Succession: Creator Jesse Armstrong Kept the HBO Cast Guessing and Pitched a Fifth Season

(Photo by: HBO)

Succession has ended its run on HBO, but Jesse Armstrong had plenty of ideas for a fifth season of the family finance drama. He pitched several ideas to the cast, and at least one member thought the series would continue beyond its fourth season.

The financial drama series follows the powerful Roy family in New York City and stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Alan Ruck.

During a recent appearance on Actors on Actors, Culkin spoke about the HBO series, and he revealed that Snook believed the series would continue until almost the very end. She finally realized the show was ending at the table read for the final episodes.

Culkin said the following about how Armstrong kept the cast guessing about the future of the series, per AV Club:

“He told me before the season started that he thinks this is the end, but he doesn’t know. I’d actually stopped asking what was coming later. And that was the thing: I liked it. I liked not knowing! Then this year, he mentioned that it might be the end before we started shooting, so I started asking him questions. He told me what happens with Logan, and I asked him to break down everything. And he explained the entire season to me. And then when he got to the end, I said, “Well, that seems like that’s the end of the show.” And he goes, ‘Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Although …’ And then he just started talking about all these different ideas off the top of his head.”

He was like, ‘This is just off the top of my head.’ And then he just pitched an amazing fifth season and then another and another.

[Armstrong] kept us guessing the whole time. There were some of us that were so sure that there was not going to be another season. Sarah Snook, the entire time, until the very end was like, ‘There’s going to be a fifth season.’ And had very clear ideas on what it was. And it was after the table read for the final episode, he told us.”

The potential for a spin-off of the series has been mentioned, but for now, Succession is over.

What do you think? Did you enjoy this series? Would you want to see more of Succession on HBO?