In Hollywood they are aware of the talent of Jeremy Strong. He has the Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Drama for Succession to prove it. But they also know that he is a method actor, that he behaves like his characters at all times during filming, and that consequently recording with him can be a bit tiresome. And, when he shot Kendall Roy’s last scene, he took the liberty of improvising on the spot.
The HBO production was filming in the financial district of Manhattan. Kendall’s character should have been absolutely devastated after the latest betrayal by Shiv (Sarah Snook), who changed her vote on the Waystar Royco board to prevent her from directly holding power in the company. It was the role for which he believed he was born. And, while he watched the waves from Battery Park and with the Statue of Liberty out of focus in the background, Strong tried to jump into the water.
“I looked at those waves and it was so windy that day and it was so cold and there was like a piece of metal banging and it was a terrible sound and I couldn’t take it,” he explained of that day’s work shift with director Mark Mylod. “I got up, inched my way over to the railing there and climbed up. I don’t know what he was trying to do but the actor who plays Colin saw me and ran over and tried to stop me.”
Jeremy Strong, in short, staged what many viewers wondered when seeing the outcome of Succession: that Kendall might try to take his own life after that setback with no possibility of going back. Since Waystar Royco already belonged to Lukas Matsson, he could never be the owner of the company again. And, in his moment of improvisation, the actor was lucky that Scott Nicholson, who played his bodyguard, understood what he was trying to do and what his role should be in the scene.
The scene did not end up being part of the final cut. “I’m sure Jesse’s decision is better,” he said of series creator Jesse Armstrong, who preferred a less explicit ending. Of course, he is of the opinion that he was not misguided when trying to jump into the water: “In a way, see that intentionality in the character.
And it is that Strong takes his work so seriously that, of course, he drank the milkshake that his fictional brothers prepared for him in another scene of the final episode. With Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin, they played out a childhood game of their characters: mixing disparate ingredients together to create “a drink fit for a king” and having the monarch drink it. What was in that milkshake? Milk, bread crust, tabasco sauce, eggs, pickle liquid, cocoa powder and a spit of Shiv.
“Yes I drank it, yes,” he acknowledged to Deadline. And possibly the question we should all be asking is this: Was Sarah Snook’s spit in the Succession script, or did she add it from her own recipe, to see if Strong took her interpretation of method there?
