Succession's Sarah Snook Says Shiv Roy Doesn't Need to "Lean In"
On more than one occasion, Sarah Snook has mentioned that all of Succession's actors have something in common with their characters. So just what is it that Snook shares with Shiv Roy, the scheming, self-assured daughter of a Rupert Murdoch-esque plutocrat?
"I feel like I've always grown up pretty confident around guys," the actress muses, in her native Australian accent. "So, I think [Shiv's] ease in the very masculine world of politics, and business. I think maybe that's something that's similar to me."
Shiv is definitely confident around guys. She's the lone woman swimming in Succession's stew of toxic masculinity, but her words are as barbed and her sense of humor as dark as the rest of them. As Snook explains, Shiv's no girlboss, couching her ambition in pastel skirts and cutesy, color-coded notebooks. She's a boss.
Even in her marriage with the less high-born Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), Shiv doesn't bother to feign equality. The lone Roy daughter prefers to keep him begging for scraps while she sits at the table, surveying a map and plotting her next move. And viewers can't help but root for her to make the right one.
Here, Sarah Snook reveals what she thinks is so magnetizing about her Succession alter ego, what Shiv would think about Lean In, and what it's like to be an Australian on a show about America's near-apocalyptic media landscape.
Why do you think Shiv's become such a fan-favorite?
She is a bit of a boss-lady. Yeah. Although, I feel like that's maybe undercutting it. You shouldn't have to add "lady" to the word "boss," you know? She's just a bit of a boss.
Were there any particular businesswomen who inspired your take on Shiv?
I read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In and all that stuff, just to get the psychology. Because if you were a woman in business, you would've read that. Parts of it you can take and parts of it you can leave; but trying to read it as research, I think that's interesting.
Do you think Shiv would be a proponent of Lean In?
She definitely would be, but I also feel like she kind of writes her own rules.
She doesn't really need to lean on anyone.
The thing that I find most fascinating about Shiv—and maybe this is the thing that's attractive about her to audiences—is how wealth affords her no glass ceiling in a way... She can be fired from her job or she can go out on risky ventures. She can just sort of sidestep to the next project or sidestep to the next thing.
Within the nucleus of the family, there's a lot of vulnerability and feelings of lack of self-worth, because she's seeking the approval of their father. But I think in the broader community, she's able to be quite confident. If you're being treated as powerful, you sort of feel powerful I think.
I read that Shiv's character description mentioned Ivanka Trump. Did you look into her at all?
No. When I saw, "Think Ivanka Trump," I was like, "well I'm not getting this role, obviously, because I'm so not that. I'm just going to do my version of the character because I'm not going to get this role anyways, so ugh." And that ended up working unexpectedly in my favor.
Was there anything that you learned from the show's wealth consultant that helped you portray Shiv?
This is a generalization, but I think just your manners, your pleases and thank yous—there's sort of an entitlement. You respect people who work for you, but you think, "Well, they've got a job. I don't need to be friends with them." There's a distance between those who have power and money and those who don't. And there's not an inclination to bridge that gap.
I read that you told Succession's showrunner, Jesse Armstrong, that you wanted Shiv to take over the company. Do you think that inspired any of the second season's plot lines?
No. [Laughs.] In the first season. I said, "Well, obviously Shiv wants to take over the company." And [Jesse] was like, "No, I don't think so." And that really threw me for a loop. It's like, "ah, shit. I've been thinking of this completely differently." So yeah, I reassessed.
But I think it's something that the siblings, the Roy siblings, they can't help but want to be a part of this company. They've grown up in it. It's their dad's favorite focus.
This season seems a lot more topical than the first. As an Australian, what's it like being in a show about the dumpster fire that is American media and politics right now?
It's very interesting. It's very interesting. One of my favorite things is with ATN [the Roy family's] TV network, it plays in the background in some scenes so they have to create the footage. They'll be like the running headlines underneath as if it was CNN, Fox News.
One of the running headlines was, "New breed of super-migrant, hungrier and faster crossing borders with..." Basically, this massive fear-mongering about a breed of super-migrant that was hungrier and leaner, and so they were easily able to run across borders. I just thought that was so perfectly pitched, because it's so preposterous—and yet, maybe the right time and in the right sort of news article, people might believe it.
Do you think your family and friends back home see the show differently than people in America do?
Yes and no. I grew up with a lot of American TV. I think that the American media and the political landscape is pretty familiar to us in Australia as well. It's just as interesting, but with a feeling like, "Well, at least it sounds like it's not happening on our own doorstep." But truly, Australia is just as bad in a lot of ways.
A lot of it is definitely universal. I mean, Tom and Shiv's relationship would be fascinating to anyone. On the one hand, I feel like I almost get it, and on the other, I can't understand how Shiv treats him.
[Laughs.] It's probably because you're a nicer person than she is. I think she's grown up with a terrible blueprint of what relationships are. They are transactional—that's her experience of what her father's and mother's relationship was. I think for her cheating is a mode of keeping Tom at arm's length and not letting him in to a space where she's out of control, or vulnerable, which is kind of sad. That's probably what would make him happiest, is just to be the two of them, but it's what scares the shit out of her.
Do you think she knows how crazy Tom can be? Like how he treats Greg?
I think she would've seen that in their early courtship and dating. She would've have seen the kind of killer that that he can be. And we realized this during the season. You know, oftentimes the bullied becomes the bully. And I think Shiv is the bully to Tom, and then Tom takes that out on Greg, then Logan is the bully to Shiv really. It's just a terrible cycle.
But you know I think she knows he's not an idiot, even though he does present as one a lot. He's also just a very safe bet. She's the most interesting person that he's ever going to find. She knows that he's a little bit mercenary in that sort of ugly pursuit of wealth way, and she's rich.
You mentioned that you and Nicholas Braun, the actor who plays Greg, are both into photography. Do you ever take pictures together, around the set?
Yeah, we do. We have done little photo adventures. I like the peace of having a camera with me, and how it turns your attention to things that you're seeing. How your brain processes that information differently than how it might look in a lens or in a frame, what it is about a moment you might be trying to capture, or what is sort of the truth of an object or images.
Do you find your industry's expectation to be active on social media to be hard?
I find that really difficult. It really makes me uncomfortable, this whole idea about people who get hired on the basis of how many followers they have on Instagram, rather than the contribution they could make through their intellect or intelligent understanding of a character or a situation. That just makes me feel like we value extroverts and a hustle more than we value actually insight into a human being.
But I mean I'm on it. And I enjoy it, and I look at other people's Instagrams. And I have no sort of judgment on them for how they use it at all. I just wish I could not overthink it as much as I do.
Styling by Sarah Conly, Produced by David Murphy, Hair for Sarah Snook by Mary Guthrie, Grooming for Matthew Macfadyen by Nina Soriano. On Snook: Dress, Bernadette at www.mytheresa.com. Shoes, Aquazzura. Sunglasses, Boucheron. Hat, Rachel Trevor-Morgan. Gloves, Wing + Weft. Necklace, Gucci. Earrings, Of Rare Origin. Pearl earrings, Lele Sadoughi. On Macfadyen: Blazer and pants, Todd Snyder. Shirt, Scotch & Soda. Shoes, Florsheim. Pocket square, Armani. Bowtie, Brackish. Pin, Of Rare Origin.
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