Sarah Snook Insisted on ‘Succession’ Fight Rehearsal: ‘I’m Not Going to Keep My Mouth Shut When I’m Pregnant’

The messy showdown in the series finale of “Succession” between the Roy siblings as they jockeyed for the final grab of power over their late father’s empire was almost even more physical.

In a new interview with Variety, Sarah Snook (Shiv Roy) talked about how the boardroom fight scene involving Shiv, Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Kendall (Jeremy Strong) was scripted a bit differently. Method actor Strong also originally did not want to rehearse the scene at all. (He was, after all, known for this terrifying improv on the series.) However, due to Snook’s pregnancy at the time, rehearsal was integrated and the physical aspects of the fracas were toned down.

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“Originally, it was meant to be more between Shiv and Kendall who are fighting — potentially pulling a phone out, and throwing it at Kendall, and having it escalate like that. We had a choreography rehearsal between Jeremy and I,” Snook said. “And then on the day, I felt good about being able to advocate for myself, going, ‘Let’s just remember this is a fight scene that we haven’t really properly rehearsed that we’re sort of feeling out with a pregnant woman.’ I feel safe, but Jeremy doesn’t like to rehearse, and I’m going to respect that to a point — but I’m not going to keep my mouth shut when I’m pregnant and we’re going into a fight scene.”

Snook’s pregnancy also brought more realism to the scene after all, according to the actor. “But what ended up happening, which was far more honest and realistic to the scene, is that when Shiv goes to leave, Jeremy grabs my hand. Up until that point we’d rehearsed — but the instinct from Kieran as Kieran as much as it was from Roman is like, ‘Get your fucking hands off her. She’s pregnant!’ And then leaps on him. And so it really made sense, so much more sense, that she would just be like, ‘Whoa — it is just boys, like wrestling boys. This is again, childhood.’ So it ended up being fine in terms of my safety, and much better in terms of the scene.”

There were also more takes of the scene in which Roman and Kendall were shown beating each other up on the floor. “It was sort of perfect, because they wrestled themselves onto the floor, and it’s just like, ‘What are you doing? You can’t be CEO. Look at you! You are on the floor wrestling with your brother. I’m going to go back in and say no. And I feel very confident about that now.’ It was great,” she said.

Snook is currently nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys.

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