WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1147 - Sarah Snook

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

Sarah Snook plays a character on Succession who exists in the center of the American power structure. But in real life, she's riding out the pandemic on the other side of the world, from her homeland of Australia. Sarah and Marc talk about how she was told she was “too much of an enigma” in drama school and how she evolved into the kind of actor who Helen Mirren requests by name as a co-star. They also discuss how she relates to her Succession character, Shiv Roy, and why she never warmed up to moving to LA. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Sarah Snook is on the show today. She's on one of my favorite shows, I think maybe ever, Succession. She plays Shiv Roy and she's Australian, which I didn't know and uh she was in australia when i spoke to her actually in australia and it was a pretty good connection i thought um yeah we live in amazing times both for for good and for horrendous for fucking horrendous yeah man i just um i can't sweep like i used to i think that happens as we get older i'm told

and like i start tossing and turning about 4 30 that's when shit starts spinning that's where i miss uh lynn a lot that's when i think about my own mortality that's when i think about the end of the world those scenarios the uh how many days do I have before they start pulling people out of their homes and shooting them in the gutters out in front of their houses? How many more days? And then I get up. God damn it. I got some emails, some messages, some things, some people who related to the dynamic i have with my father well i'm here

to tell you i called him yesterday talked to him he seemed okay level no real politics he did seem to suggest that the virus might just go away a fucking doctor he was a fucking doctor. He was a fucking doctor. Might just go away. Things go away. What do they like? What has gone away in recent history without a reasonable vaccine or treatment or behavioral changes? We didn't get into it. He didn't fight me on it. I think he just wasn't thinking. You know, when people say that, like, so I know. I'm sorry, man he just wasn't thinking. You know when people say that? I'm sorry, man, I wasn't thinking. That's the problem. Just wasn't thinking. But it's a different tone, and they don't admit to it. They could just be like, wow, you're right. I just wasn't thinking because I was feeding my brain with garbage. There was a spigot of garbage going to my head,

so it felt like I was thinking. It felt like it. They would say things that would lock on to feelings. And then it felt like I was thinking. But I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry I wasn't thinking.

I. The stress is on I. Yesterday was my 21st sober anniversary. 21 years without a drink or a drug. Can't say I haven't had some cake or some pie or jerked off a couple of times or had some pretty intense sex. But not a drink or a drug. You find other things, don't you? Add some coffee, a lot of coffee. I boil my brains out on caffeine, but none of it's the same.

Nothing makes my life unmanageable. Be careful out there with your vaginas and penises, All right? Just be careful. If you're going crazy, take it easy. They can only take so much before they go a little numb on you. But I don't know what's going to happen. Nothing's looking good. If that's the way you want to go out, 21 years, and I'm very grateful about it,

and I've enjoyed the help of you people, and I've enjoyed the feedback that I've helped you people. That's the way it works. Couple alcoholics, drug addicts trying to stay sober talking to each other do i feel better i don't know am i happy that i'm awake for this sure i don't think about it anymore that's one of the gifts that for me and i only speak for myself i am not a representative any organization or group but for me uh working the program in the secret society, after about four or five years, the obsession to drink and use drugs went away. I did no longer

thought about it as an option or even a default, like somehow or another. And I'm a guy that thinks about shit compulsively for sure. Like I can't get on this mic without getting a coffee or a tea or, you know, having something to eat, eating nine things. I just ate some cake. Ate some fucking cake. Ate a mountain of tortilla chips today. Homemade guacamole. Grilled oysters, which were dubious because I left them sitting in the fucking fridge.

I'm just saying that I am prone to compulsive behavior. Thank God not gambling. And I know what it's like to certainly like when I was doing the nicotine, it's going to be a year off nicotine in a couple of weeks. You know, just looking forward to it, looking forward to it. My reward, my relief, my ticket out. Get me out of here. Help me. I deserve this. But I'll tell you, man, I don't think I don't think of it as an option, man, I don't think of it as an option. Not only do I not think of it as an option, I don't think about it. Hey, man, I want a cigarette.

Hey, man, I want some weed. Hey, man, I have that one hitter. Do they still have one hitters? Hey, man, can I get a shot? Can I get a shot? Can I get a shot? Can I get a shot at Jameson? Can I get a shot at Jack?

Can I get a shot? Take a pint? P pint of lager just I'll just do one line just one line just one line crush that fucking pill up crush it up I don't even know the slang anymore crush that fucker up let's snort that shit tap out the bubbles motherfucker nope don't think about it and that's a gift because that struggle and that's the struggle a lot of people have at the beginning where they're like am i ever gonna not be crazy it's gonna take a few years man because you're fucking crazy you've been medicating crazy you're gonna have to get through the crazy i know this is a bad time to have to deal with this shit, but it might be a great time. This might be a perfect time for you to start getting sober.

What else are you doing? What are you drinking away? Well, I mean, I get it, but like all those stresses, if you're in dire straits, unemployment, money, that kind of stuff, housing, sure. I don't think drugs are going to make it better. I don't think drugs are going to make it better i don't think drinking is going to make it better but if you do have the the wherewithal and some safety net in your personal life and you think you have a problem this is a great time to try to get sober because you can focus man focus on it see if there's some zoom meetings around they're all over the place you can go to a meeting anywhere in the world right now i'm just saying there's hope out there it does

feel better you don't want to be anyone you don't want to be a slave to anything do you you don't want to not have a choice because that shit in your dresser owns you huh come on the house is quiet i feel the absence of both uh monkey and obviously i feel the absence of uh lynn the sadness but i got a little fucking buster that little brute buster kitten that little bruiser and it's weird that he's acting different because he's like he's lost his bully juice he used to run around like crazy in the morning i think that was just a fuck with monkey now he's just i don't want to project i don't want to anthropomorphize too much i don't want to

assume he's sad or grieving or mourning. I think he's adjusting to being the only guy and now he's got my full attention and I don't think he knows what to do with it. Would you? Would you know what to do with my full attention? Do you know how exhausting that can be when I'm paying full attention to something or somebody? But I realized I didn't really know that guy, Buster. I knew him a little bit when he was younger. What is that? Oh, my God.

What's happening? Oh, my salmon's ready. Oh, fuck. I'll leave it on there. I'm slow. I'm like, it's on a low temperature. I'm kind of smoking it. So, for later.

Because I have nothing to do and I cook when I have nothing to do. And I cook when I have nothing to do. And I'm still cooking as if like many people are around and there's no one around, but me, I'm cooking, I'm buying food and I'm making food. Like there's still two people eating it. And I look at the food, I open the fridge. I look at it and go, that's great. I got a lot of food and I don't end up eating it. I used to eat popcorn every night with Lynn and now I haven't eaten any popcorn at all since she's been gone. I can't eat popcorn anymore. I'm eating garbage.

But Buster, I just didn't know him. And now I'm getting to know him. And it's okay. We're going to be all right. But it's sad, man. It's sad. Okay?

That's where I'm at. Okay, so Sarah Snook, who I love, she's great on the show Succession. She's been nominated for an Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Shiv Roy in that show, Succession. She's also in An American Pickle with Seth Rogen, which I neglected to talk about with her, which is streaming on HBO Max. And also, there will be a very short discussion

about the end of season two of Succession. And I've been yelled at enough times about spoilers that I will interrupt the interview to let you know it's coming and tell you how to skip ahead. All right? Spoiler people, you should have watched it by now, though. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking.

This is me and Sarah Snook coming up. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

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here at the beginning of um the pandemic yeah really? And you couldn't get out? No. Well, I could have, but it just was not reasonable to go back to New York at the time. It was like March. Yeah. Why go back to New York? I get it. Things were exploding there.

And I was like, well, maybe I'll just lay low in Melbourne for a bit. And that was March. And it's cut to, what are we, August? I don't fucking know you know like it's my it was my niece's birthday two days ago yeah August what oh god what's happening yeah were you able to go have a party did you do that sad front yard drive-by shit that people do no not even that she's in queensland we're all sort of disparate we've been separated as well where's that how far is that that the other side it would

be 19 hours for me to drive plus two weeks quarantine if i to queensland to queensland if i went and visited our state borders are closed and because i'm in victoria in melbourne um we're sort of like the pariahs at the moment of aust. So this is the first time Melbourne's closed up? No, this is the third. We did like lockdown in March, April. And then we went down into a lockdown at the beginning of what month? End of July. And then we went into another lockdown during that lockdown. That lockdown's been canceled. We've got a lockdown 2.1 where we have a curfew now. You can't leave your house

after 8 p.m. at night till 5 a.m. in the morning. You can only leave to go out for an hour of exercise per day. One person per household can go to the shops and supermarkets. Really? How are they enforcing that? I don't know. Just common good, community minded people. I guess I guess we had that, too. I guess it was that's the way it was at the beginning. And I imagine we're heading heading back for that. Do you like so are you just everyone's wearing masks? I don't know why I think I'm treating Australia like it's another planet, but I have no sense.

It's like it right now for me, like I'm at my friend's house, living off the kindness of my friends out of a suitcase. And I do feel very isolated, like I'm on a different planet. I had to go do some work yesterday. I had to do ADR. And I guess I got special dispensation to go do it. For what? For a film, for pieces of a woman film.

You guys didn't shoot another season of Succession, did you? Not yet, no. No, it was a film I shot in January. So you guys are stuck. Yeah, we're stuck starting, waiting to begin again. That's such bullshit because it's like the one show that I like to watch. I can't even shoot Glow. They put that off until next year,

so we're not even going to shoot our fourth season until next year. They've definitively said not until next year. Yeah. Wow. So like, okay. I'm surprised that we're still in this conversation of like, no, no, we're going to begin.

We're going to begin. We just don't know when. Where do you guys shoot generally? We say this month and then New York. And most of it's shot in studios? No. It's out in people's houses. And there is studio stuff.

And we have been told that they will build more studio stuff. But we shoot out on the street a lot. And we shoot in... Yeah, I know. We went to the Hamptons. Right, right. And we went to amazing places. We were meant to go to Italy and Dubai, uh dubai i think or you know places that

were for this season yeah but that's i don't know what's going to happen with that that's uh all being recalibrated i guess have you seen the scripts no not at all i don't think they're still being written i think they're taking their time now just kind of tinkering yeah when we do go back to work there better not be any of that like well we're still writing no you can't be not allowed i'm okay with that i'm okay with that because i think with our show like we they we get presented a script at the read-through and then you know we might be shooting in the next two or three days but there's always a draft that comes through that's changed and again changed and then when we get to set it it gets changed again.

And we get given, you know, like eight pages of alts of these lines. You want to change that, change that. And it's very like there's a communication about how it evolves and develops. There's nothing ever that changes major on plot. That's right. But I mean, no, that's fine. I understand that. But I mean, they should definitely know where everything's going.

Yeah. Yeah. They should know. Yeah. They know what's going to happen. I always wonder about that, though, with these shows, because I've had a show on the air, and we didn't fucking know. We'd sit and go.

It wasn't like Succession. This is not the arc of this super rich, powerful family. But I always wonder, in the mind of the writers, do they know how many seasons they got planned? I know that Jesse, I think when he pitched even to HBO, he he would have had seasons like outlines of what was going to happen for the next season. Right. I just wonder because most most shows they want them to run forever. Like they never want to stop them. And I think the best shows are like, we're going to do four and then we're done. Four seasons. I feel like Jess would be classy like that.

I feel like four or five. I don't see this like, you know, running to the finish line exhausted. I feel like not Game of Thrones. No, I don't know. I never actually saw the end of Game of Thrones. I never saw any of it. I saw the first two seasons. You never saw any at all. No, I don't. I don't know i never actually saw the end of game of thrones i never saw any of it i saw the first two seasons you never saw any at all no i i don't like i know don't be so shocked i mean it's easy you just don't watch it sure sure were you a person who decided not to watch

it because the rest of the world was talking about it so much anyway no i just like i've just never been like the fantasy guy i don't give a shit about dragons and knights yeah and it all seemed very complicated like i'll sit and watch the wire and I'll watch three episodes a night, but I'm not going to watch, you know, armored people and flying lizards. I can't do it. I'm not even a judge.

It's just not judgmental. It's just like, I don't know if it'll hold my interest. Yeah, no, fair enough. Fair. I didn't think it would either for me,

but it did. Like I certainly was interested, but then there was a part of me that was like, ah, the rest of the world's talking about it. I'll get to it another time. But weren't there like 20 seasons? How many seasons were there? Nine? Eight?

Eight, I think. Yeah, eight. Or I want to say like seven and a half, but definitely eight. And then I think they expanded one into two what have you been watching now pen 15 oh it's great i love that show so much this is the second time i'm watching it my housemate has never seen it oh uh so i was like let's go back i talked to them it was good they're amazing like it's so easy to forget that they're adults and not for like it's really it's actually 13 it's pretty fascinating and one of them was on my show for a

couple episodes actually anna yeah yeah yeah she's great it's actually amazing to watch it again to get like the just the tiny things that anna does particularly with her face that is just so right right able to play a 13 year old or 12 13 year old girl pretending to be a mature woman like there's like a kind of a mothering maternal instinct about it right and yet not seem like an adult right it's amazing it's trippy right they and they do it you believe it like i don't know and now like they're screwed because they were gonna do another season, but not, you know, but not change the year they're going to have. Cause like all those kids are going to be like 20 by the time we shoot again. No, I never thought that that would be so particular about that one in

particular. Cause I remember asking them, are you going to, is the next season going to be like the next year? And they're like, no. And I'm like, are you going to get new kids? All those kids are going to, you know, they're not going to be like school. Yeah. For some reason.

So let's do like, what is your story? So you're like a huge star in Australia. I don't know. No, I don't know. Maybe who knows? Cause I love your work and,

but I don't know a lot of it. And I know that because I'm looking at, but I don't know a lot of it. And I know that because I'm looking at what you've done. I'm just scrolling my MDB. Well, I usually go to Wiki for some reason. But there's a whole industry in Australia. Did you do all your schooling and everything there? Where did you grow up? Yeah, yeah. I grew up in Adelaide in South Australia.

What does that compare to? Paint me a picture of Adelaide what's it like adelaide's adelaide's like a big it's a city yeah it feels like a big country town in a lot of ways okay the first question people ask in adelaide is oh yeah what school did you go to okay and then then you would know somebody from that school or somebody who went to that school and therefore you would know their brother or sister or oh so it's like Oh, so it's like a medium-sized city. Yeah, it's like a million people. Or when I was growing up. Small city.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I grew up next to a national park in the hills. And, you know, I've always felt like I was really distant. Like when my mom moved in with my stepdad, it was in the north of Adelaide, and we grew up in the south of Adelaide and I remember thinking oh no friends are gonna visit me it's so far away and I was there recently two years ago and and drove from from that area from Prospect to the hills it's 20 minutes 25

minutes it's not that far at all but you were a kid it. It was so huge. Yeah, you're a kid. You're like, oh, no. Yeah. How old were you? Yeah, I'm down on the plains. I left when I was 18. How old were you when you had to move up north, though, the big shift? Down off the hills.

I would have been 14, 15. Oh, so that makes sense. Did you have to change schools? Yeah. Well, that was just coming out of into high school yeah oh what a nightmare new people fucking worse yeah totally yeah and also having gone to one year of high school with all my friends you slowly get disconnected from their lives and you can't keep up yeah Yeah. No. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm glad about it now. It builds resilience, right? Did it? It sort of throws you into a different area. So when did your parents break up? How old was that? 11.

Oh, so that was a nightmare. Oh, yeah. Traumatic. It was, right? No, it was fine. I mean, yeah, it was. Yeah. But I don't like now. I don't have any. Oh really everybody's cool i wouldn't have it any different right no i mean the silence and

hesitation with my voice no i wouldn't have it different because of like who it's who it's made me today like sure i think that's a good way to look at life if you can manage it like i i tried i try to do that. Yeah, I mean, my parents, it's great because, like, you know, they've got their good things and their bad things. But, like, you know, I just try to focus on the good things and suppress the bad stuff and not hate them for it. Yeah, it's okay.

Yeah, as long as you don't get into the Serenity Now situation. And just go like, thank God they have the good things and bad things. Yeah. That makes you the real people. I don't know, man. What's your dad? Are they around still? Yeah, both my parents are around.

My dad lives in Perth. My mom's in Adelaide. Perth? That's like way over there. That's like the belly button of the world. It's like the most isolated city in the world. It's very distant. From Sydney, it's a five-hour flight.

What's he do there? Between New York and LA. What is there? What does he do there? Oh, what does he do there? He sells pools. He sells pools? Yeah, he's in retail.

Swimming pools. Yeah, swimming pools. It's warm over there. It's very hot. Above ground swimming pools? Both. Above ground, in ground. He's got guys who'll dig you a hole. yeah swimming pools it's warm over there it's very hot above ground swimming pools or both in in an above ground and ground he's got it he's got guys who dig your hole if you want a hole yeah i guess he he plans the hole digging and what i want and so that's the pool that's his racket

that's what he always did or is that no no i think he wants to get out of the racket soon i think uh out of the pool game he's 70 what is he 71 he's getting out of the pool game it's about time sit by the pool rather than build a man yeah that sounds good and do you have siblings i do i have two older sisters there's all sisters yeah yeah three girls yeah and you're the last one uh Uh-huh. By 10 and six years. I'm the baby. 10 years older? One of your sisters? Yeah, yeah. Oh, so you were like, ugh, what happened?

What happened? I was the mistake? Is that what you were about to say? Yeah, I was the mistake. A happy one. A happy accident. At least they had it down. And at least they could.

Did your older sisters have to take care of you half the time? Well, do you know what? I didn't realize this. I think as you become the ages that your sisters were at some point, you realize new things. Both my sisters have kids now. And it occurred to them and me that I was their first baby. Because my sister was 10 or nine and a half when I was born. And so she was able to hold me and carry me and look after me,

feed me. Yeah, figure out not to hurt you and drop you. Yeah, and she played with me when I was like two years old. She's 12. That's wild. So they have real memories of that. She was like, wow. And in some ways I realized also that they've known me longer than I've known myself.

Right. Like my consciousness about how old I am now. Yeah. But they've known me longer. Right. Cause when she was 15, you're five and that's like, you know, they left home, both of them left home at 18. So I then I had, you know, a family of five that went to a family of two. That's always a sad, sad story. Yeah, and then you're all alone, then you get ripped out of high school, dragged up. You're really painting a real traumatic childhood here. Oh, my God. It was fine. Yeah, there's no Oliver Twist here.

No, I get it. I get it. And what about your mom? What did she do for life? She, she did bits and pieces. She went, you know, when I was, I think this was probably pretty instrumental by chance, I guess. Yeah. She was a Disney sales rep at some point, um, at one point where she would sell the videos that Disney was.

Yeah. So I got like first look at, um, at the little mermaid and at, the lion king and aladdin and and i would sit in the rumpus room do you guys have rumpus rooms in america it's like such a thing in australia from the 80s and 90s like the redone basement totally yeah yeah it's the basement um we had that at the end of our house i would just sit watching Disney films back to back and on repeat and crying every time Simba's dad died

at the end when Scar pushes him off crying and then repeating and knowing all the lines from the genie in Aladdin's favorite song So you think this was instrumental in nurturing your performative imagination? Yes I think so and thinking about it recently I was like in nurturing your performative imagination? Yes,

I think so. And I thinking about it recently, I was like, um, uh, the, this, I would intuitively go, no,

don't watch heaps of Disney films because of all the princess stuff. Cause that's not me. Uh, you know, I don't like that kind of narrative, like a man sweeping in to save the princess, that kind of vibe. But I watched all those films growing

up and they didn't turn me into this at all yeah i watched those films and wanted to be ursula and scar and and the genie and jafar and all the bad guys sure so yeah what do i know talking about princess films so you're but you're like at this point you're you're alone that older sisters have gone you're your parents and you this you have a new dad right yeah he came in at like 14 yeah nice guy got a new mom as well i had a stepmom yeah he's lovely he's fine he's everybody's okay you're you get along with everybody yeah yeah yeah oh that's nice yeah it's not one of those sad sort of like well well, I don't know where my dad is. No, no, no.

Good. We're all in touch. And your sisters, you get along with them? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah? Yeah, how rosy. Do they live nearby? Are your sisters nearby?

No. My sister's in London. One's in London, the other one's in Papua New Guinea. New Guinea? Yeah. What's going on there the other one's in Papua New Guinea. New Guinea? Yeah. What's going on there? I mean, it's a pretty interesting country. So when did you start doing performing things?

I don't know. From when I was a kid, I guess. You did plays and things? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never professionally. I never got paid to do it until I graduated from drama school. But, you know, I was one of those kids who was just the drama kid who would do a performance at assembly or, you know, there was like a junior orator. And I would compete in speech writing things where you had to 10 minutes write a speech and then perform it

like debate did you do debate no weirdly i wasn't into debating i don't know why it was just the speeches yeah maybe i was like monologuing not debating dialoguing yeah i don't want to defend anything and i don't want to argue with anybody this is about this is about me and i'm going to do it myself yeah yeah and i want it all laid out structured and i want a character to play i don't want to be myself and argue a point i want to be somebody else thank you oh you did characters then as or yeah oh really yeah did you make them up i yeah i mean we did plays and we would make up plays and things like that. And I learned all the Roald Dahl revolting rhymes off by heart. The what?

Roald Dahl's revolting rhymes? What are those? Oh, my goodness. They're great. I've got to write them down. What is it? Is it an Australian thing or am I just stupid? No, Roald Dahl.

Do you know Roald Dahl? How do you spell it? You know Roald Dahl. R-O-A-L-D-D-A-H-L. He's the best children's writer ever. He wrote The Witches, BFG. No, I don't know. I wrote it down thinking that maybe it was your accent

and there was no way I was going to understand what you were saying. And now I've written it down and I don't know who that is. Wow. Oh, I'm so excited for you. I mean, there's a lot of children's stuff, but he's got a lot of adult fiction as well, which is great. Short stories. Okay.

He's an amazing writer. I feel bad that I don't know him. So you did a lot of that stuff. Yeah. I would read to myself at night, you know, read The Witches out loud. Yeah. Yeah. And learned those revolting rhymes. I think Stephen Fry and a bunch of other, you know read the witches out loud yeah yeah and and learned those revolting rhymes i think

stephen fry and a bunch of other you know famous british actors that i wouldn't have known at the time um did voice like they did a um a tape that i would use i used to listen to a lot and then i just learned it by wrote listening to the tape oh okay okay family, when we would go camping. Yeah. Now we're annoying kids. It was like, right. You finished dinner. Let me perform. Where are those tapes? I'd like to see the videotape. There is one of me doing a dance to, um, the, uh, like under the sea, uh, oh yeah yeah t-shirt and i thought i watched the tape recently and i from my memory was like this is amazing i've done all the the moves the

choreography i've practiced all day my sister's gonna tape it it's really good yeah it's not it's not at all i'm how old were you like a shaking jellyfish it would have been eight just running around and doing flips, thinking I was really cool. I mean, I don't think you can be too hard on yourself looking at it at your age now. I don't think you should judge it. It was probably amazing. Sure. It's very cute, but it's not good.

Your parents let you, did you just, you go right into drama school after you know uh whatever your version of high school is there yeah i did i auditioned at the end of um in my uh hsc sort of last exams year 12 exams i auditioned for drama school then and you did plays throughout high school or just the oratory stuff uh-huh uh-huh yeah so and you had a good plays and did you have a good drama teacher in high school i did i had i had a couple good ones because i i went to a school that had a really good drama program and i went there as a um on a scholarship you went oh you mean for high school yeah so i i went on a drama scholarship so i had to i got to do and had to do the senior and junior team, quote, unquote, team, like after school extracurricular

drama stuff, which was great. So as a 13-year-old, I was able to work with and learn from the 15, 16-year-olds. Right. Yeah, and that was with Mr. Jeffress. He was great. Mr. Jeffress. Yeah.

And then we had good drama in in high school as well and sheldie who this is a strange thing you as i said before about like when you grow up and you become the age of your siblings my drama teacher was 27 28 when she was teaching us and then you pass that age and you go oh of course that's why we're we were friends and close at high school we're still friends now but it makes sense to me now but at the time it was she was so much older and she had a whole life and she's only 28 27 well it's good when you have those experiences where you know you can look at it and and still be impressed as opposed to like oh my god that person was that age and now I'm this age. Like what were they doing with their life?

Do you have many of those? I'm trying to think. Usually that's limited to like camp counselors and things like that. Like what was that person doing? Yeah. But yeah, everybody was a lot. Yeah. My parents, my mother had me when she was 22

can you even fucking imagine that whoa have you got brothers and sisters or just i have a little brother but she was 22 and now just that's just what people did 22 yeah yeah yeah that's young i mean it's it's not i guess at the time and it's perfectly fine, I guess, at the time. And it's perfectly fine. But is it not at the time? It's weird. Because you look at pictures of people in my parents' generation when they're 22. I looked at their wedding album recently, and they look 40. They look like they're 40. Do they have a bob?

Beehive. A beehive. Yeah. Some of that going on. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. beehive yeah some of that going on it's crazy yeah yeah the thing i love about that generation as well though is there's there certainly in australia there's a generation of particular like italian greek family um older generation who just wear the same clothes that they were wearing when they hit adulthood and so they look older they always just look older because they're wearing old clothes they're wearing clothes from the 50s from the 60s right or the style

wearing suits wearing the three-piece the waistcoat and the hat you never change yeah you just look older as as a 30 year old you'd look like you were 60 yeah at some point my mother decided to go the other way and try to hold on to like 27 for you know to this day you know in her 70s i can't i can't even go into it and singlet tops then no no idea what hair color she i don't know what her real hair color is no idea yeah sure she might not even know yeah i'd not now i don't think so but um all right so do you feel do you feel like most of the stuff that you learned in terms of acting you learned before, like in high school? I mean, do you still use I mean, I don't I know it's hard to talk about acting, but sometimes was there stuff that you learned from these people that were influential to you at that age where you're sort of keep using i think the stuff i learned at high school um was that you can get by on talent but that it will run

out at some point that is shit it. Shit. It's all very well. When does that happen? I thought that was going to last me the whole time. That's all I've got. You're peddling talent. That's all. That's it. No, you got to have, yeah, you feel like you got to have a little technique. That's just like becoming an adult, right?

You just have a bit of technique. Oh, technique. Yeah, I have that. I repeat things over and over again. You know, yeah, you know what you're doing. You got it. That's it. As a kid, you're just. I repeat things over and over again. You know, yeah, you know what you're doing. You got it. As a kid, you're just like throwing it a wall and seeing what sticks. Well, you can get by on charm, you know.

You can charm your way through most things other than mathematics. Almost anything else you can charm your way through. Maybe that's why I quit math in year 10. This is not working anymore. I'm out. You can't be like, come on. I mean, you... I got to algebra. I was like, I could do algebra.

There's some letters in this. I could do this. It's conceptual. It's creative. I get this, but none of this times tables. I couldn't do algebra. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do algebra. I couldn't do it. I could not do algebra.

Yeah? How long did you try for, though? You're just going, no, I'm out. I couldn't just quit. I just almost flunked out of it. I just couldn't wrap my brain around it. Geometry I was good at because it had a shape, and you had to make an argument. You were sort of like, you get to prove that this is this. I'm like, okay, I did all right with that because you're dealing with the shape.

I didn't know what the hell algebra was. Yeah. I feel like interesting maths. Oh, perhaps if maths was taught. There's a couple of YouTube channels, right, that teach maths to adults that people have gotten really on board with so much so that I've never even bothered to look at them. How is it going to help me?

It occurs to me that I might like them. What are they doing it for? Is this to keep their brain active? The fuck do I need that for now? Yeah. Trying to not get by just on talent. They're trying to get some. No.

How is that going to be out in the world being like, let me just work this out. An algebra problem. gotta you're saying yeah they want me to go where to shoot what okay so that's x equals yeah no not gonna happen uh-huh pay for use the use it at the store to pay for it but to be honest with you like in terms of acting i mean i i knew that i was bad at it and then like i but i also knew that i knew that I had a certain amount of raw talent. But I didn't really start applying any real technique to it until later. And it was sort of on the job training. I'm a comic.

So that was my life for decades. And then when I got a show, I knew I would suck for at least two seasons. And I kind of did. And then the third and fourth season, I knew I would suck for at least two seasons. And I kind of did. And then the third and fourth season, I got the hang of it. And then I got cast in this other show. And I'm like, I know how to do this. I can be this guy. He's not exactly me.

But all I have to do is take out a couple of things that I always do out of my personality and be this guy. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Thank God. You should have just run the drama school i was at yeah just here's what you do you are who you are and it's beautiful when you look at the character right you look at the character and you see how that person that character is

different than you and then you make your adjustments and and then you go forward yeah but see i feel like that's a really good way to just be a human being, right? I can't apply it to being a human being at all. A hell of a lot more empathy for, for people who like have a different opinion or think, have a different religion or think differently. You just take out the parts that aren't you and consider some parts of

someone else that is different and then reapply them to you and go, Oh, okay. That's how it feels to be somebody else. Oh, I won't treat them badly. Oh, but what and go oh okay that's how it feels to be somebody else oh i won't treat them badly oh but what if it's not like that's how it feels to be a racist monster oh but yeah i'm gonna go ahead and judge them i'm thinking the racist monster should do that in the first place and think about what it's like to be somebody else this is something i get it yeah if you're doing it already, you're probably a step ahead. This is a technique for the bad people

that you're peddling. Sure. Maybe we can get them all together and teach them this. Just travel the world. What happens? Was there any famous people that came out of your high school? My high school?

Like the fancy drama high school, right? Oh, no. Yeah. Australia seems to manufacture fairly good actors and actresses. We do seem to. We seem to punch above our weight for population per capita. Somehow we've got a lot. I wonder why that is.

Have you thought about it? Maybe you guys need to pretend just to get by because you're stranded down there. We like telling stories. Yeah, yeah. We like telling stories about ourselves. You're Australia. There's a sort of inferiority complex to the entire country. Oh, huge.

Yes. Huge. The entire country. And if we, you know, with the tall poppy syndrome, if you raise your head above any kind of other puppies you get chopped oh really yeah yeah yeah have you heard about tall puppy syndrome no i've heard i i've heard some uh variation on it i don't know if i've called it if i've heard heard it called that but i understand what you're saying well i mean that would lend itself so instead of doing that if you do something spectacular like become you know a different person and entertain you can't really be accused of that but you can be and you but you can still be better

than other people sure but if in as your regular person self if you say i'm better than everybody else then that's just you being arrogant and you should be put in check no but no but no but you should if you do it as a character like i'm this guy and i'm on stage oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you get to live out yeah that's what i'm saying the wildest that's how you that's how you rise above in australia put on a show version of acting i'm this character you are an actor i know to see how I became that guy? It was so believable. It was almost like a cartoon character.

Crazy. Sometimes I'm just in it right away. It almost seems like I'd spent time working on that guy. I could tell. So what happened? So you go to a fancy drama academy? I did, yeah. I went to NIDA in Australia.

NIDA? Where's that? It's in Sydney. It's the National Institute of Dramatic Arts. Is that the one that Cate Blanchett went to? That's the one. She did. Indeed.

Yeah. And is that the one she's involved with? Doesn't she have a theater? Like she started a theater? She did. Yeah. Yeah. She was artistic director with her husband of the Sydney Theater Company.

Right. So which is our national flagship theatre company. So you went to that school and that's where you learned the technique, where you took all your raw talent and learned how to harness it. Yeah. And learned how to harness it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, as any drama school, you sort of get beaten down, stripped bare emotionally and then built back up again and then have to do a lot more building and rebuilding once you've graduated. But I had a you know, I had a fine time at drama school. I sort of in some ways flew under the radar and in others was my first end of my first was it first term assessment i think uh i was it was a bad thing but i was told that i wasn't too much of an enigma and that i needed to express myself more oh that's and that was me i think just being i prefer to just you know and see how the land lies but they read it as uh as being like you know like

like you were hiding yeah holding back and what did you do to stop holding back did some teacher put you into some role where you had to like you know be the crazy uh like like i remember i took an acting class in uh in college and he made me do a monologue. I don't even remember what monologue it was, but he forced three or four other dudes in the class to hold me back while I tried to walk across the room doing this monologue. This is some real Barry stuff, right? I don't know what the hell it was. Maybe it was just him entertaining himself. Uh-huh.

Because I was full of rage. Yeah. That's putting a real obstacle in your place. Yeah. Like I don't have enough already. Like, you know, I'm not. Sure. I'm manufacturing obstacles as we speak.

Yeah. I don't remember ever being physically held down and asked to monologue but um we did other things i i did play arena in three sisters which is the youngest of three sisters and i was yeah it's totally me i know how to do this but i don't know if i did a very good job i do remember having to cry on stage but i sneakily had an area backstage where i could go to just before grab a switcher hanky that had tiger balm in it and then you have my eyes with tiger balm and then look as if i would cry you're a cheater no one knew though that was the effect of it you know he's acting you know the whole thing

well you gotta go you have to go too deep into it you know just pretend yeah yeah but you could cry now believe it they believe it right can you cry oh sure really i i mean some yeah sure sometimes if i'm in the mood i could cry i think i could cry like I yeah cry and cry now no no I mean I probably could it sure I mean I think all of us could at some point in some ways you should most of us could use a good cry I think really it's very good for catharsis yeah very very good how long was that program four years Three. Did you do sword fighting and everything? Fencing and dancing? How did you know? We did. It's been utterly useful.

Has it? No. It just seems that when there's a long drama program, that I mean, in order for it seems for them to extend it or for you to get your money's worth, there's going to be some dancing and some, and some sword play. And some fencing.

Yeah. Weirdly enough, I had done fencing at high school. Not for very long, but I did do fencing at high school in the same kind of situation. I think that the drama department there were like, Oh, well they'll need to learn fencing and sword play for theater stuff. And really only men do that most of the time in the shakespeare oh that's right

because it's only really ever in shakespeare and it's only men who've used the swords in shakespeare now what's your what's your uh what's your take on shakespeare i mean and be honest with me oh he's he's got a couple good good things he's great i think you'll go far he's been around a while, probably for a good reason. I'm just sort of a dick about Shakespeare. You don't like him? No, I know he's great, but it's just hard for me to get through. I don't really get it because I've not spent the time necessary to appreciate it.

It's a matter of listening. You can give up with Shakespeare, especially if you're watching it. If it's not being done well, you can be i'm exhausted that's the thing yeah and they are long plays but i do i've seen yes a lot and every time i see it i hear something different and go whoa how extraordinary to create that piece of imagery and that part of the imagination and then in some ways i love it because you skate off over there and you miss what's going on and then you have to come back yeah and you have to know the play to really appreciate it sure because it's it's shakespeare and you've probably seen it three times or read it five times i mean most people who enjoy shakespeare whatever they're seeing they've seen

it done a dozen times and they've read it however you know what i mean it's not there's not going to be any surprises other than how it's performed. Yeah. But also the stories are, we're still doing those stories. It's still the person who wants power, uh, fucks over the person who's weaker. And then that person comes back and kills them and then has something to do with their mother.

And, you know, there's like a whole, the stories we just keep telling. Well, that's, that's what's great about succession. It's definitely Shakespearean.

Sure. Right. Yeah. And even there's a different King Lear situation going on there. Right. But even like the it's like what what I didn't realize at the beginning of watching it was that the language is heightened. It's like they're not, you know, it's so integrated into these characters and so well conceived, but it's, it's, it's heightened language. It's not, I don't, I don't feel that people talk to each other like that necessarily. No,

but I, I feel like they, it's believable that they, that's what I mean. That's what I mean. Like it's, it's Shakespearean in that it's some sort of take on the language of power and it's,

it's contemporary and poetic, but it's not natural. But it's very convincing. And then it's hard for us. Well, it's enjoyable for us to have to improvise in that world. And I love that the family sort of talk to each other in this particular way, which I wonder how different it would be. Because Shiv, for instance instance i don't know what friendship group she has if she has any friends right but how she would talk to them uh at all what's what's her what are her uh friendships outside of the family and outside of this way of uh communicating with these particular people

they'd be like you'd be like hanging out with the Trump daughter, with Ivanka or somebody. Sure, yeah. She's got friends, right? I guess. Surely, yes. Sure she does. Rich aristocratic weirdos. You're not, they're not.

It seems like whenever those people slum it, it's like Jeremy Strong's character. It's like when they walk among the regular people, they're on drugs or doing something horrible. Yeah, like that scene where he's like, I'm doing park coke. I haven't done park coke for years. Wow.

Yeah, you're the ones keeping the industry going, really. It's not the people in the park who are getting slapped with fines for it. It's the people at the top who's keeping the industry going so how do you but did you do shakespeare a lot of shakespeare i did i uh not he's but the first play i got cast in outside of um drama school was king lear and i played um cordelia and the fool did the the the double character uh-huh with a little bit of editing you can do who is king lear uh john gayden who um is a wonderful uh australian actor who played it was the third time he played king lear in his life and it was the first time he was actually the age the right

age to play king lear really i think the first time he played king Lear was when he was 28. It's sort of wild. But yeah, that was, oh, and you know what? I had to cry on stage. At the end. No, I told John, I said, I can't cry. I'm having a lot of difficulty crying. And I think she's meant to cry here. And he said, oh, do you know what? Here's a little secret.

I've never cried on stage. Can't do it. Won't do it. Refuse to do it. I can't do it. And as soon as he said that, somehow it released me and went, john gayden can't cry on stage i don't have to like that yeah and then i could from then on i could you could do it yeah yeah not all the time but it was there was a release was it a trick he was playing did you want to outdo him did you want to he could have been playing a trick, but I think he was being honest. He's a pretty honest guy.

So once you started working, because I was wondering this, there is a way, I was under the impression, I was surprised that you were in Australia, and there was part of me that thought, does she live there? But you live in New York, really. Yeah, I mean, I moved to the show. I'm from Australia. I've lived australia but could you live there and work in show business and just live in australia yeah because it seems like there's

a lot going on there is there is but the kind of work i wanted to do was overseas and what were you doing like tv a lot of tv and no i'd never done episodic TV. This was the first episodic, long-running series TV that I'd done. The TV I'd done earlier was short-form series. Okay. Six episodes, mini-series, that kind of thing. But you spent time in L.A., right? Not heaps. The longest I've spent in L.A. was two months.

But did you go, I'm going to move to L.A. and you moved here? No, never. Because I knew that it didn't suit me as a person i really felt like i wouldn't have been able to keep my mental health balanced if i moved to la in a here's what i got i'm gonna try and make it in la it was never what were you basing that on why did you decide that about yourself? Because it just wasn't me. I just knew that if I got there and felt like I had to prove myself to a bunch of people that I didn't know, I knew that I would inevitably self-flagellate and think that I was shit.

Not only did you not know them, but they don't know anything. Sure. But then how could you choose to disrespect the people who you want to respect you so i i was like well i just won't put myself into that situation so i'll remain in australia build a career here and then go when i'm and just and to be honest i didn't i just didn't say that i didn't live there and in australia i didn't say that i didn't live there so i just you'll go when you're summoned sure when i'm good and ready like yeah yeah yeah you know i'm not gonna uh if they don't want me can't have me but i mean but then how do you deal with i mean you

have to audition for things it seems like half of that you know horrendous parade of or the horrendous uh self-judgment and insecurity comes from you know auditioning i it was it's specifically that there was such a broad spectrum of garbage that's produced in this city that, you know, you would feel compelled to sort of go out for everything and have your spirit trampled upon over time? I would, yeah, I would have been, I would definitely have felt it was my job to go out and audition for subpar stuff just to be seen and be working, feeling like I was working.

And I did do that when I was in LA for two weeks or three weeks at a time. You did some of that? You felt it? You got the feeling? You know, you're in a room full of people that you feel that you are completely less than because they're far more beautiful, far more blonde, far more tan, far more leggy, far more whatever. Oh, you mean when you're waiting to go in? You're waiting to go in or you read the brief and it says beautiful surfer. And you're like, why beautiful?

Why not just like surfer really cool? Why not just like surfer really cool? Why is it? Why is it some sort of visual aspect of this character that a writer has to put in? Right. But then you call your agent and you're like, did you read the description of the person? Why are you sending me out on this?

And they're like, well, they don't know really what they want, but it's written down, but they don't know. But do you ever, have you ever had that where you read that thing go it's not me and the agent's like we wouldn't have put you put you up for that if you weren't possibly

able to be considered as that that's a lie that is a lie right but how would how would you get put me put up for something that you think that you're completely wrong for even though an outside perspective might think that you're right for it it's your agents trying to make you think that they're working for you yeah i feel like that's quite the pessimistic view i mean that's definitely definitely crossed my mind but perhaps it's different now i'm just saying when you're when you're starting out i mean you're kind of a known thing now you know you're doing this i don't know really i mean i like i like i'm uh i'm completely like i i love your work uh based on you know the very little of that of this one character well thank you very much like i'm gonna go see other stuff and you and you're you're you're fun you realize i'm

terrible i know you're a fun person to talk to you i think you're very talented you're not you're you're you're fun you realize i'm terrible no you're a fun person to talk to you i think you're very talented you're not you're not gonna you know but i think not only you're just talented but you have technique that you've applied to your talent yeah sure i do now what was this thing with helen mirren that she i just had her on did she oh really she's what a woman oh yeah she's so great it's great wow but Wow. But didn't she like, you know, like, uh, help you out or give you a, uh, a big nod. Yeah. We did a film called Winchester, um, with the Spirit Brothers and I had worked with them before in predestination. And I think she watched, they had been interested in me for a role in Winchester and, and went out to her for a role in Winchester as well. And she watched Predestination as a spec just to see what they're

up about and what they're like. And apparently she had said, I'll do it if you cast Sarah as this other character. I want her in the film, which is like, oh my gosh, swoon. And so I, yeah, I got to work with her and meet her and do that. And it's wild. Did you have a lot of scenes together? We had a few, yes.

And I was able to just be on set while she was working as well, which was amazing. And we had this scene which was so silly, like there was an explosion and you're hiding from ghosts and it's a horror film. And, you know, it was fun and silly. And we stepped off and she goes, oh, actresses like us, we should be doing some checkups, shouldn't we? And I was like, oh, you just said us?

What? It's like, I'm going to have an aneurysm. She likes doing goofy shit, though. She's great. She's so great she the the thing that she had when when she got to melbourne that she all she asked for in terms of like a rider or what can production do for you uh she said i'd like a bike and a mikey card and a mikey card is our um our travel card like a like a metro card in melbourne that was it huh that's amazing you're just gonna

jump on your bike ride around and catch the trams oh she's great when i grow up but she did some weird uh experimental movies like that were pretty just great pretty sexy weird things but she's still pretty uh vital very charming oh she's she's wonderful and and just the the thing that is i think why she has you know sex appeal, what the people talk about, is that she's so herself. There is an essence that is her that she's really tapped into, and she's not afraid to be that and also be kind and generous with her time and know her own boundaries yeah it's yeah she's like and she's i don't know i i was completely uh excited about the whole thing so how does how are you picked out of australia if you're not in la how does the hand of show business come to australia and pick you claw me out yeah there's a thing called the internet and uh no we self tapes that's the thing we we can we can put ourselves on we can put ourselves on tape and send them to

i got a role on self tape which one the glow in glow sam sylvia yeah that's a succession wow that's what i that's what i did you never expect to get them on self tape do you no you don't which i think is that's thetape, do you? No, you don't, which I think is, that's the key, right? Well, yeah, because you don't give a fuck. You're like, all right, let's do it. So wait, so what happened? How did they reach out to you? I had auditioned for Francine Mazur a couple times before.

Casting agent, casting director. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So she thought of you? Yeah, she wanted to cast me in something before and and had you know in a small role in um steve jobs and and you know i think it'd been uh had my back in in terms of wanting to to find something for me

yeah um and so this came through when i was in australia i didn't want to put a tape down because i thought it was out of my league and out of reach um what I put it for that character yeah and also HBO and and just you decided that you weren't going to self-tape because you weren't right for the role this is the version of deciding not to go into the room and debase yourself but it wasn't even a room you were all alone what were you yeah sure uh self-confidence huh um and i i read it and was like this is awesome but obviously this is too awesome for me so i and i'm not what do

you think what was it what was it? What was the disc? Well, what was the disconnect from the character upon first reading? Why did you think she's wealthy? She's beautiful. She's, you know, sassy and,

you know, they named a few people like, think about this. And, and I, I read that and went, well, that's not,

I'm doing this. Not me. Really? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. and there was another role for a film that i wanted to do was a link later film and i was like oh i've got more chance doing that which one um uh where'd you go bernadette you who talks you into doing to doing the tape

jess toby who's who's an actress in australia who's a friend of mine and she helped me put the self-tape down for that and did she shoot you did she shoot the tape yeah we had a tripod set up on an ironing board in my um house in like my place i rented in melbourne yeah and she yeah she it was like a case of like you gotta you might as well just put this one down because um because you've got your makeup on you just put the effort into setting up a tripod and an ironing board so you might as well just put this one down because, because you've got your makeup on. You've just put the effort into setting up a tripod and an ironing board. So you might as well.

Yeah. So I did. And I think it's the thing of going, I'm not going to get this. So whatever. Right. And that kind of indifference. But you made some choices though,

right? Well, yeah, yeah, sure. And the kind of, let's sayaire attitude, I guess, to going, this will be fine. I'm not stressed about this because this is so unlikely. And even when I got told to come over for the test deal,

the final audition, even then I was like, oh, I'm being used as a bargaining chip for someone who's far more famous has a much bigger profile oh you understand show business yeah you get a free trip to la to scare somebody else yeah yeah um so going in with that attitude of thanks for the holiday to la for five days to see my friends. Right. Probably, uh, yeah, I reckon that worked. Yeah.

But, but. Well, it did in the end. It did work. What did you do when you came over? Did you read with the other people? Um, by chance I ended up reading with Jeremy because, uh, I don't know actually what happened, but I auditioned and then I had to, and I was waiting to do something else. And then Francine said, if you want to read with Jeremy, he's going to come in an hour or half an hour.

Did he already have the part? He didn't know. So why don't you read with him? Cause there's a scene that's with him and you can just, and then we also improvised terrifyingly and he was so much better at it than i am and i think again that maybe worked because shiv just kind of keeps her mouth shut a lot and watches and that works for me and kind of yeah you can see her thinking and then she talks yeah great assessment of my acting

thanks man um no but that genuinely is i think what she does just thinks and then waits to talk yeah i know i think it's good unfortunately sometimes does does think talk without thinking and then you get like episode five and right and and then it's like but then all the episodes after that are like you know did she fuck up yeah yeah so jeremy what's that guy's story he seems to be in it he is he's very in it he's very uh he loves it he's in it he's committed yeah yeah nice guy lovely yeah oh this is the thing like we're all great friends it's it's really such a um a lucky group of people to be a part of because I have enormous respect for the work they're able to do that I feel you know I can't do what Karen does I can't do what Nick does I

can't do what Matthew does maybe I can do what I do but I have I look to to them in in the work that they do every day and and find it inspiring and that does sound like I'm hyperbolic, but I do genuinely love to go to work with them because I find it challenging and good. And also that off screen, we all get along, which is nice. It does seem like just by the nature of the material that, you know, it's got to be engaging as actors because, you know, everybody's sort of, you're actually acting where everyone's trying to outdo each other and get a jump on each other so there's a competitive element to the characters so it must be very exciting to like almost daily to be in that like everybody thinks they're getting fucked by the person they're

talking to and you know you've got to be in that so that must keep everything pretty lively it does and and maybe it's the same thing about you know when you shoot a horror film it's often one of the some of the most fun uh scenes you get to do because the the vibe on set is not you know ghosts and killing and murder and death right it's all very light and fun to counter what's going on on screen and i think we're all, all the machinations and planning and manipulations and being cunning is happening on screen, but off screen, it's, it's, it has to be the opposite to balance it in a way. Right.

The only one that can be sort of like that on screen is Kieran, it seems. He's sort of. Sure. It's just Kieran. Yeah. He seems to be having a good time. A little effervescent little imp who just marches in and goes and marches off and you go wow you just took a dump and it was amazing

like you can do anything and it's amazing he's he's something you're all you're all very good the guy who plays your husband what's his name matthew oh my god boy he's just taken what a punching bag yeah what a king yeah yeah he's a lot of fun to work with is he british yeah he's i mean he's mr darcy he the roles that he's you know he's played many different roles but he's most known for i think the kind of upstanding uh troubled romantic lead male guy um male guy sure right uh but so playing this role i think for him it's been a lot of fun and great for audiences to see him in a different light i've interviewed uh cox great comedy job yeah oh yeah yeah brian like yeah like he's a yeah there's a there's a there's a mountain of experience there oh yeah did he do some

shakespeare for you as well give you a monologue he's he's living shakespeare that guy yeah yeah etched on his face it's amazing to see like because he's always been good and always sort of this off to the side kind of guy but like i've every time i'd see him in something i'd be like that guy's fucking amazing going all the way back and i think he was the first hannibal lecter uh wasn't he yeah yeah and uh you know but he's like to find success at this point in his life with this the kind of this type of attention it just to see a guy like that kind of be finally kind of relaxed into this amazing thing it's kind of great do you know what i mean oh yeah that's what's kind of be finally kind of relaxed into this amazing thing it's kind of great yeah do you know what i mean oh yeah that's what's kind of great about this industry i think as well it's

there's it's not a regular you can't like a sine wave you can't go oh you go up here and then you go down there it's it's unpredictable you can go up sure if you yeah you know if you're like that like if you're that good a character actor and stuff if you can play all those different kind of roles you know like and i i don't know how it works but yeah it seems like if you stay in the game and you've got the the chops you're gonna get uh handed something eventually the amount of stuff is done if you look at his yeah imdb or wiki or whatever it it boggles the mind how much that matters well he's one of those guys where you read it and you're like oh yeah that he was i remember remember. Yeah. A lot of that.

Like super troopers. Super troopers. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hi. Sorry to bug you, but this is the point where I talked to Sarah about the end of season two of Succession.

And I've got to say, I really don't think we reveal anything specific, but I know some people hate spoilers of any kind. So consider yourself warned. Okay. Right now, I'm warning you. Skip ahead 30 seconds and you'll miss it all right okay now's your chance hit the skip button unless you don't want to because here we go the end of that fucking season was so good right now i'm just going to be like a fan of the

show that was crazy it's great i didn't know that was coming and i got to read it uh until day of it was sort of like no no the it was handed out the day before no i read it the day of the final read through no one knew no i mean jeremy apparently knew and brian i think knew but i didn't and i it was like being handed out and I ran to my green room and I'm like flipping through the pages and getting through and loving and you know the script is like 85 pages long or something crazy and then got to the end and by myself in in my trailer going what what's gonna happen um so yeah I I want to get back and shoot season three to find out god damn it right so you're telling me like because this is like this is like very sophisticated

kind of dead-on satire it is a comedy it's easy to forget that right structurally really right yeah yeah yeah just by nature of it but uh but it's heavy. So you talked about improvising. How much room is there really for that? I think it comes down to what we were talking about before with the writers knowing what the series arc is going to be, knowing exactly what the characters are going to be doing, that nothing ever changes in the plot and nothing ever changes in the plot and nothing ever changes in the um structure of

the scene so much but there is improvising around how the line is said what is said in the line like you've got an insult here then there's nine different versions of that insult you could choose oh so so you don't come up with it necessarily oh yeah yeah i mean kieran and the people who are better at it than i am certainly do but there's a few things like i love creating um my favorite kinds of improvising is creating a memory that didn't exist before between the characters there was one um we were talking about the ghost train i think in the second episode and tom and shiva walking along and talking about something about the ghost train

and then it just occurred to me to say well yeah I gave my first hand job in a ghost train in the ghost train and I keep walking and like that now is like a creative memory for Shiv that that was that was the case that's like not in the script but sure why not why not she did yeah yeah and it's that kind of stuff I love and that doesn't influence plot or anything like that right but it's a detail it's a detail it's yours we get to of stuff I love. And that doesn't influence plot or anything like that. Right. But it's a detail. It's a detail. And it's yours. We get to improvise the details.

Yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And that like. Not right for Shiv. That Alan Ruck. I mean, to see him again doing his like that. What's just a crazy, beautiful character.

Everyone's so good. Yeah. He's so wonderful. He's another one who can just drop in a line or drop in a – he's great at having the different versions of lines as well. Oh, really? We had one scene where something like, yeah, she rode you – it was talking about Raya and how Raya had fucked over Shiv

and he just had like endless versions of, yeah, she rode you like – yeah, she just – Right, yeah, yeah. just right yeah yeah oh yeah what was what was the the sort of kick it into this what was the portal into this character what you know how did it you know like you know what was the thing that you kind of locked into to make her work? I think it was the dynamic in the siblings that made it work. Like I grew up as the youngest of three and by a decent amount of age gap. So I was able to sort of grow up and see what they did and the ways that they

had success or failures in the family dynamic, as well as their own sort of personal lives. And then I was able to kind of go, oh, I'm going to do that. I'm not going to do that. Like someone doing it before, you get a chance to see how you might do your own life as a blueprint. And then I think Shiv is kind of like that. She's the youngest of the four.

And I feel like she and her like her parents like Logan and Caroline would have broken up at a similar kind of age uh-huh I was when my parents left so just sort of what is it yeah like we were saying what is it of me that is the character right and then and then fold in what did you add in the other part that oh the confidence the sort of the sass and the um and the the um she i feel like she's good at at uh pretending not to consider somebody else's point of view like she'll just double down on her position she won't um she just blank somebody right if they've got a got a different way of thinking about it just steamroll right through it steamroll yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and those were decisions you made that that you can hang the character on yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and those were decisions you made that that

you can hang the character on this felt right yeah yeah and that she's got a difficulty she's being vulnerable she doesn't like to be vulnerable she doesn't want ever to be in that position where she's not in control and not in power i think that's why she's with um a lot of why she's probably with tom but none of them really want to be vulnerable no yeah i mean that's the whole trick to the language of the thing everyone's avoiding vulnerability and it's just jeremy's character by virtue of the fact that he's a complete fucking drug addict is the only one that can't help but be vulnerable and then that turns out to maybe be a trick i think maybe that's what it is about the show that people like in that here's a family who seem to have otherwise everything um financially and and

tangibly but they are also just as afraid of being vulnerable as everybody else yeah it's weird how the characters show their vulnerability when you start to learn about you know kieran's sexual problems and jeremy's drug problems and your, what is, what is your commitment issues? Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty solid. The Tom on, on in the, in that episode 10 says on our wedding night, you asked to have an open marriage.

That's rough. That's like, right. But also like that married. And then she says, by the way that, but that doofus that you just got married and then she says by the way that but that doofus that you fuck in the show like it makes it makes me mad that that's like i'm like come on shiv you're better than this yeah she could have she could have gone further afield she could have

found something you know yeah yeah well it's interesting yeah yeah it's a it's a great show so how does it feel are you excited about the em Well, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great show. So how does it feel? Are you excited about the Emmy nomination? That's got to be exciting. Yeah. I don't know. That sounded unconvincing. But yeah.

I think you're trying to be humble. That's okay. You can try. No, no. Do you know what it is? What? It's being so distant from it. Because in the same way as feeling how how do you how does someone from australia

break into american tv i feel like getting an nomination and being in lockdown in melbourne is right it feels close to a surrealist dream yeah well wait wait till this wait till you do the ceremony on zoom the whole thing no i got an email asking like what would i be comfortable with just because i think they're planning like what are they going to do and it's so you know it'll be it'll be streamed i'm i in what context who knows but oh it's so sad you're gonna have to like who's gonna get you how are you gonna get a dress do i want to dress up i mean i think you should do it like this right now i'm not but i'm close enough i'm in my prison grays i've got my gray trackies and my gray do it like this i think it's the way to go and you should be eating i think so while you're waiting yeah to to see whether you want like uh a slurpee so like great really loud annoying yeah

food around my face i i'm i think you'll be nominated for another Emmy for your Emmy performance. Sure. And then maybe I'll get to go to the ceremony. Yeah. Well, but you're excited. Oh, yeah. How could you not be? Yeah.

Reading your name in a group of those women is like, oh, hello. Who else was it? I didn i didn't know who helena bonham carter um uh meryl streep wow yona shaw uh tanny newton oh yeah julia from ozark um garner um oh she's good yeah laura dern wow i mean jesus i have no right to be in that group he's just making these names up he just i'm just listing just the best people in the world like yeah but they can't all be in one category like yeah that's exciting yeah that'll be exciting to see you all in little squares in your different environments yeah we get to see into people's homes i don't know how they're getting i don't know what the plan is maybe they'll give everybody a backdrop and stream they yeah like a camera crew could come

or they'll take you to because also we'll have just come out of lockdown maybe four days five days beforehand because our lockdown at the moment is is you can't have anyone to your house. You can't go anywhere. You can't have anyone over. And that lasts until September 13, I think. We've got another six weeks. Really? And so that September 20 is...

How bad was the fucking outbreak? Not that bad, comparatively. We were on 100 or so cases a day. And we went into the first lockdown end of July. And then they were getting 700 cases a day. And we went into the first lockdown at the end of July. And then they were getting 700 cases a day in Victoria. So they doubled down on that and said you can't leave your house at all. Except for an hour of exercise or if you have to go to work elsewhere or study. And so now about six weeks is until the 13th, I think, of September.

So it's not out of control. They're just doing the right thing. They're just trying to do the right thing. It's compulsory to wear masks, and everyone does, which is nice. There's a few people who tried to make it political and against freedom. Yeah, you've got some dummies there too. We do. Yeah.

We do. But for the most part, people are wearing. I just don't understand. Because I sneezed twice and was like, what if I kill somebody? It's not like I'm afraid of other people. Right. I'm afraid of hurting somebody else. Sure, yeah.

So if, why would you not wear a mask if it could be possible? Oh, because those people are selfish monsters. Yeah. And they can't think that way. I don't understand, yeah. There's a problem. It's like you try to be empathetic and you realize like i'm hitting a wall here because i i don't understand the humanity of what you're fucking doing yeah i but it's a very

individualist kind of approach and i i just really don't get on board with that for humanity yeah well yeah someday you'll have to play you're gonna have to play a mask protester and find the heart in there yeah that could be fun yeah i think it's interesting i don't understand them so did you eat breakfast what happens now you're up it's early ate breakfast. I ate leftovers for breakfast. That's good. I roasted some eggplant and roasted some capsicum and then put it on toast with an egg this morning. I was very impressed with myself. Wow.

You roasted the eggplant last night? Mm-hmm. Oh, that's nice. And ate it last night with the capsicum last night. Oh, red pepper. Red pepper, yeah. And then had it on toast with an egg. Eggplant's tricky, man.

No, I always thought eggplant was tricky too. It's not. Just cut it up, two centimeter rounds in the oven at 220 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is Fahrenheit. 35 minutes. Salt. Bit of oil on top. That's it.

That's it. The little eggplant or the big eggplant? That size. Big. Okay. Is that regular? bit of oil on top that's it huh that's it yeah the little eggplant of the big eggplant okay okay it didn't get tight and spongy and like all right okay okay soft and yummy yeah okay you believe me i'd like to have how many times have you done it? This is like my fourth, fifth. I'm just sharing it because I'm not a cook and I've really learned to cook this year because of this pandemic. I've never been interested. It's always kind of bored me. Cooking for myself, you know, whatever. Or I'd be cooking for other people and I'd get too adventurous

and put way too many things in and it would taste like shit. But now for some reason I have time to fail. I have tried and I'm finding ways to feed myself. Well, it's only four times. Oh, good. You're feeding yourself like an adult. Well, I'm very proud of you. Good for you.

Thank you. Thanks. I'm drinking like an adult and feeding like an adult. Well, good for you. it's about time we've all been waiting well well good luck with the uh break a leg hope you win an emmy i'm very happy we talked i love the show i love your work it was great getting to know you yeah thank you maybe i'll see you in real life someday yeah that, that'd be great. All right, take it easy. You too.

Well, that was very enjoyable. What a sweet person. I'd like to meet her in person. Both seasons of Succession are streaming on HBO Max and HBO On Demand. She's also in the HBO Max original movie An American Pickle with Seth Rogen, who I think is back on good terms with the world's Jews. And now I will play guitar for you. As usual. Thank you. Boomer! Monkey!

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