At the start of Season 4 of Succession, Brian Cox‘s Logan Roy – who was the show’s main character until then – has died. This decision shocked fans and set the series up for one final round of unpredictable episodes. Now, Cox reveals he feels like killing Roy was a little early.
Speaking to BBC News’ Amol Rajan (via The Hollywood Reporter) ahead of this week’s Succession series finale, Cox said he was okay with Roy’s death because of the way it turned out. passed “in a rather brilliant way”. The actor, however, said he felt “rejected” about leaving the show so early in the fourth season.
“I was fine with it eventually, but I felt a little rejected. You know, I kind of felt, oh, all the work that I’ve done and eventually I’m gonna, you know, end up like an ear on the carpet of an airplane,β Cox joked.
Roy’s death on the show had always been planned by creator Jesse Armstrong. According to Armstrong on the Succession podcast, the team behind the show chose an earlier episode to explore the aftermath of such an event.
βHe was always going to die. It felt like it had to happen,β Armstrong told the Kara Swisher host. “It was always coded once we decided it was going to be the last season. Sometimes when I would go crazy about what the ending would be like, I thought most tragedies would end in death at the end and we’d come back back and looking at it as a form, but it was really that feeling of wanting to see how they were going to do next that prevailed.
What is Succession about?
Succession follows the story of the Roy family – Logan Roy and his four children – who control one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world. The series follows their lives as they ponder what the future holds for them once their aging father retires from the business.
βIn season four, the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson draws ever closer,β reads the season synopsis. βThe prospect of this seismic sale is causing existential angst and family division among the Roys as they anticipate what their lives will be like once the deal closes. A power struggle ensues as the family contemplates a future where their cultural and political weight is severely reduced.
The series stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Alan Ruck, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Nicholas Braun, Matthew Macfadyen, J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche, Fisher Stevens, Hiam Abbass, Cherry Jones, Alexander SkarsgΓ₯rd, Stephen Root and more.
The Emmy-winning series is created and executive produced by showrunner Jesse Armstrong. Other executive producers include Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Mark Mylod, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy and Will Ferrell.