Sarah Snook & the 'Succession' Team Break Down That Harrowing Balcony Fight | Making a Scene

I have given you endless approval and it doesn't fill you up because you're broken [Music] really really freaking cold on the top floor of a triplex in downtown Manhattan and as Matthew woodiel you're gonna send me a present Chev I could hear like [ __ ] bouncing off the walls of all the buildings around which made me laugh because I thought if anyone actually could hear us arguing they actually think that this husband's wife sent him to prison the difficulty of that scene is I used a lot of practicals I let the practicals be the main lights it really was just as exciting to watch it to film it to edit it as it was to first read it I mean it really was a beautifully realized moment I think in this show thank you my name is kenneludo I'm one of the editors on succession my name is Patrick Capone I was the Director of Photography on succession and I'm Robert pulcini I'm the co-director of the episode tailgate party succession and I'm Sherry Springer Berman I'm also co-director and this is varieties making a scene I wonder if we shouldn't clear the air yeah yeah I'm sure well the first time we read the script this big moment wasn't in the script it went through a few iterations and when this scene finally arrived Sherry and I were just Overjoyed because the writing was so unique for succession because succession is so much about subtext it's not really about direct confrontation these two people dance around so many things and to have something so confrontational with these two was just such a gift I think you shouldn't have even married me actually what the [ __ ] yeah this fight was a long time coming for shiv and Tom to have finally an explosive moment to to really say what they thought about each other and also just Express their deepest rawest most vulnerable emotions the first thing I said to everybody is this is who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf this is Georgia and Martha and I think that kind of was the thing that was going on in our head as we were thinking about how to shoot it where to shoot it and how to proceed with it to be my lowest [ __ ] AB my dad was dying what was I supposed to say perhaps no I didn't want to hurt your feelings oh thanks thanks for that we're doing night shoots maybe for four days straight we had to shoot at night we had to shoot over the course of at least a week and we needed it to feel very fluid so if somebody walked out of the room and went onto the balcony we had to remember where everyone was so that we came back the next day it made sense we didn't want it to be a big cutaway mess and we drew diagrams of where people encounter each other and what conversations they would have so that by the time this huge explosive fight happens everybody's right where they should be but the actual filming of that language back and forth that the actors achieved so brilliantly happened in one day one night the night before Matthew had learned his lands but wanted to sort of just practice them and I had not yet learned the fight scene even though we were shooting the next day I hadn't had a chance and so what we did is every time we had a break between the scenes that we were shooting the day before just sort of kept running the lines and it was really fun it felt like rehearsing a play because we just go outside and yell at each other and then come back in and pretend as if nothing had happened yeah you really kept me safe while you ran off to [ __ ] the phone oh [ __ ] up you're a heck we wanted it to be a fishball where the sound when you see it from inside looking out you will see this argument going on and you don't really know what's going on so that was a very purposeful Choice by the directors we really pushed for this confrontation to occur on the balcony the way that balcony is kind of very narrow and runs the length of the entire party we thought would really be just an amazing place to Stage the scene because it was originally written in the kitchen we're a married couple so we know a lot about fighting in different places and there's something about having that kind of an argument where there are people watching let alone in this case the most influential people this is a small group of very important influential people and to go to a place where you're fighting even if they can't people can't hear you they can see you they know your body language means that that's a fight of some kind of Epic emotional proportions that you wonder can you come back from that because your whole family is striving in parochial fair characterizations oh no well your mom loves me more than she loves you because she's cracked we cross shot we often cross shoot maybe two or three takes each side well one of these things that we are very proud of on succession is we give our actors as much Freedom as we can we don't block it we really protect the performances and I always give them the ability to go wherever they want to go so having said that I needed to light the entire balcony I also needed to light it in such a way that we can look into the apartment and not see lights I'm very fortunate that I have a great team behind us and we work very fast and we've learned to hide lights everywhere and then luckily we had access to the roof on top since this was the penthouse so we were able to create a little bit of a Moonlight coming from up top I'm not sure if they use any of the cuts but we did do several passes from inside the apartment through people and then you would see this argument going on after there was some stuff from in indoors looking out of them on the on the patio and there were some shots of them people looking in watching them talk and initially I'd done a pass where I used a piece of that where Tom's talking about you you were you know going to send me to prison then he gave me the crappy wine because it was really screaming at that point it felt and it was kind of like in the middle of the scene so I cut inside I kind of muted the sound a little bit but you can see people listening and watching them you know we definitely added more like extreme cut and it felt like you go a little bit it was almost funny which was a tone you didn't want to introduce there because it's almost funny like oh my God like what the hell is going on out there and then you [ __ ] mouth with that [ __ ] [ __ ] four [ __ ] years I don't offered to go to jail Tom that night was the first night that I told the broader sort of crew community that I was pregnant which was really fun to be like oh by the way yeah when he says this lion means something different to me as the actor right now at that point we knew that Sarah snook was pregnant but we didn't know that the character that shiv Roy was going to be pregnant in the show yet there was uh oh it would be cool if she was pregnant but we had it hadn't been written into the script yet at the time Tom doesn't know that she was pregnant there's so many different layers that are being dealt with that yes they're being honest there's still things that they're not saying to each other and I think you are maybe not a good person to have children well that's not very nice to say is it oh I found it really upsetting watching it I felt really sad for shiv and how she couldn't how the you know the dissolution of her marriage and she just really has nobody and really felt genuinely that he did take away the last six months she could have had with her dad and and how hurt they both were that's already sad for them you took away the last six months I could have had with my dad no yes no yes you sucked up to him and you cut me out having a lot of fun right it's it's a game we're playing none of it's real you yell at each other and you get all upset and then you're like oh spicy that's fun got to yell at you I like to with actors let them put it down whatever way they're feeling and with these actors it's so brilliant that you are like it's a gift every way every time they read the lines and then just make slight adjustments almost like sculpting I remember having a conversation of Sarah about at what point or tears undermining her power in the scene little things like that it is kind of this incredible tennis match of words between them and they're both such skilled players and that's really what we wanted to maintain is like that level of nobody's winning here both are losing actually and where they end up after and I think succession is filled with a lot of very different actors with very different approaches I would say of the whole group these two are the most in sync with how they approach a scene their dream when they're together that we cleared the air huh feel good now yeah yeah [ __ ] great Tip Top Jesse paisk equal respect to everyone on that show and it really and because of that people are so willing to give and it it really you know I've had a lot of good experiences and I've had a lot of bad experiences succession is one of the best and I have to attribute that to the way people are treated I think that's the Brilliance of succession is that everybody is working at their best the actors the writers the Wardrobe designers the production designers the cinematographers the camera operators are incredible it's there isn't a weak link everybody wants to bring their best And when everybody brings their best it's special you don't deserve me and you never did [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Variety

Views: 140,123

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, succession, sarah snook, shiv and tom, succession shiv, shiv roy, shiv roy succession, tom and shiv fight, shiv and tom fight, tom shiv fight, succession balcony scene

Id: GR_STMQk6oQ

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2023