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Warren Buffett, Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch possess a combined age of 269 years, and even their fiercest critics would have to salute their longevity as modern-day business moguls.
In HBO’s new drama series “Succession,” Logan Roy is the fictional media magnate protagonist played by Brian Cox, and the character recalls all three of the aforementioned, real-life figures (MarketWatch is a division of Dow Jones Media Group, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp ).
“Succession” is created by Jesse Armstrong, who co-wrote the political satire “In the Loop” and worked on HBO’s “Veep.” The first episode of the new ten-episode series is produced and directed by Adam McKay, who made the Oscar-winning 2015 movie version of Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short.”
“Succession” chronicles the financial and personal fallout suffered by Roy’s four children when Logan reverses a decision to retire as head of his media and entertainment conglomerate Waystar Royco. The squabbling among his three sons and daughter intensifies when he is hospitalized after suffering a stroke shortly after his 80th birthday.
“What Adam McKay did with illuminating the financial crisis in ‘The Big Short,’ he’s now doing with the media in ‘Succession,’” said Jeremy Strong, who plays Logan’s most ambitious son, Kendall Roy.
The first season of “Succession,” which premiered yesterday on HBO (owned by Time Warner Inc. was supposed to end with the media tycoon meeting his maker, Cox revealed to MarketWatch. “Originally, I was supposed to be dead at the end of the first series,” Cox said. “When I had the initial conversation with Adam McKay and Jessie, they quickly decided, ‘Oh yeah, I think we’ve got to have you a little longer than just the one series.’ I think they realized, rightly, that it’s too interesting a character to kill off. I might be dead at the end of the second series, I don’t know, but they’ve signed me up for a few.”
Cox, a veteran 71-year-old Scottish actor who has played Hannibal Lecter in “Manhunter” and William Stryker in the “X-Men” franchise, said “Succession” was reminiscent of both Shakespearean dramas he has performed on stage, and filmed TV plays for the BBC in the 1960s and 70s.
“The long form more and more interests me as an actor,” he said. “Movies are so disappointing these days because people don’t get access to them in the same way. Out of five movie theaters, four are showing Marvel or DC [comic book] films and one theater is competing for everything else so it’s hard to get that one film into the loop because the corporate world doesn’t allow it to happen,” he said.
“I go back to the great days of British television which is when I loved it,” he added. “The reason I came here was because British television went through a very bad time in the mid-1990s. It has resuscitated now and is fantastic with shows like ‘Broadchurch’ and ‘The Crown.’ I moved to New York because my reasoning was if I’m going to do crap, I’d rather do crap here and earn more money!”
While the power struggles and family warfare in “Succession” bring to mind HBO’s fantasy phenomenon, “Game Of Thrones,” in a media setting, the show has plenty of humor. At one point, Logan Roy is dubbed “Kim Jong-Pop” by his son Roman (Kieran Culkin), when he half-jokingly queries why his company can’t “provide all the news.”
In addition to dynastic and power struggles, money battles recur in the first season of “Succession.” Waystar’s stock plunges and the company is engaged in a protracted battle to buy a digital media company.
“I think if there’s any moral to ‘Succession,’ it’s that money won’t fix you, however f----d up you are,” said Alan Ruck, best known for his role as Cameron in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” who plays Connor Roy, Logan’s son from his first marriage who is not interested in being the heir apparent. “Whether it’s stories about kings or millionaires, people love to know the dirty details. They don’t want to believe that people can have that much wealth and be happy and be whole,” he said.
As well as loosely basing his character on present-day moguls, Cox also sought inspiration in legendary 19th century industrialists. “Carnegie was an influence because he’s the father of American capitalism, but he also realized it didn’t work,” he said. “At the end of his life, it made him very unhappy but he needed the money in order to be a philanthropist. The big mystery is does capitalism work? It certainly does for a few people but it doesn’t work for the populace.”
He added: “There’s a longevity with people like George Soros and Warren Buffett and it’s to do with being at the sharp end...these guys deal with a lot of horrible truths that kind of sustain them. They have no illusions. They live in harsh realities and they make the world in their own image. They do that for reasons of survival. Logan says in the show it’s a game, which you can’t get emotionally involved with, and the kids don’t understand.”
As driven as Kendall Roy is to succeed his father as a media tycoon, Strong says his character is ill-suited to the task. For all his extensive research into the role, he says the most important guidance for his character was psychiatrist Carl Jung’s axiom that “where love is absent, power fills the vacuum.”
Following on from his portrayal of financial analyst Vinny Daniel in “The Big Short,” Strong seems to be cornering the market in playing driven businessmen. “I’m a scrappy outsider from Boston so didn’t have a privileged background at all like many in business,” he said. “But I am ambitious as an actor and when you are one of the leaders on an HBO show, you inevitably think more about responsibility and authority.”
All four Ray offspring are decidedly different. Shiv (Sarah Snook) is more interested in politics than business, while Roman (Kieran Culkin) is way too outspoken and quirky to take over the reins from his father.
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Culkin is the younger brother of “Home Alone” star Maculay Culkin. Did the Roys’ public exploits remind him of his own family’s notoriety in the 1990s? “No. The difference is that with the Roy family, they are running their own media and can control what is being said about them to a certain degree.”
“Plus the Roy family willingly have put themselves out in the forefront, whereas my brother became very famous as a kid which you can’t even really say he chose to do because it’s making a life decision when you’re nine years old. That was sort of put upon him and the rest of the family. I think the family has been trying to do everything they can to avoid any kind of limelight whereas the Roys bask in it to a certain degree,” Culkin said.
Should “Succession” succeed in the ratings stakes, according to insiders, the show will begin filming a second series early next year.
Meanwhile, for all its emphasis on veracity, considerable artistic license was taken by HBO when it came to the casting of the Roy family. “I’m ten years younger than Brian Cox and he’s playing my dad,” Alan Ruck observed. “They’re pretending that he’s ten years older and I’m ten years younger. That’s Hollywood, baby.”