The cast of Succession came together for the 2024 Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, January 7.
Succession earned nine nominations at the awards ceremony, including Best Television Series – Drama. The cast dominated the acting categories, with nods for Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series – Drama, Sarah Snook for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series – Drama, Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen and Alexander Skarsgård for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role on Television and J. Smith-Cameron for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role on Television.
The series, which followed the Roy family amid their fight for control of their media company, ran on HBO for four seasons from June 2018 to May 2023. Cox starred as the patriarch, Logan Roy, while Ruck, Strong, Culkin and Snook played his children, Connor, Kendall, Roman and Shiv, respectively.
Fans were shocked when Logan died three episodes into the show’s final season, but the twist set up a satisfying conclusion.
“[Creator Jesse Armstrong] called me, and he said, ‘Logan’s going to die,’” Cox told The New York Times in April 2023 of his character’s demise. “And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s fine.’ I thought he would die in about episode seven or eight, but episode three, I thought, ‘Well, that’s a bit early.’”
Despite Cox’s hesitance over the timing of Logan’s death, he agreed with Armstrong’s decision to end the series while viewers were still hooked.
“The problem with a lot of television, particularly American television, is it goes past its sell-by date,” he explained. “And the great thing about Jesse and the writers is they wouldn’t do that. Always leave the party when it’s at its height, not when it’s going down.”
The series finale saw Kendall losing out on his chance to run his late father’s company. Strong revealed in May 2023 that he campaigned for an even darker ending for his character.
“I tried to go into the water after we cut — I got up from that bench and went as fast as I could over the barrier and onto the pilings, and the actor playing Colin [Scott Nicholson] raced over. I didn’t know I was gonna do that, and he didn’t know, but he raced over and stopped me,” he told Vanity Fair at the time. “I don’t know whether in that moment I felt that Kendall just wanted to die — I think he did — or if he wanted to be saved by essentially a proxy of his father.”
Although Strong believed his character could be suicidal in the show’s final moments, he recognized the importance of keeping Armstrong’s original idea intact as Kendall hopelessly stared out at the water without taking action.
“I also don’t know if [Kendall] would’ve had the courage to actually go in that water, because my God, it would’ve been hard to do. But I think you even feel on a cellular level the intention or the longing to cross that threshold,” he said. “The way [Armstrong] leaves us with a kind of ambivalence stays true to his vision.”
