One of the most tense scenes from Succession's final season is a blowout argument between characters Shiv and Tom on the balcony of their high-rise apartment during a party. Actor Sarah Snook breaks down shooting the difficult scene outside on a cold night, revealing her pregnancy to the cast and crew, and how she had fun arguing with scene partner Matthew Macfadyen. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, along with Director of Photography John Paino and editor Ken Eluto give insight into how the actors' performances made this challenging shoot seem so effortless.
Variety Making a Scene presented by HBO
Variety Making a Scene presented by HBO
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00 I have given you endless approval and it doesn't fill you up because you're broken.
00:05 I don't like you.
00:09 It's really, really freaking cold on the top floor of a triplex in downtown Manhattan.
00:14 And as Matthew would yell, "You're going to send me to prison, Shiv!"
00:17 I could hear like, "Shiv, Shiv, Shiv, Shiv!"
00:20 Bouncing off the walls of all the buildings around, which made me laugh
00:23 because I thought if anyone actually could hear us arguing, that they actually
00:26 think that this husband's wife sent him to prison.
00:28 The difficulty of that scene is I used a lot of practicals.
00:31 I let the practicals be the main light.
00:33 It really was just as exciting to watch it, to film it, to edit
00:38 it as it was to first read it.
00:40 I mean, it really was a beautifully realized moment, I think, in this show.
00:45 My name is Ken Aluto.
00:56 I'm one of the editors on Succession.
00:58 My name is Patrick Capone.
00:59 I'm the director of photography on Succession.
01:02 I'm Robert Polcini.
01:03 I'm the co-director of the episode, "Tailgate Party," Succession.
01:07 And I'm Shari Springer-Berman.
01:09 I'm also co-director, and this is Variety's "Making a Scene."
01:13 I wonder if we shouldn't clear the air.
01:15 Yeah?
01:16 Yeah.
01:16 I'm sure.
01:17 Well, the first time we read the script, this big moment wasn't in the script.
01:21 It went through a few iterations.
01:23 And when this scene finally arrived, Shari and I were just overjoyed
01:27 because the writing was so unique for Succession because Succession
01:32 is so much about subtext.
01:33 It's not really about direct confrontation.
01:36 These two people dance around so many things and to have something so
01:40 confrontational with these two was just such a gift.
01:44 I think you shouldn't have even married me, actually.
01:48 What the fuck?
01:48 Yeah.
01:49 What the actual fuck?
01:50 This fight was a long time coming for Chev and Tom to have finally an
01:54 explosive moment to really say what they thought about each other and also
01:58 to express their deepest, rawest, most vulnerable emotions.
02:02 The first thing I said to everybody is, "This is who's afraid of Virginia Woolf.
02:07 This is Georgia and Martha."
02:09 And I think that kind of was the thing that was going on in our head as we were
02:13 thinking about how to shoot it, where to shoot it, and how to proceed with it.
02:17 It's supposed to be my lowest fucking ebb.
02:19 My dad was dying.
02:21 What was I supposed to say?
02:22 Perhaps no.
02:23 I don't want to hurt your feelings.
02:24 Oh, thanks.
02:25 Thanks for that.
02:26 We were doing night shoots, maybe for four days straight.
02:29 We had to shoot at night.
02:30 We had to shoot over the course of at least a week and we
02:35 needed it to feel very fluid.
02:37 So if somebody walked out of the room and went onto the balcony, we had to
02:40 remember where everyone was so that when we came back the next day, it made sense.
02:45 We didn't want it to be a big cutaway mess.
02:47 And we drew diagrams of where people encounter each other and what
02:51 conversations they would have so that by the time this huge explosive fight
02:56 happens, everybody's right where they should be.
02:59 But the actual filming of that language back and forth that the actors achieve
03:05 so brilliantly happened in one day, one night.
03:08 The night before, Matthew had learned his lines, but wanted to sort of just
03:11 practice them and I had not yet learned the fight scene, even though we were
03:15 shooting the next day, I hadn't had a chance.
03:17 And so what we did is every time we had a break between the scenes that we were
03:20 shooting the day before, just sort of kept running the lines and it was really fun.
03:25 It felt like rehearsing a play because we just go outside and yell at each other
03:28 and then come back in and pretend as if nothing had happened.
03:31 Yeah.
03:31 You really kept me safe while you ran off to fuck the phone book.
03:33 Oh, fuck off.
03:34 You're a heck.
03:35 We wanted it to be a fishbowl where the sound, when you see it from the inside,
03:41 looking out, you just see this argument going on and you don't really know what's
03:45 going on.
03:46 So that was a very purposeful choice by the directors.
03:50 We really pushed for this confrontation to occur on the balcony.
03:54 The way that balcony is kind of very narrow and runs the length of the entire
03:59 party, we thought would really be just an amazing place to stage the scene
04:04 because it was originally written in the kitchen.
04:05 We're a married couple, so we know a lot about fighting in different places.
04:10 And there's something about having that kind of an argument where there are
04:14 people watching, let alone in this case, the most influential people.
04:20 This is a small group of very important, influential people.
04:24 And to go to a place where you're fighting, even if they can't, people can't
04:28 hear you, they can see you.
04:29 They know your body language.
04:31 It means that that's a fight of some kind of epic, emotional proportions that you
04:37 wonder, can you come back from that?
04:39 Because your whole family is striving in parochial.
04:42 That's not, that's not a fair characterization.
04:46 Oh no?
04:46 Well, your mom loves me more than she loves you because she's cracked.
04:49 We cross shot, we often cross shoot, maybe two or three takes each side.
04:53 Well, one of the things that we are very proud of on Succession is we give our
04:58 actors as much freedom as we can.
05:00 We don't block it.
05:01 We really protect the performances.
05:03 And I always give them the ability to go wherever they want to go.
05:07 So having said that, I needed to light the entire balcony.
05:12 I also needed to light it in such a way that we can look into
05:16 the apartment and not see lights.
05:18 I'm very fortunate that I have a great team behind us and we work very fast and
05:23 we've learned to hide lights everywhere.
05:25 And then luckily we had access to the roof on top since this was the penthouse.
05:29 So we were able to create a little bit of a moonlight coming from up top.
05:34 I'm not sure if they use any of the cuts, but we did do several passes from inside
05:39 the apartment through people, and then you would see this argument going on outside.
05:43 There was some stuff from indoors, looking out of them on the patio.
05:48 And there were some shots of them, people looking in, watching them talk.
05:53 And initially I had done a pass where I use a piece of that, where Tom's talking
05:57 about, you're going to send me to prison.
05:59 Then he gave me that crappy wine, because it was really screaming at that point.
06:03 And it was kind of like in the middle of the scene.
06:04 So I cut inside, I kind of muted the sound a little bit, but you could see
06:08 people listening and watching them.
06:09 You know, we definitely tried a more like extreme cut and it felt like it let
06:15 the tension go a little bit.
06:16 It was almost funny, which was a tone you didn't want to introduce there because
06:22 it's almost funny, like, oh my God, like what the hell is going on out there?
06:27 And then you fogged me off with that fucking undrinkable wine and you won't
06:31 have my baby because you never even thought honestly, you'd be with me more
06:35 than like four fucking years.
06:36 You offered to go to jail, Tom!
06:38 That night was the first night that I told the broader sort of crew community
06:43 that I was pregnant, which was really fun to be like, oh, by the way, yeah, when
06:48 he says this line, it means something different to me as the actor right now.
06:51 At that point, we knew that Sarah Snook was pregnant, but we didn't know that
06:58 the character, that Shiv Roy was going to be pregnant in the show yet.
07:02 There was a, ooh, it would be cool if she was pregnant, but we hadn't, it hadn't
07:08 been written into the script yet.
07:10 At the time, Tom doesn't know that Shiv's pregnant.
07:13 There's so many different layers that are being dealt with that, yes, they're
07:16 being honest, but there's still things that they're not saying to each other.
07:19 And I think you are maybe not a good person to have children.
07:23 Well, that's not very nice to say, is it?
07:28 I found it really upsetting watching it.
07:30 I felt really sad for Shiv and how she couldn't have, you know, the dissolution
07:35 of her marriage and she just really has nobody and really felt genuinely that he
07:39 did take away the last six months she could have had with her dad and how
07:42 hurt they both were, I felt really sad for them.
07:45 You took away the last six months I could have had with my dad.
07:48 No.
07:49 Yes.
07:50 No.
07:50 Yes.
07:51 You sucked up to him and you cut me out.
07:53 Matthew and I are having a lot of fun.
07:55 Like, it's a game.
07:56 We're playing.
07:57 None of it's real.
07:58 You yell at each other and you get all upset and then you're like, ooh, spicy.
08:02 That's fun.
08:03 I should yell at you.
08:04 I like to, with actors, let them put it down.
08:09 Whatever way they're feeling and with these actors, it's so brilliant that you
08:14 are like, it's a gift every way, every time they read the lines and then just
08:20 make slight adjustments, almost like sculpting.
08:23 I remember having a conversation with Sarah about at what point are tears
08:28 undermining her power in the scene?
08:31 Little things like that.
08:32 It is kind of this incredible tennis match of words between them and they're
08:37 both such skilled players and that's really what we wanted to maintain is like
08:42 that level of nobody's winning here.
08:45 Both are losing actually and where they end up after.
08:48 And I think Succession is filled with a lot of very different actors
08:52 with very different approaches.
08:54 I would say of the whole group, these two are the most in sync with how
08:58 they approach a scene, their dream when they're together.
09:01 Have we cleared the air?
09:04 Huh?
09:04 Feel good now?
09:05 Yep.
09:07 Yeah.
09:07 Fucking great.
09:08 Tip top.
09:09 Jesse pays equal respect to everyone on that show and it really, and because
09:14 of that, people are so willing to give and it, it really, you know, I've had a
09:18 lot of good experiences and I've had a lot of bad experiences.
09:21 Succession is one of the best and I have to attribute that to
09:25 the way people are treated.
09:26 I think that's the brilliance of Succession is that everybody is working at their
09:31 best, the actors, the writers, the wardrobe designers, the production
09:36 designers, the cinematographers, the camera operators are incredible.
09:41 It's, there isn't a weak link.
09:43 Everybody wants to bring their best.
09:46 And when everybody brings their best, it's special.
09:50 You don't deserve me.
09:52 And you never did.
09:53 [Music]