The delay of the Emmy Awards left Jesse Armstrong's future up in the air: he still does not know if he has won the fourth consecutive award for best script and the third for best series for Succession, his creation that said goodbye in the spring. And, while he considers how to continue his career after reigning on television, the British screenwriter will attend the Serializados Fest this coming Saturday to talk about the job.
Peep Show, a comedy you wrote in 2003, is being screened at SZS Fest. How would you sell it to the audience?
Succession is based on a group of people that most of us have never met: billionaires, media moguls, those who control television and newspapers. Peep Show is the opposite of two random men you might meet on the street in the UK: it's a look at the strange things that can happen to us.
The inevitable question: could Succession have a spin-off?
No, I think the story is complete.
Well, let's imagine that the characters exist. What about their lives?
With Roman it's easy. He is the classic playboy. He is in a bar or casino with friends. He has a very tough shell, so he can laugh at everything that has happened to him and drops cruel jokes on everyone. Shiv is still with Tom, in a frozen relationship, real and at the same time very false. I don't know how long they will last with this mirage of a relationship.
¿Y Kendall?
Jeremy Strong was of the opinion that it would be very difficult for him to live. But I think the children of billionaires always find a way to move forward. It's tragic to a certain extent: they can't stop being that person with a famous last name. He would surely find another business to invest in and convince himself that it is just as important as his father's. However, at night, as he drinks a whiskey, he knows that the most important part of his life has already passed.
Brian Cox or Jeremy Strong had strong characters or so they let on in the interviews. How did you deal with the actors and their expectations?
They may have a lot of personality but they are very professional. I never had to control them. What was difficult was telling Brian Cox that his character would die in the final season. But he accepted it when I told him the structure of the season and how I needed time to see how his kids would cope without him.
Since the series ended, Rupert Murdoch left the throne to his son Lachlan. Was it her Kendall or his Roman?
People assume that Succession was very similar to the Murdochs, but there were as many similarities as there were differences. I also took inspiration from Sumner Redstone, Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black, the Comcast family, the Sinclairs who have many local channels, the Disney corporation and executives like Michael Eisner and Robert Iger. There were examples from all over the world. Sometimes there are those who tell me that Kendall was Lachlan and others who think he was James. But the Roy children do not correspond strictly to any of the Murdochs.
He wrote a cynical series in cynical times. But, if he had to think about how to end the system he criticized, what would he advise us to do?
We want to know what is happening in the world and that is why we consume the media. We try to create our own perspective from that news and it is very difficult to get out of this system. And, when you escape the gatekeepers, you encounter information that is inaccurate, false, or a new version of propaganda. What we can do is support those media that try to find objectivity. You cannot find a definitive truth but there are those who try and those who do not. We have to give our money, our support and subscribe to media that tries to uncover the truth.
On television there has been a great tradition of patriarchs and antiheroes with Tony Soprano, Don Draper or Walter White. Now there's Logan Roy. What did Succession contribute to this television school?
I feel very honored to be associated with such brilliant series as these. Maybe others should say it. But we were more concerned with the power and how it works. This was our contribution.
During the writers' strike called by the Writers Guild of America, there was talk of the need to have writers' rooms. In Succession you always worked with other scriptwriters. Why are these rooms important?
It's very useful when planning plots and figuring out how they work: talking about the story with talented people allows you to get to the best version faster. Otherwise you may be stuck for weeks or months. Succession, furthermore, was an ensemble series with many character profiles. It was great to have the perspectives of men and women with different life experiences and different families. When you have people at the table, the series is enriched.
Are you happy with the agreement between the union and the studios?
Paints well. I don't know every subclause of the agreement but it seems that every point the WGA union wanted to address received a decent offer. The union is happy with the improvements achieved in artificial intelligence, the minimum number of scriptwriters in the projects... all the important issues.
What do you plan to do in the future?
Don't know. Now it's hard to think about writing a TV series that doesn't have the talent and budget that there is in America, but I would also work on British TV. I don't know what I'll do next and I like this feeling of uncertainty. Maybe I could write a book, direct a movie, write a series... I have many options and I'm taking my time to decide.
