J. Smith-Cameron thinks it's 'too bad' Gerri didn't join Roman for a drink at end of Succession finale
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Succession series finale.
At the end of Sunday's Succession series finale the Roy siblings lost control of Waystar Royco and Kieran Culkin's Roman hit a New York bar to drown his sorrows or maybe celebrate his freedom from corporate life. Roman ordered a Martini, the drink favored by Gerri Kellman, the company's general counsel with whom Roman had engaged in a long flirtation and then fired. For a split second, it seemed possible that the Roman might be joined at the bar by Gerri (who had just been rehired by Matthew Macfadyen's freshly-installed Waystar Royco CEO Tom Wambsgans), even if such a happy-ish conclusion seemed off-brand for Succession.
"That would be very off-brand for Jesse Armstrong," says J. Smith-Cameron, who played Gerri on the show. "Yeah, I know. Too bad! I could see maybe down the road those two having a drink together, now that that dynamic has rearranged, and Gerri has the upper hand. I think she could stomach it."
Paul Morigi/Getty J. Smith-Cameron
Below, Smith-Cameron talks more about the finale, Gerri's future at Waystar Royco, and whether Roman and her character could ever have a romantic relationship.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What have the last couple of days been like for you, since the finale aired?
J. SMITH-CAMERON: It's been a bitter sweet feeling. I think it's turned out so so well, the whole project in the aggregate. You know, [it was] such a fun project, and it was so meaty, so substantial. It feels sad for it to be over. It's a mixed feeling. I also feel a little worn out, because it's been an emotional rollercoaster, and I think I need a little distance on it before I can really feel 100 percent good about it.
Gerri appears in this sort-of flashback scene along with Logan and Connor and some of the other characters, which the kids watch on TV. Could you talk about shooting that?
Yeah, that was sort of added later. We shot it as part of the last episode. It was just meant to look like a flashback. I thought it was so cool, because it was something that we'd never seen, that flavor of them sitting around long after dinner, plates had been cleared, and they'd sent the staff home. We always saw high-conflict scenes, right? It was just nice to see them relate that way. It can't be the long past, because Kerry is there, but you get the feeling with Connor, Carl, Frank, and Gerri, they've had a lot of these over the years, that maybe after a deal's gone through, or something, [they would] stay up late into the night joking, and we never ever got to see that color before.
What do you remember about shooting the climactic scenes in the Waystar Royco offices, where first Gerri's presence freaks out Roman and then later Tom indicates he's rehiring your character?
The scene with Roman, we were quite distanced from one another. The camera was close in on Kieran, I couldn't exactly see what his expression exactly was. I saw him stare at me, and I gave him a look back, but I have to go back and look at that scene and see what remains of that. Again, that episode was so chock-full. I've heard that the first assembly, which they knew was long, was like two-and-a-half hours, so they had to cut like, an hour's worth of material out. There were little scenes here and there for everybody that didn't make it. Tom and I, there was one little scene we shot, that was in the script, where he kind of asks me if he could coax me back, and I say something along the lines of, "Yes, for extravagant amounts of money, sure." Then we did one take that Mark Mylod (finale director) had us turning, kind of linking arms, and walking down the hallway, like Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca, when they say, "This is the start of a beautiful friendship."
Tom has that chilling line where he says that Gerri is "not afraid of the dark." What do you make of that?
Fabulous line. Oh, I think it's a great line. I feel like that goes back to the very first episode I was in where Kieran calls me a "stone-cold killer bitch." I feel what it really means is that she's a grown-up, so grown-ups aren't afraid of the dark, little kids are, but I think it also means she's not afraid of the dark side, that she's got a cold mercenary objectivity about her that he could use.
Do you think Gerri could still become CEO of Waystar Royco?
I don't think Gerri wants to become CEO of Waystar. I think Gerri likes making pots of money and calling the shots from the back seat.
Does Gerri get her severance and her job back?
Ooh! That's a very good question. I feel like she still could sue Roman personally. I don't know, I'm going to ask somebody about that. Gerri would know the answer. She would go for it, if it was in her best interest. If it's in her best interest to drop it, she would drop it.
Peter Kramer/HBO Kieran Culkin and J. Smith-Cameron in 'Succession'
Could you imagine Gerri and Roman having a romantic relationship?
I don't know. I feel Roman really considered it a romantic relationship, but I'm not sure that Jesse ever did, and I don't know what Gerri [thought]. I feel she humored him, because there was maybe something flattering about being desired that way, but also there was something useful about having a Roy in your back pocket. But I do think that over time Roman really got under her skin and she had a real true affection for him. That's why it hurt so bad to feel betrayed with the horrible horrible firing scene in season 4. That felt so scary and dangerous when we acted that.
Have we see the last of Gerri? Could you see yourself reprising the role in some fashion down the road?
I would be so happy if that came to pass but that's not for me to say. [Laughs] I mean, it's not for me to decide that. Jesse [said] the title of the piece is Succession, and the succession part of the story can only be stretched so far, and I think we all agree to that. But the Waystar/ATN world of the show is so pertinent, and so in the headlines right now today. I feel it could be a show with the focus not on who was going to take Logan's place but on to the fascist president and the Elon Musk-Waystar that was still such a reflection of what is going on right now. If there was such a show, and Gerri had a place in it, I would be overjoyed, but I'm not expecting it.
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