Kieran Culkin (Go Fish as Andy "Fish" Troutner, Fargo as Rye Gerhardt) opened up about what it’s really like working with his Succession co-stars Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook.
HBO’s hit show Succession was nominated for 18 Emmy awards last year, including Best Dramatic Series. They also had nine nominations for acting performances. While the show didn’t do quite as well this year, it continues to be one of HBO’s top-rated series.
A large part of what makes the show such a hit is the talented cast. But, there have been speculations that some actors can be "challenging" to work with.
Here’s what Kieran thinks about that.
Jeremy Strong Does Method Acting
There have speculations that Jeremy Strong (Masters of Sex as Art Dreesen, The Good Wife as Matt Becker, Mob City as Mike Hendry), who plays the self-destructive Kendall Roy in Succession, does method acting to get into his character’s mind.
According to rumors, Strong would go around the set and introduce himself as Kendall Roy. There are even crazy speculations that Strong went as far as doing drugs when his character was going through substance abuse problems.
Kieran Thinks Jeremy Is Complex
“With Jeremy, it’s complex. A lot of people immediately say he’s method, and he would say that he is not. But for all intents and purposes, I feel like he kind of is,” Culkin said on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.
“The thing is, he doesn’t want to know if the actor [opposite him] is going to do [blank], because that would mess him up. Sometimes, he doesn’t want you to say certain words. Like, don’t call it a ‘scene’ or things like that. It can be pretty particular sometimes.”
Depends On Kendall Roy’s Mood
“Usually,” Culkin continues to say, “my job is to sort of poke fun at him and try to break down that little wall. Like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, this SCENE? In this SCENE that we’re going to rehearse because it’s a F**KING TV SHOW?’ I like to do that to him, sometimes.”
“If ‘Kendall’ is in a really good place, then Jeremy is in a much better mood. If ‘Kendall’ is in a dark place, then it’s very much don’t talk to him. So, that has its own challenges, too.”
Sarah Snook Sometimes Does Improv In Scenes
When it comes to Sarah Snook, who plays Shiv Roy on the show, things seem to flow more naturally for Culkin, who plays Shiv’s sibling Roman Roy in the series.
"Snook and I have done a few scenes where we kind of know the lines but the scene sort of changes and develops because we just throw different things at each other," he says.
“I slapped her once, and she put me in a headlock, like, we just sort of came up with that,” he admitted. “That kind of stuff is fun because we’re just trying to play with each other.”
