Succession | Contenders TV Nominees 2023
Succession | Contenders TV Nominees 2023
Transcript
00:00 Pete Hammond here for Contenders.
00:02 And today, well, I don't think there's anybody on the planet
00:06 that doesn't know this show, "Succession," of course,
00:08 on HBO.
00:10 And happy to have here two movers and shakers from it,
00:15 a very responsible, who've worked on it
00:17 for its entire four-season run.
00:19 Have director Mark Millaud, a double Emmy winner,
00:24 'cause he's also executive producer of "Succession" as
00:28 well.
00:28 And I have Nicholas Brittel, who won an Emmy
00:32 for the show's iconic theme and has been nominated, what,
00:37 two, three times for his score here.
00:41 This, however, is Nick Brittel's first television series
00:45 that he did.
00:46 And it's worked out, didn't it?
00:48 It worked out pretty nicely.
00:49 They are nominated, both Mark and Nicholas,
00:55 in the individual categories of directing and music
00:59 for the episode number three, which
01:02 was a shocker of an episode called "Connor's Wedding."
01:07 And I would say, Mark, it was sort of your Hitchcock moment
01:13 here because you killed off the lead when
01:17 we were shocked to find that happening in episode three.
01:21 Let me ask you, let me start with that.
01:23 This was the most, easily the most talked about episode
01:26 of television this year.
01:28 Did you know this from the beginning of the show
01:30 since you were there at the beginning?
01:32 Did you know that the plan was to do this?
01:35 Did Brian Cox even know?
01:38 It was always the plan.
01:40 Actually, the truth is that actually it
01:43 happened a lot later, actually, than I
01:45 think we originally conceived.
01:47 And actually, I think it's fair to say that the credit for that
01:50 goes to Brian, really.
01:52 He was such a fantastic dark star around everyone
01:55 with all the other characters orbiting around him.
01:57 And Jesse and the writers got so much out of that
02:00 that that character kind of stayed on longer than I
02:04 think Jesse originally planned.
02:06 But I think it's fair to say, isn't it, Nick,
02:09 that we started talking with Jesse about Logan's death
02:14 probably a good nine, 10 months, I think,
02:16 before we actually went into production with season four.
02:19 Is that how you remember it?
02:21 Yeah, that was one of the few things
02:23 that I knew that was going to happen was this Logan's death.
02:29 And every season, I always talk to Jesse
02:32 about a few of the things.
02:33 And I always try to keep myself sort
02:35 of in the dark of something so I can be surprised
02:38 as I'm working on the show.
02:40 But yeah, that was one of the few early things
02:42 that I really knew.
02:44 Wow, it was an amazing episode.
02:47 And then to go through the whole season, which
02:49 was just extraordinary, the way things played out here.
02:54 I want to show a clip before we talk
02:56 about particulars of this episode and the show.
03:01 This is with the three siblings, as it were, on the boat
03:06 here having a conversation.
03:09 So let's take a look at this clip from Connor's wedding
03:12 of succession.
03:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:17 [SIGHS]
03:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:23 [SIGHS]
03:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:33 Frank thinks he's gone.
03:34 [BREATHING HEAVILY]
03:37 No.
03:37 [BREATHING HEAVILY]
03:41 Why didn't you come and get me?
03:43 I did.
03:43 I did.
03:44 Shit, we did.
03:45 No, but I was--
03:46 [BREATHING HEAVILY]
03:47 I was right out there.
03:48 I'm sorry.
03:49 How long was it happening before?
03:50 I'm sorry.
03:51 I'm sorry.
03:51 I wasn't--
03:52 No, no, no.
03:53 We did, but I wasn't--
03:54 There was like no time.
03:55 I wasn't thinking.
03:56 I'm sorry.
03:57 I didn't-- I'm sorry.
03:59 It's OK.
04:00 I'm sorry.
04:01 It's OK.
04:03 It's just, Tom said that Gary spoke to him quite a bit.
04:08 Right.
04:09 Well, I don't know.
04:11 I mean, we don't know if he could hear us.
04:14 [SNIFFLES]
04:15 Yeah, I guess I'm sad.
04:17 I guess.
04:20 Do we know if he was on his phone?
04:22 If he checked his messages?
04:26 [SNIFFLES]
04:27 Rome, it's OK.
04:28 Yeah.
04:29 No, I know.
04:29 It's just--
04:30 We're OK.
04:30 I know.
04:31 I don't know.
04:31 I just don't know.
04:32 Like, if I said--
04:33 You did good.
04:33 I feel-- I feel like I didn't--
04:36 did I say I loved him?
04:38 I think so, yeah.
04:39 I'm pretty sure I didn't.
04:40 No, I-- I think you did.
04:42 No, I don't think so.
04:43 Tom, could you put me back to his ear for--
04:47 fuck it.
04:48 Never mind.
04:49 Never-- I don't know.
04:50 I don't-- maybe just-- let's just keep the line open.
04:52 I'll tell you if anything happens.
04:55 OK.
04:56 This cake is fucked up.
04:58 Oh, fuck.
04:59 We need to get Connor.
05:00 We need to tell him.
05:02 Can you do it?
05:03 Can-- I can't.
05:04 I don't think I can.
05:05 I mean, I could.
05:06 I definitely could.
05:07 I just--
05:09 Thank you.
05:10 It's OK.
05:11 Do you want-- do you want me to--
05:12 Yeah.
05:13 It's OK.
05:18 Yeah.
05:21 You know, Mark, this is such an interesting concept,
05:24 to have them all on a-- on a boat out there for a wedding,
05:29 and their father dying way up in the sky,
05:33 connected by these different phones,
05:36 which play a big part in this.
05:38 What was that like in terms of structuring this,
05:41 and for you as a director in shooting this?
05:45 Well, I thought it was such a brilliant conceit in the script,
05:48 originally, this idea of actually putting those siblings who seek
05:54 to control everything in their lives into the ultimate position
05:57 of no control, really, and to see them--
06:01 see them struggle with that.
06:03 From my point of view, that-- the clip that we've just seen
06:07 represents what became a half hour, 28 minute,
06:11 unbroken take, so that we could really--
06:15 the idea was really to take the actors as deep
06:19 into that experience of hearing that news,
06:22 and the frustrations of hearing it through that broken phone line
06:25 with Tom up at 35,000 feet.
06:28 And so that became just a-- yeah, a half hour deep dive
06:36 into this experience for the characters,
06:38 which was really exhilarating and emotionally all-consuming
06:43 for all of us over a period of days as we led up to this
06:47 kind of final runner that we did.
06:50 The use of the phones and that broken experience of that
06:58 meant that you never got that perfect moment,
07:03 and that was, I think, was always Jesse's plan,
07:05 that they would experience this kind of drip feed
07:08 of information and all the frustrations that go with that,
07:11 and this building dread as it slowly becomes apparent
07:15 that their father is, in fact, dead.
07:17 And I think, Nick, this became an interesting challenge for you.
07:20 Didn't you have quite a different approach to that building,
07:24 to that unraveling of that experience
07:27 and the way you've scored that?
07:29 Exactly. No, and I would first say I was so profoundly moved
07:33 by what you all created on set.
07:35 I mean, those moments were so affecting,
07:38 and I remember watching them the first time when I got the cut,
07:42 and it felt immediately to me like it required
07:47 a totally different approach from a musical perspective
07:51 than really I've ever or we've ever utilized in the series
07:55 at any other point.
07:57 There's something-- I think in general, I would say,
08:00 the music in the show, there's a sort of--
08:03 the music is never about any one particular character.
08:06 The music, a lot of the time, functions almost like
08:09 it's kind of almost about the show,
08:11 and it's almost kind of like about connecting
08:13 a lot of these things.
08:15 And in this one moment, it's so intimate,
08:17 and it's so painful, and I felt like I wanted
08:20 to really play it differently.
08:22 I wanted to be inside their POV,
08:24 which I don't often really do, actually.
08:27 Even when we're very sad or profound or intimate
08:30 with moments in the show, I'm usually kind of like
08:33 commenting a bit.
08:35 And in this moment, it's not a comment.
08:37 It's an internal psychological feeling.
08:39 And so I remember realizing that and trying some things out,
08:44 and then I called Jesse, and I said,
08:46 "Where are you right now?
08:48 Because I think you need to come over here,
08:51 and you need to come, and you need to sit on this couch,
08:53 actually, and you need to--
08:55 you really have to be so hands-on at this one moment
08:59 because it requires that.
09:01 It deserves that."
09:03 And so Jesse and I, it was about a day we spent here
09:06 in particular just sort of kind of nuancing
09:09 all these little moments, you know,
09:11 that from when the phone call begins,
09:13 there are so many turns in that, like you're saying,
09:17 that whole sequence.
09:19 And there's a moment, for example,
09:21 where Kendall goes down to go get Shiv.
09:24 You know, we really--
09:26 very different than a lot--any moments I can remember
09:28 that we've done where it goes into almost like
09:30 a kind of altered state.
09:33 There's, you know, we feel the sound more.
09:35 The music kind of goes away.
09:37 There's a sort of almost like washing over you feeling.
09:40 And like you were saying, Mark, I mean,
09:42 I think there's a thing in all of our lives.
09:44 We have these moments when we're getting a piece of bad news,
09:49 and we have that sort of sinking feeling in our stomach
09:53 of like realizing that it's probably so much worse
09:57 than we want to acknowledge at a particular moment.
10:00 And so there's that sort of not wanting to know
10:03 but also knowing, I think.
10:06 And that was--if there's a way to put it into words,
10:08 I think that's kind of what I was trying to capture in the music,
10:11 this sense of like you know but you don't want to know.
10:14 I remember the first time listening to the first mix
10:18 of "That Neck" where--used to that, you know,
10:22 where somewhat reductively I was used to that very kind
10:27 of iconic strings, orchestral sound, or that piano sound
10:32 that you've kind of made for the show.
10:36 And I remember that moment where your first--
10:39 where the score started to creep in.
10:41 Really, I think if I remember rightly,
10:43 it's when Roman first hears that it might be the last time
10:45 that he can talk to his father.
10:48 And I was suddenly aware of this deep kind
10:50 of underlying anxiety and that--and an almost surreal feeling.
10:55 And I suddenly realized it was because of your score.
10:58 And that was augmented at that very point
11:00 that you just mentioned when Kendall goes downstairs
11:03 into those hundreds of people and has to navigate his way
11:06 through to tell Shiv at the other end of the room there
11:09 of that deep, deep sense of almost surreal experience.
11:13 And it was so emotionally affecting
11:15 because I was hijacked in the best way.
11:19 Okay, well, it makes me very happy because it was such a--
11:22 it felt, you know, as I was working on it,
11:24 and I'm sure you felt the same way,
11:25 it's like as we are working on those moments,
11:27 it was like that sense of like, we're really--he's dying.
11:31 He's gone, you know?
11:33 It felt kind of like this momentousness in the show,
11:37 outside, it felt all those things at once.
11:40 And it just had--we had to go as far as we could with it, you know?
11:44 Yeah. And then you brought that beautiful moment of fruition
11:48 when Kendall steps outside and Frank finally says,
11:51 "Listen, I think he's gone."
11:52 And then you allowed us actually back into reality there
11:55 and allowed his poignance and kind of opened the door
11:59 to a kind of genuine emotion there that was clear.
12:04 Exactly.
12:06 Oh, thank you, because that was the thing that it had to--
12:09 it really was specific to that phone call,
12:12 where we're in that altered state,
12:14 and then afterwards, like exactly you said,
12:16 it was--we were able to sort of begin reverting back
12:19 into the sort of the world--the world is the world, you know?
12:24 And we're--and they're sort of re-emerging into that world, I guess.
12:29 Can I ask you, too, about the use of music
12:32 when you don't want to use music?
12:34 You know, collaborating with Nicholas and Mark
12:37 and Jesse Armstrong and deciding, you know, as a composer,
12:40 you always say, "Well, let's talk about the music."
12:43 Let's talk about how you make the decision not to put music in there.
12:48 Yeah.
12:49 Absolutely.
12:50 And there's a lot of those times, I think,
12:52 where we have to say to ourselves, you know--
12:54 and we do it really in every episode, you know,
12:57 where does music go and where doesn't it go?
12:59 I always think of as kind of the biggest, you know,
13:02 artistic philosophical question that I face often,
13:05 which is, you know, where does it go?
13:07 Do you have music at all, you know?
13:09 And I think this episode in particular,
13:11 more than--maybe more than any of the others,
13:13 it was so important that there were these moments of silence
13:16 and how long do we stay with the music and where does it stop?
13:20 Mm-hmm.
13:21 Yeah, so interesting.
13:23 I want to ask you, too, about the use of Logan Roy
13:28 and he's lying there dead and how you shoot that, Mark,
13:32 and what you do in that moment to be respectful
13:36 but also to get that kind of shot that you're going to need, too,
13:40 and how you decide to do that there, as was in this episode.
13:45 I found that a really interesting and quite a vexing problem
13:49 in planning that whole sequence, Peter,
13:53 because my first instinct was not to show Logan
13:57 and I wasn't sure if that was me just being queasy
14:00 or feeling kind of oddly disrespectful to Brian,
14:02 to have this, you know, themed actor just lying on the floor
14:05 with his shirt ripped open.
14:06 It felt oddly disrespectful.
14:08 And, of course, there was a very good creative argument
14:11 for showing that this great titan of industry
14:14 is just a mortal, you know, facing his death.
14:18 But it didn't feel right, and even though I did a couple of takes
14:24 where we did kind of just pass over his torso a little,
14:28 that felt too coy.
14:29 It felt like we were teasing.
14:31 And eventually, and this became a really interesting debate
14:34 with Jesse, and we both came to the same place,
14:37 that we decided we'd have one moment
14:40 where we absolutely definitively showed Brian's character,
14:45 showed Logan on the floor, and that would be it, really,
14:48 really so that the audience didn't think we were somehow hoodwinking them
14:52 and that actually this was some dark practical joke
14:55 that Logan was playing.
14:56 But there was a real big debate over how much we should
15:01 or shouldn't show there.
15:02 What was really important to me, which oddly falls into that,
15:06 almost the kind of percussive rhythm of the piece,
15:09 was the relentlessness of feeling that 58, you know,
15:14 or one-second beats of the heart massage or the CPR,
15:18 the relentlessness of that and the pressure that that put
15:21 on the character and on the moment was really important.
15:24 It was fascinating.
15:25 It's really interesting.
15:26 There's so much to talk about here with the extraordinary cast, too,
15:30 of these performances, and everyone's nominated, you know,
15:35 which is terrific, but, I mean, really came through in this episode,
15:40 which also is nominated for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, too,
15:45 all from picking this particular episode.
15:48 Thank you so much for joining us on Contenders today.
15:53 Nicholas Brattel and Mark Millard.
15:56 Thanks, Pete.
15:57 That was fun.
15:58 Thank you.