean after Sunday night's episode. And I'll also be on the watch at the same time. so just soak in all the post-succession content. Joana, thanks so much for joining us.

I wanted to start by asking you, I know that you've said multiple places, multiple times, that Lucas is an amalgamation of multiple different tech figures. But I am curious as you were sort of drawing from these various figures to create the character, if you settled on something about tech billionaires and their kind of power? Yes, he's a bit of an amalgamation. but what I try to find was eccentricity.

And I didn't want to put him on the spectrum, but there's something about an attention deficit where he's very, he gets bored easily. Once you've lost him, it's very hard to get his attention. He drifts off and then he's on to something else. So I think there's something quite erratic about his train of thoughts and his, the way he processed things.

It became kind of the foundation of the character. I wanted someone who was a bit of an agent of chaos and who really thrived on wild expeditions, journeys, adventure, be it business adventures or personal adventures. And there's something about all this being a game to him. He clearly doesn't need more money. So he's not at this point in it because he needs to secure the financial future of his grandkids. It's not about that. I think there's something about the juxtaposition of him being a quote-unquote self-made man. Some people claim he didn't create those codes himself, but even if he didn't, he made a lot of money.

And there's something about taking on a family dynasty like the Roy's that is really delicious and tempting to him to take him on such a legacy. And he doesn't have very much respect for the kids, their little Nepo babies to him. So there's a level of hubris there, but he thinks he can just like, he's a wolf and they're sheep so he can just play around with them, you know, and drag out and prolong the slow death, the inevitable death. There's something quite enjoyable about that to Madsen. Yeah. Yeah, that's a long answer to your question. I don't know if it's, I don't know enough about tech billionaires. I don't know.

I've met a couple of them a few times, but I don't know. any personally like I'm in a no close relationship to anyone who was a tech billionaire so but but yeah some of them you definitely see a bit of that kind of erratic behavior and

stoking the fire and kind of good old rebel rousers it's interesting to me I've listened to a lot of interviews you talking about this character you just described him sort of as a wolf I've heard you describe him as like a shark in the water a predator of some kind

I think he is that, but what makes a character interesting is if you can find the dichotomy, a friction, a kind of resistance, and that there's, there are more than one facet to the character, that maybe you can find a weakness or softness or insecurity. An insecure wolf is way more interesting than a badass wolf, I'd say. Yeah, and those are ingredients that makes the character interesting to me to watch when I, watch movies or shows, but also to obviously to play. And I was trying to kind of give Matt's in a bit of range and to avoid playing that the same note constantly of him being erratic and a disruptor and a wolf chasing his prey. I think he can be very, there is, I wouldn't say weakness, but he's sometimes quite insecure.

And he's, when he lowers his guard, there's a different side of his personality that can see. And there are some moments with Shib when he kind of lets it down a bit and exposes himself a little bit more emotionally. And those are quite defining moments of the character. I think it's interesting when you spoke earlier about sort of this idea of a game he's playing against the Roy kids and how he maybe sees them as unworthy opponents, especially maybe in comparison to Logan. Do you think he has their measure? Like, do you think he is he underestimating them in any way or does he have the correct read on them. We're about to find out in the next three weeks. With Shiv, he's kind of gauging her and testing her and trying to figure her out. And the jury is still out whether she got

what it takes. Maybe she does. She's done some stuff that he finds quite impressive. He's, so we're right now in the storyline. I think he's confiding in her and opening up a bit, but he's also figuring out if she's worthy or, of her title as the princess of the company of the kingdom. Or if she's just by virtue of being her father's daughter got that position, you know. I think it's interesting. You know, we just watched the election Eve episode. The next week's episode is the election episode.

And obviously, like, I'm not, I'm not fishing for spoilers, but I'm just curious what you think as a non-American on a show, you know, written by largely Brits. Like, what does Succession have on its mind about? American politics. The sheer entertainment value, the way it's portrayed as a boxing fight, you see even in the

kind of the way media covers it, the debates, it's even the they make billboards and it looks like it's something out of an MMA fight or a boxing you know from Vegas or something. It's very, very focused on personalities, the big character, the individual, the kind of the And that goes for not only the debates, but the entire campaign, which starts, you know, 900 years before the election.

Because it's like a reality show. It's like a soap opera. And it's juicy and it's personal and it's fun. And that feels distinctly American to you versus. I was born in Sweden and it's a parliamentarian system in Sweden. It's seven parties and coalitions. And the leaders of the party are not as important as they are. in America. And it's not as necessarily fun and sexy as two opponents in the rank fighting it on.

It's becoming more Americanized, but it's still quite far away from the rhetoric of this guy against this guy who's going to win, face off, one final battle. Yeah, we're not quite there yet. Jesse calls you up and says, Hey, man, thanks for doing the two episodes last season.

Please come back for this next season, for many more episodes. And then he tells you, it's the final season, and then he tells you that Brian Cox is exiting kind of even before your character gets on the main stage.

What does that feel like to you to know you're coming in on the end run? Is there a kind of like power vacuum both like in the show and in this world that you feel like you're sliding into, you know?

Yeah, of course I was a little bummed to not get to work with Brian again, but I also was also so impressed by Jesse's decision to do what he did. I thought it was so incredibly brave and unexpected. And the way you did it, to end, to not, the fact that you don't even see it. And it happens, what is it, nine minutes into the third episode.

It's so anticlimactic that it makes it even more climactic in a way, in a way. And I thought it was absolutely extraordinary. And I think I can say that because I'm not in the episode. So had I been in the episode, that's not like a douche bad, but I'm not in it. So to me watching it, I thought it was an absolute extraordinary episode. I mean, it's in the title

of the show, isn't it? Succession. It's interesting to see what happens once the big Titan is gone and how the kids scramble and how they try to position themselves and after that.

So it's, of course, Brian, is missed by people working on the show and fans watching the show, but there's also something quite interesting that is happening once you remove the unremovable. I love that. One of my favorite, I mean, there's so many good things that happened in this party episode that everyone just watched,

but one of my favorite shots of you is actually when you're not even in focus. Kieran and Allen are having a scene. and you're right behind Connor and Roman sort of like sitting in the window frame and you're just sort of like acting up in soft focus behind them. And something that I love about succession is the way that they shoot it, which is like the camera is constantly moving around and you never really know when you're on camera,

when you're in shot. And I imagine that must be sort of even compounded in a party sequence when like everyone sort of gathered in this house for, I think you guys shot it over a week or whatever and you're doing this. What is that like for you? as a performer, knowing that the camera could be on you at any time. How does that change the way in which you immerse yourself in the performance, I guess? They often use two, sometimes three cameras, and they were running around at a party, shooting little snippets of conversations. So you would kind of,

and a lot of those sequences are shot over, it takes 10, 15 minutes to shoot the whole thing. And we did it from the beginning to the end. So a lot of moving pieces. And you just had to be very open to flexibility into changes and kind of go with a flow and sometimes the camera would be there, sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes they'd get there early and sometimes it'd get there late. And you just kind of try to stay in character and hang around. But it was it created of, it became very dynamic and it was just an extraordinary energy in that room when everyone was there together in character running around for 15 minutes and very, very playful and a lot of fun.

So the performers, though, also can obviously change the tenor of a scene based on different takes. And I've heard from various succession actors that they will just take a scene in a completely different tone, you know, again and again until they find them right. You know, that's just acting, right? But Kieran Culkin specifically was talking about the scene where Roman and Mattson are squaring off on top of the mountain, right? And Roman is sort of unloading. And he said, by the end of that scene, you know, you guys are speaking so closely to each other, which was not. how you started playing that scene. And first of all, can you talk about the logistics of shooting on top of that mountain?

And secondly, like, the evolution of that of an encounter like that. Like, how did the performance change over the various takes? We didn't rehearse it. We kind of, we didn't read the lines. I want to say we kind of stumbled through it. We walked kind of the to give the crew with the camera guys a fighting chance of knowing what was going to happen. So we kind of found like a, all right, in this vicinity is where we'll end up. And the plan was for for Karen to come up.

I was going to go pee and then he was going to be next to me, talking to me. And then we did it. But I'm quite a bit taller than Karen. So it wasn't really that intimate moment of like face to face. Karen was like, can I just want to run around and see what happened. So then he ran around and squatted in front of me, which made it very, very intimate because I'm almost peeing on him like he's right in front of me as I'm peeing on

squatting on this on this ledge and is right up in my face and that was changed the the intensity of that moment of that exchange quite a bit because now we were like he was literally in my face and it was dynamically and psychologically quite interesting because again he gets so riled up and so emotional

and Mattson is like well this is the moment defining moment for this character he's uh he gets emotional he's not he's not up he's not up to the task so yeah it it uh after that he's uh to him roman is figured out and then now it's about like figuring out uh moving on to the next next ship, see if she can get in there and get that wedge between the siblings. I was actually watching an interview with your brother the other day where he was talking about how now when he like kind of puts on a thicker Swedish accent over English, it sounds fake to him. Now, like all the years he spent speaking more American accent at English. How do you decide to calibrate the Swedishness on Mattson?

Because I've heard you do thicker than you're doing in the show. How did you decide where to settle for his accent? Yeah, it's really bad. What? My accent is bad. Ironically, I haven't played a Swedish character in a long time. And I obviously, I'm from Sweden. I speak Swedish, but I thought I would, obviously, I didn't think I would need to dial a coach.

I thought, like, I can just like, I'll lean in a little bit to the sing-songy, the cadence of a suite. but I was having a hard time calibrating how much to do that and when I first started playing the character I think I did it I leaned in too much and then I pulled back a bit and then to

a very trained ear or someone to people who speak Swedish they can tell that I speak Swedish on the show with a Stockholm accent but then what was it five episodes into season four I find out that the characters from Gothenburg

and that's a very different accent. The Gothenbury accent is, I probably shouldn't say this because not people know my accent is terrible on the show. Everyone who doesn't speak Swedish will understand. I don't know how bad it is. But it's when we started the show, again, I just like, there were a couple of lines in Swedish, and I said it with, I'm from Stockholm with the Stockholm accent. and then several episodes later, I believe it was this season,

I found out, oh, he's, the character's born in Gothenburg. So I, in a very contrived way, came up with this backstory that he was born in Gothenburg, but he's lived in Stockholm for a long time.

That's why he kind of tried to get rid of his Gothenburg accent. But it's, it was, it's been, at least initially it was harder than I thought it would be, because I, again, I haven't done it in a long time,

and I've never had to kind of lean into it and play now like it definitely took a couple of of um of episodes to get the hang of of then to find mattson's cadence and when i wanted the the accent to to slip through i think mattson probably went to college in the states and you know he but so he's been i wanted quite an american accent but a linguist would probably say i i kind of butchered it yeah okay well uh we Americans think you're doing a great job. But, you know, what do we know? Now you know everything because I just gave away the secret.

The last question I wanted to ask you is, I saw in an interview that you said that Lucas, someone asked, you know, obviously mining for spoilers was like, hey, where, you know, where does he end up? And you say, well, he ends up where he belongs is something that you said. And so I'm not digging for spoilers, but I'm curious in a larger, like, birds eye view of the show, what do you think winning means on succession? Because I've been going back and forth on this. Does winning mean being in the main seat of power,

or is that ultimately losing because of sort of the emotional or human cost to it? I think there are many ways, many aspects to it and many ways you can define winning. I think it's very clear from watching these characters over four years that money, is not winning, per se, considering how miserable a lot of them are, and they are exceedingly wealthy. Amazinging even more wealth to have an even bigger pile of gold to sit on top

is definitely not considered winning for our friends on the show, no. So, yeah, I think quite a few of them were probably better off if they got out of the rat race.