SPOILER ALERT: This interview discusses the gargantuan plot developments in “Kill List,” Season 4, Episode 5 of “Succession,” now airing on HBO Max.
Kieran Culkin hasn’t watched this week’s episode of “Succession” yet because he travels and doesn’t like to watch things on his laptop. After wrapping filming just six weeks ago and with upcoming episodes still in post-production, Culkin doesn’t even know how the captivating tale of this family dynasty will end.
The April 23 episode “Kill List” was written by Jon Brown and Ted Cohen and directed by Emmy winner Andrij Parekh (for Season 2, Episode 3, “Hunting,” aka the episode “Boar on the ground”), featured one of Roman’s most emotional scenes in the four seasons of “Succession”. During his tension-filled 60 minutes, Culkin showcased his dramatic acting abilities in a heated exchange with streaming media giant CEO Lukas Matsson (exquisitely played by Alexander Skarsgård). In the scene at the top of the Norwegian mountains, Matsson insults Roman and Kendall (Jeremy Strong), the new co-CEOs of Waystar Royco, as they try to “Scooby Doo” get them out of the GoJo business that the board desperately covets. .
After GoJo’s big boss tarnishes the name of patriarch Roy Logan (Brian Cox), grief has been building inside Roman since the death of his father. very the recent death comes to a head: he confronts Matsson, telling him that they will never sell him their media empire. (At the end of the episode, however, Matsson gets the upper hand – for now.)
The day after “Kill List” aired, Culkin spoke with Variety about filming this week’s episode, what happened to the kid Roman appeared to have in the “Succession” series premiere, and his plans to run for lead dramatic actor for this year’s Primetime Emmys.
Are you sad that “Succession” is ending?
It’s all kinds of feelings, but I haven’t processed them yet. We just wrapped filming six weeks ago, and there’s been a lot of press since, and Jesse Armstrong is still editing. We always seem to get there. Jesse told us at the start of the season that he thought it was the last. And then he explained the whole season to me. When he finished, I said, “Well, that sounds like the end,” and he said, “Well, that might be, but…” and then he just spat out three ideas that he thought , were right over his head, and they were all brilliant ideas for a fifth season. He had said something to the effect that “Succession” has a question that demands an answer. And at the end of the season, he gave them the answer.
It wasn’t until we read the last episode’s chart that he told us it was ending. As Jesse was telling us about it, and some people were crying in the room, he said, “But it was a wonderful experience. And, you know, and I think that’s how it’s got to end – unless maybe there’s a way forward. He did this after we finally absorbed the information. Then he pulls it back and says, “Maybe there’s a reality where it could be – oh, maybe never mind. I don’t want to deprive you of your goodbyes.
It probably would have been great if we did another one, but maybe not. I don’t know. All I knew was that I could trust Jesse Armstrong to make that call.
HBO Estate S4
Graeme Hunter
How did you prepare for this moving scene with Alexander Skarsgård on top of a mountain?
People won’t know, but I sat on the counter before we sat down for this interview, and you were like, “Oh, that’s like in the scene.” And I thought, “Oh, they used that take.”
I didn’t plan that [jumping on the wall]. Maybe some outlets weren’t working. It wasn’t about threatening him or trying to make him feel threatened. It was more that he was unbalanced. And I didn’t know what I was going to do. It was harder to get him to listen to me, until I could face him – he’s gargantuan.
One take they didn’t use is that there’s one where Lukas goes to pee on the rock. He’s got this little pouch for the fake pee, and on one of the last takes I went up and just unzipped and tried to pee next to him, which wasn’t in the script . I couldn’t urinate, and then I remembered that it had been established that Roman couldn’t urinate in front of other men. So I just started to pee next to him, and while I was peeing, I started to walk into the scene, and he had this little smirk, the full Matsson smirk.
Do you think people think what you’re doing with Roman is easy because he’s sarcastic and has a lot of one-line zingers?
Brian Cox said things like, “People don’t understand. They think we are circus monkeys.
They don’t realize the hard work that goes into this thing. There’s some internal stuff. People think, “Something sarcastic, and be funny.” Roman has trouble communicating. It’s his way of expressing his discomfort.
At the end of Episode 3, after Shiv left and Kendall saw Dad get off the plane, it was originally written that Roman was saying, “I can’t go on. I won’t get on that plane. I can not do it. And he asks Kendall, “You gonna do it?” He says he is, then I get in the car and leave. I ran into Jesse after this draft came out. I said I felt like I couldn’t leave. For some reason, I think in my gut that he needs to see it.
So Jesse let me shoot two versions of it. It was such an important thing, to be able to speak for my character. It seemed small, but they were willing to do it for me.
As we head into the finale, I have a question about your wife and child that we saw in the pilot episode. Where are they?
Not his child. Not his wife either. It was in the pilot, and after he got picked up, it was his girlfriend, and she had a kid. I wear my real wedding ring in the episode. I was excited to have a child, and the child was around 7 or 8 years old. It was a little disappointing, but I think the idea was that it would just give them more freedom to play with the character.
They had talked to me, before we even shot the pilot, wondering what Roman’s sexuality is – and we don’t know what it is. But it put something in my brain, and I was like, “OK, but I’m married and I have children?” They were toying with the idea that she’s aware that you have some sort of sexual complex when it comes to monogamy, and that might be more fluid, but we don’t know what that is yet.
Is it true you auditioned for Cousin Greg?
No, they sent me to read for Greg, and I knew I wasn’t Greg. I read the first item and I knew it wasn’t me. What’s funny about this is that I thought the writing was pretty good on 10 pages and I kept reading, which I don’t normally do. Then Roman’s character comes in and says, “Hey, hey, motherfuckers,” and then I was like, he’s fun and I kept reading.
And then I said, “I’m wrong about Greg, so it’s a pass, but I don’t want to pass.” Can I read for Roman? The answer I got was that they weren’t reading for Roman yet. And I said, “Can I still do it?” My agent at the time was like, yeah, go ahead, play along. So I picked three scenes, recorded myself, and sent it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.