‘Succession’ Star Unpacks That “Dangerous and Terrifying” Final Season Power Grab
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(This story contains spoilers from the second episode of Succession‘s fourth season, “Rehearsal.”)
First, they stole their father’s birthday present. Now, they’re after his birthday future. Following the final Succession season premiere‘s tense bidding war for Pierce Global Media, the second episode sees the siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) once again conspiring against Logan (Brian Cox) with a particularly cutting scheme: Voting against the upcoming sale of the family business and forcing their dad into a groveling position against purchaser Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard).
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It’s a big thorn in Logan’s paw, so wounding that he debases himself with an impromptu appearance at eldest son Connor’s (Alan Ruck) equally improvised karaoke bachelor party. Alas, Logan doesn’t quite sing for his supper, but he makes a pained case to his children to back down — a case that comes as way too little, way too late for Kendall and Shiv, but seemingly lands with Roman, ready to return to his father’s side by the episode’s end.
Present for all of this: Logan’s friend/assistant/adviser Kerry Castellabate, played by Zoë Winters. The multihyphenate (who is also all but certainly Logan’s lover) spends the episode making a play for yet another title: news anchor. The episode reveals the very ambitious Kerry’s very ambitious designs on a top job at American Television Network, complete with a test reel that’s little more than a formality. At least, that’s how Kerry views it. Logan sees things differently, clearly keyed in on Kerry’s lack of talent for the job, let alone her lack of qualifications.
In an effort to refuse Kerry the job without getting his hands dirty, Logan tasks Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) with breaking the news, who in turn passes the baton to Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun). Kerry quickly sees Logan’s directives coming out of Cousin Greg’s clumsy mouth, but before she can act on her fury, she’s tasked with helping Logan through the latest crisis with his kids. For their part, the kids see Logan’s cowardice toward Kerry as well, and call it out in kind. By the end of the episode, Logan likely regains Roman’s loyalty, but also loses faith from Kerry — some faith, anyway. As Winters tells The Hollywood Reporter, Kerry isn’t the type to go down without a fight.
Ahead, THR speaks with Winters about the mysterious Kerry’s rise to power, her ambitions at ATN and much more.
Kerry is a very powerful figure, so much so that she often stands toe-to-toe with Logan and speaks to others with his voice. Where does that power come from?
Kerry has witnessed in Logan how he, in her eyes, has become a winner. I think she’s adopted some of that behavior and that approach. As Logan says, “It’s a killer world. You have to be a killer to succeed.” I think Kerry strongly believes in that. So much of the culture of these media conglomerates is about fandom. There’s this obsessive fandom of who is at the top and how are they winning. I think she’s a huge fan of his and mimics a lot of his approach, and is hugely ambitious. She has gone for it. Even in moments where it maybe felt like a risk, she’s chosen the path of having a point of view and speaking her mind.
When I first auditioned, Kerry had these lines in season two to Shiv … it was a very small part, but [the lines] were around delivering some news. But I did it with a lot of attitude. The way I would approach being an assistant would be to do the job and not get in the way. So I wanted to choose a version that isn’t that. What if she’s an assistant who decides to get in the way?
How much of Kerry’s backstory did you invent versus what was given to you by Jesse Armstrong and the writers?
We definitely had discussions, and I spoke with [director and executive producer] Mark Mylod a lot as well about who she is. I’m a bit of a workaholic, so I have a 500-page Word doc on Kerry. Last year, it was 400. I was speaking with a castmate, and I told them about it, and they said, “… but you don’t have any lines?”
Savage!
It was all in jest and fun. (Laughs.) But I do a ton of backstory. I’m a person of the theater, and I believe in developing a really rich history so that when you show up, you can come with your full story.
When we were shooting the phone call scene in episode one, and Kerry is trying to get the kids to call their dad for his birthday, Mark Mylod pulled me aside and said, “Let’s talk about Kerry.” We spoke for a half an hour about the fact that she was a double-major in political science and journalism, and about her family, and blah, blah, blah … then we shot the scene with the phone call, and it’s like four lines or something, and I asked Mark, “Did you feel all of that [backstory] in there?” So, I’ve developed a rich history for her.
They have given me so much room to flex and play. They’ve given me such an incredible arc. I’ve had many conversations around her journey and her relationships with people. But I’ve also done a lot of creating with who she is and what’s her spine. My big thing was, I wanted her to be something of a bad assistant.
Kerry’s ATN ambitions are revealed in this episode. I was going to ask if this turn was surprising to you, but considering what you said about her political science and journalism background …
Yeah, I think she’s always had political motivations. I didn’t find it surprising that she’d want to be a political commentator.
She has big opinions about the presidency in season three’s “What It Takes.”
Exactly. In season three, you see her pushing Logan toward a fascist alt-right candidate, so she obviously has political leanings that are dangerous and terrifying, and she’s not afraid of exposing that. But I think Kerry is hugely ambitious. I think what she wants, more than money, more than anything, is power. There’s this huge sale going on of WayStar, but they’ve done this carveout of ATN. What she’s been promised is this position. I think the audition was just a formality, in her opinion. She wants a voice during this crucial and seminal election. She wants a platform on the international stage while this highly contested election is happening. She thinks it will bring her a lot of power. She’s always had those leanings and ambitions.
Let’s talk about Kerry’s reel, which must have been fun to film, since you have to act bad on purpose to some extent, right?
… what do you mean?
Um …
I’m kidding, I’m kidding!
Cousin Greg? Can you get in here and finish the interview?
(Laughs.) It’s fun, because you want it to be bad, but you don’t want it to be so bad … I mean, it is bad, but you want her to get through it. You don’t want to be commenting on the joke. You want to be inside of it.
Right, because it’s definitely not a joke to her.
No. I think she’s aware that she’s not comfortable, but I don’t think she thinks she’s as bad at it as she is. She has enough ego where she thinks, “OK, let’s get this chore out of the way.” She sees it as a chore because she doesn’t want it to look like a nepotism grab, even though she really thinks, “This is mine, I’m going to take over, and I’m going to be excellent.”
Prepping for it, I watched a lot of Laura Ingraham, Tomi Lahren, and a number of conservative political commentators. But I also wanted Kerry to have her own version of it. My in for it was, I think women have this pressure to have charm, and that’s magnified on television. So you see these political presenters and commentators with charm, and I think what we’re witnessing here, and what I appreciate about Kerry is, that she’s not interested in charm. Instead, she’s wrestling with presenting what her idea of charm looks like, and failing and having it be uncomfortable. Her hair is teased out, she’s in this bubblegum pink dress, she’s on this platform, she probably used whitening strips that morning, and everything on the outside is telling her to be this thing that she inherently is not.
I’m a theater nerd, so I think about Nina in Chekov’s The Seagull, and when she realizes she’s a bad actor, she says, “I didn’t know what to do with my hands.” There’s a lot there with Kerry not knowing what to do with her hands. To be nicer to TV reporters, so much of this is about connecting with your audience, and I don’t think Kerry knows how to connect with many people. I don’t think she’s interested in it.
Well, she’s connected with Logan, but we get to the scene at the karaoke bar where the children welcome her into the “You Got Effed by Logan Roy” club. By the time Kerry and Logan leave, you can really see the relationship has changed on her side of things.
Definitely, that’s what I was going for during his incredible speech while they’re walking down the alleyway. What’s going on for her there is she knows she’s been screwed, and now there’s a distance.
Did she enter the karaoke bar knowing what happened, or did the kids give her a wake-up call?
I think she knew it when she spoke with Cousin Greg, whom she doesn’t see as having power. So that means it’s coming from Tom, and Tom is too smart to do something that would put him at odds with Logan. So, that leaves Logan. I think she’s on the defensive in that scene with Greg, but on the inside, it’s hugely embarrassing and she feels disgrace. From that scene, she walks directly into the office she knows Logan is in. I think that on that walk, which we don’t see, she’s putting the pieces together. When she walks into that room, her momentum of rage and disgrace is hijacked by this greater problem that the kids are going to vote “no” on the sale and change the trajectory of the vote. So she doesn’t get to unpack it with Logan in any way. I’m not sure that she would. But that moment is ended because something more severe enters the room.
When they go to karaoke [to confront Kendall, Shiv and Roman], I think it’s her idea to take the softer approach with the kids. Her wheels are still spinning. She can’t say, “Screw you!” She can’t get angry at him. She still needs him. And I don’t think she’s someone who gives up, either, in the same way that Logan doesn’t give up. I don’t think she takes defeat. So I think she still feels like she has a way out of this.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
New episodes of Succession release Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max. Follow along with THR‘s Succession final season coverage.
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