Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:00]
Diya Hadid
In Syria, the Assad regime imprisoned not just men and women. They also took children and hid them away. The women were asking, why do they want the children? On the Sunday Story, correspondent Diya Hadid investigates what happened to the disappeared children of Syria. Listen now to the Sunday Story on the upverse podcast from npr.
- [00:24]
Terry Gross
This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. Our guest today is Sarah Snook. She's best known for playing Shiv Roy on the show Success. Now she's on Broadway in a one person show, an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde story the Picture of Dorian Gray. Last week she received a Tony nomination for best leading actress in a play. She spoke with FRESH air's Anne Marie Boldonado.
- [00:48]
Diya Hadid
It's hard to describe Sarah Snook's performance in the Picture of Dorian Gray. Snook plays all 26 characters in this stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel from 1890. It feels like you're watching a two hour sprint giving a non stop monologue, a crazy athletic solo performance. For those who don't remember this gothic horror story, it's about a young man, Dorian Gray, who falls in love with his own beauty. When an artist friend paints a portrait of him, he loves his own image so much that he makes a wish, a Faustian bargain that allows him to stay young and beautiful while his portrait ages and decays. The show uses pre recorded snippets of Snook playing different characters projected on huge video screens. There are cameras, iPhones and lightning quick costume and set changes all used to tell this story that culminates in Dorian spiraling and ultimately facing his sins and his mortality. When Sarah Snook did this play for a run in London last year, it earned her an Olivier Award, which is the British equivalent of a Tony. This isn't the only award that she's received. She won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for playing fan favorite Shiv Roy, the daughter of Logan Roy on the show succession. Sarah Snook was born in Australia where she went to drama school and received many accolades for her work on stage and screen. Her films include Jobs, the Dressmaker and Memoir of a Snail. Sarah Snook, welcome to FRESH air.
- [02:26]
Sarah Snook
Hi. Thanks for having me.
- [02:28]
Diya Hadid
Well, the creator of this adaptation, Kip Williams, a fellow Australian, when he approached you about taking on this role or these roles, what was your response? I read that you said that if you had seen the show you might not have agreed to do it.
- [02:43]
Sarah Snook
Yes. Well, I was pregnant at the time and I think I was like seven months or something. And you Know my first baby. And so that kind of ignorance is bliss, kind of world of what is to come. And the efforts of parenting at the same time as doing this particular show was. If I had seen the show, I think my husband, particularly if he had seen the show, he would have said, this is not. This is not a good idea.
- [03:06]
Diya Hadid
This is not something you do if you have a newborn.
- [03:08]
Sarah Snook
No, this is not possible. I mean, it's not impossible, obviously, but it takes a lot of concentration and support, not just from myself, from the family and from my team.
- [03:20]
Diya Hadid
As we've mentioned, you play all characters in this show, and you're also the narrator of this story. How do you differentiate between the characters? Do you develop the characters in the same way you would if you were just playing one part in a play? If you were slumming it and only playing one part, how am I gonna.
- [03:38]
Sarah Snook
Go back to just playing one character? I don't know what comes after this. What tops this sort of overstimulation of characters to differentiate between the characters? I think lots of different things. In some ways, blessing and a curse. We had only two weeks of rehearsals before doing the pre recorded portion of the. Of the show at the end of 2023. And so really meant that I had to make sharp and considered decisions quite early. And part of that was created out of doing a lot of voice work with Geraldine Cook, my voice coach in Australia, and working on what timbre and tone and pitch and speed, pace, et cetera, each of the characters had and accent, as well as what physicality came from that. It's very much a physical sensation of each character sits somewhere differently in my body.
- [04:40]
Diya Hadid
And how do you develop these different voices? If you could talk a little bit more about that and then how do you keep them straight?
- [04:48]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't know how I keep them straight. Someone asked me actually the other day, have you ever gotten them confused? And I said no, because it was true. And since then, I have twice gotten them confused. There were two instances on stage that I did the slightly wrong voice for the wrong character. And Kip happened to be in the audience on one of those shows and he didn't notice. So that was good. It was a. In the kind of chaotic moment which I was aware of, but no one else was. So that was a good cover. At least. I think the process of finding it in the body with the voice and the physicality really helped because when I come to perform them, you know, Basil, for instance, is very. His very. The Tone of his voice, or the temper of his voice perhaps, is quite brittle.
- [05:46]
Diya Hadid
Basil is the artist who did the portrait.
- [05:49]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, he's the artist. So he sort of sits quite on the gum ridge, just behind the teeth. And there's something centralized, I guess, like it's very focused down and. Right. It's hard to explain, actually, now that I'm thinking about it. And there's a, you know, there's quite an obvious clue for Lord Henry where the narrator says, said Lord Henry languidly. So there's quite a expansive quality to Lord Henry and there's something that's very, somewhat like molasses, like he is very juicy. And, and, and also something about aristocratic British men who are able to hold court and, and speak, you know, widely on subjects. Lord Henry has quite a deep voice, but he, they actually have quite a range of pitch in their voices. And, and if you listen to Stephen Fry, he's. He's talking up right at the top level of his pitch and then right down at the bottom in the same sentence. And it really holds your attention. And that was something we really wanted to find for Lord Henry.
- [06:58]
Diya Hadid
Now, in an interview, I heard you say that when you were a kid, you used to love listening to cassettes of poems of Roald Dahl and you used to memorize them. And I tried to find it online, I couldn't actually find it, but I was thinking that if you memorize those poems and they were read by British actors, listening could have been like great training for you doing the Picture of Dorian Gray, which is a bunch of different flowery British characters.
- [07:26]
Sarah Snook
It absolutely was. It was such a strange, strange, like, thing to have as a reference, like a feel, real body reference really, from, from my childhood of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes, which, weirdly enough, I think Miriam Margulies read one of the characters or one of the poems. And when I met her, I didn't realize this until I, until I was thinking about the Roald Dahls element of it all and went back and I was like, oh, man, I should have told her that. She was such an inspiration to me as a kid through her voice, through the ability, like how her storytelling and characters really spoke to me when I.
- [08:03]
Diya Hadid
Was a kid through the help of cameras and recordings of you doing the other parts. You're actually acting opposite yourself. Is it odd to be acting with yourself as a scene partner and this is like a version of yourself that was recorded a few years ago?
- [08:21]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, it's really, it's really strange. It's really strange. Because. Well, what it does, particularly because I can't see myself ever, really. There's only once that I can see myself, which is the character of Alan Campbell. But otherwise I just have to listen to the audio recording aspect of it, because I'm either back of stage or I'm in front of the screen or I'm behind the screen. I can't. I can't interact with it in that way. It really forces you to listen to. To what the person is saying to what I'm saying and forces you to be really imaginative. Really. Really, you know, engage with your imagination and how that makes you feel and. And what part. What. What words are springing out to you tonight and what parts of the tone or how it's been delivered are springing out and. And maybe that's come from. Yeah. Listening to audiobooks when I was a kid a lot and having that imagination sustained in that way.
- [09:23]
Diya Hadid
Well, the performance is highly choreographed. You have to be very precise. You have to get to a mark or where you're supposed to be in time for you to interact with a recording that you performed as another character. You say there are sequences where you have, like, seconds to get lines out, otherwise the scene cues will be off.
- [09:44]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, they'll just keep going. They're the worst kind of actors that I'm working with.
- [09:49]
Diya Hadid
They don't wait for you.
- [09:51]
Sarah Snook
They don't wait for me at all. They'll just barrel on. And if I don't keep up, it's my fault. Yeah. I mean, the hardest one of that is the Lord Henry sequence in the dinner party scene where there's.
- [10:03]
Diya Hadid
And you're playing all those seven other guests.
- [10:06]
Sarah Snook
Yeah. How many is it, Dorian? Two, three, four, five, six. Six, I think. Yeah. I'm all of the. It's all me.
- [10:16]
Diya Hadid
You're playing all the other guests. Yes.
- [10:18]
Sarah Snook
But, you know, like, I don't. I don't think of them as me at all. I think of them as the characters. I'm. I mean, I can only see a kind of a side version of them as well, because the screen is obviously not three dimensional, but weirdly enough, because it's six different people. And, you know, each of those was shot individually and then comped together. And, you know, there's the kind of magic of that. They're all doing different things at different times. And I've. You know, the more you look at the visual, the more you can find something new. There's something that I didn't realize or I'd forgotten that I'd done as The Duchess, that is quite nice to play off of, against, and to be like, oh, she's thinking that there. That's funny. Which is, you know, I can't do anything with that verbally, but I can use it to act opposite and to create something new for Lord Henry's performance.
- [11:13]
Diya Hadid
One thing I want to add about the play is that it's funny. Not only the turns of phrases or the performance, but there's also this cheekiness to it. Like the narrator is a bit cheeky. And there are also other choices that you make. The way you switch from character to character can be quite funny.
- [11:31]
Sarah Snook
Yeah. I mean, it is a lot of fun to do. And that the narrator really is, in a sense, Oscar Wilde. You know, I'm not playing him as a character, but there is. His energy and his wit is definitely infused naturally into that role because it is the character based on the prose of the book. You know, it's Kip's turn day, a Victorian novel into a play. And a Victorian novel that wasn't meant to be read out loud. You know, it wasn't like a Dickens or anything like that. It was meant to be read and in episodic form in a way. So somewhat difficult to turn that into dialogue as well as into something that is accessible to an audience now. And part of creating that has been to keep the wit that Oscar Wilde has inherently in that text.
- [12:25]
Diya Hadid
I want to ask about succession. The show is about a rich and powerful family. The patriarch, Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, runs a media company. His health is deteriorating, and his children are jockeying for control of the company, for power, and, of course, for their dad's love. You said that originally you didn't want to audition for the role of Shiv Roy. I'm guessing this would have been, like, over around 10 years ago now. Why didn't you think the role was right for you at the time?
- [12:57]
Sarah Snook
I think because I, you know, personally, I don't have any experience, you know, by association or proximity with wealth at that level. But I also. I guess I didn't. I didn't understand the show so much, and I didn't. I didn't at that time, want to be a secondary kind of handbag character to the men in the show who are going to be, you know, I think billions had just come out, and I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I can see that it's straight white men in business, and there's no room for me there. So I don't think I'll have a very interesting through line. And maybe I don't think I'm going to get this role anyway. So I don't want to audition. And my friend, I was auditioning for something else and already had hair and makeup on, which is such an effort when you're doing self tapes. I don't know, other people might not think it is, but I find it a real effort doing a self tape in the first place. But I was doing a self tape for something else. And so my friend did just. Just read the lines. Just, let's just have fun. Let's just try and do it. And I am forever grateful for her.
- [14:05]
Diya Hadid
Do you remember what you did or what your take on it was that might have sort of, even though you originally didn't think it was the role for you made them take note of you to be Shiv?
- [14:17]
Sarah Snook
I don't know. I mean, there probably was a level of insouciance or attitude about not feeling right for this. And like, you know, without using it as a succession word, F you for making me audition for this when you know I'm not right for this. Like, that's a bit shiv, to be honest.
- [14:35]
Diya Hadid
Like, that's like a little above it, but also like showing up angry and wanting to win the test.
- [14:43]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, exactly. Wanting to win the test. There you go. Yeah.
- [14:47]
Diya Hadid
Well, it occurred to me that the way Succession was filmed may have had some similarities to the way you perform your current role in Dorian Gray. I think that for Succession, there were numerous cameras following the cast as they did scenes. Kind of like the cameras that follow you on stage. Are there similarities?
- [15:05]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, there are similarities. I mean, very different in terms of the specificity required for Dorian and the fluidity allowed in Succession. But something about the proximity of cameras and the. The kind of subtextual or subconscious awareness of them as a character in both Succession and Darien has been really useful to have experienced that in succession. It was never like, they are definitely a character and we're gonna dramaturgically make them feel like that. But just the presence of, you know, like Gregor, one of the camera operators. One point, he was on the other side of a couch. I was doing the scene. He's behind my back on the other side of the couch. I look over, yep, he's still behind me on the other side of the couch. And within three seconds I turn and throw another line back over my shoulder. And he's right behind me. He has crossed the couch somehow. He's like leapt over it with a camera in hand. And that kind of agility from the Came operators. Both in Dorian and Succession is very similar.
- [16:10]
Diya Hadid
Wait, so you would sort of perform the scenes, and it was kind of the camera people's job to sort of anticipate where you might go with it.
- [16:21]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, in some sense, yeah. We would do a director's rehearsal, and we would know the approximate areas that we would need to be in. And then they. The camera operators with direction from the cinematographer, and the director would be telling them, you know, be in this. Okay, double down on that line, keep going. Or, you know, do a crash zoom to here or there. Like, being in the right areas and the right spots, we would tend to light the room for the scene or light one side and then the other side. So there was no, like, coming down the line. Set up, set up, set up. Changing the lights, each shot, each frame. It was very just. Yeah, there was a lot of freedom in that way of working, and I loved it. It was great. It meant that the scenes really had a lot of energy between the characters and that we. In that particular way of working, we had a lot of space to fill in the gaps, I think. And that was where, you know, the camera operators and the DP knew. Okay, well, we know that Sarah's in the corner in this setup, but actually she's been told, you know, as is always the case in succession, you're likely to be on camera, so have an opinion on everything. Like, you know, just be acting. You can't just sit back and. And relax for a moment. And that's. That kind of attention to what's happening in front of you is really fun to work with. But then also was really valuable for transitioning onto something like Dorian, because you're never sitting back. You're never, oh, I'm not on camera. So I can just switch off for a second. It's. You're always on. You're on stage. You're always on.
- [17:59]
Diya Hadid
Yeah. The thing about your character, Shiv, she's an observer. She sometimes hangs back and watches as her brothers, her father, people in the company interact, and she seems to process it. And you can see that on your face. Can you talk about how you thought about Shiv as an observer?
- [18:17]
Sarah Snook
Yeah. I mean, sometimes it just came out of me as Sarah, feeling like I couldn't compete in the level of, like, comedy, humor or improv that Kieran at the level that he's able to deliver. So half the time it was like, I just get my mouth shut and have an opinion that I'll keep to myself. The camera will pick it up and that sort of somewhat developed into a character choice as much as it was an acting choice, an actor's choice. But yeah, I think it's right for her, though, as the younger sister of oftentimes a room full of men, you're just kind of like, all right, what? Let me watch my stupid older brother and my even stupider older brother and my even stupider older brother fight themselves out and tear themselves down and get themselves into a knot. And then here I am, dad, you know, I've just, I've just been sitting here. You know, there's a cunningness and like a cunning quality to shiv. And a part of that is just being the observer and waiting her turn.
- [19:25]
Diya Hadid
Sarah Snook just received a Tony nomination for her role on Broadway in the stage adaptation of the Picture of Dorian Gray. We'll talk more about succession after a break. I'm Ann Marie Baldonado, and this is FRESH AIR. When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Throughline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On Throughline, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news, like presidential power, aging and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from npr.
- [20:05]
Sarah Snook
On the Indicator from Planet Money podcast. We're here to help you make sense of the economic news from Trump's tariffs.
- [20:13]
Matthew McFadyen
It's called in game theory, a trigger strategy, or sometimes called grim trigger, which sort of has a cowboy esque ring.
- [20:20]
Sarah Snook
To it to what exactly a sovereign wealth fund is for insight. Every weekday, listen to NPR's the Indicator from Planet Money. Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like npr, a show that focuses not on the important, but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants, incompetent criminals and ridiculous science studies. And call it Wait, Wait, don't tell Me, because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yes, that is what it is called wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Molly Sievi Nesper, digital producer at Fresh Air.
- [20:59]
Terry Gross
And this is Terry Gross, host of the show.
- [21:01]
Sarah Snook
One of the things I do is.
- [21:03]
Terry Gross
Write the weekly newsletter, and I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week shows, staff recommendations and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.
- [21:15]
Sarah Snook
It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive.
- [21:19]
Terry Gross
So subscribe@why.org fresh air and look for an email From Molly. Every Saturday morning, I want to play.
- [21:28]
Diya Hadid
A scene from Succession. This is actually the last episode. The board of the company is meeting to decide the company's future and who will take over. Would it be your brother Kendall, or Shiv's brother Kendall? Roy? Or would the board approve a sale to a tech company after all the votes are in? Shiv is the deciding vote. She walks out of the room, and the brothers, played by Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin, follow her.
- [21:56]
Sarah Snook
You can't be CEO. You can't, because you killed someone.
- [22:02]
Matthew McFadyen
Which.
- [22:03]
Sarah Snook
What?
- [22:03]
Diya Hadid
Wait, what? Which what?
- [22:06]
Sarah Snook
Like, like you've killed so many people you forgot which one. That's. That.
- [22:12]
Matthew McFadyen
That's not an issue. That didn't happen.
- [22:16]
Sarah Snook
Wait, it didn't as in what?
- [22:18]
Matthew McFadyen
It's just a thing I said. It's a thing I said. I made it up.
- [22:20]
Sarah Snook
You made it up?
- [22:21]
Matthew McFadyen
Yeah. I, I, it was a difficult time for us, and I think I, you know, whatever, must have something from nothing, because I, I just, I wanted for us all to bond at a difficult moment.
- [22:32]
Diya Hadid
Wait, it was a move?
- [22:33]
Matthew McFadyen
No, no, not there. There was a kid. There was that kid, but.
- [22:35]
Sarah Snook
So there was a kid.
- [22:36]
Matthew McFadyen
I had, like, a token, a beer, and not. I didn't even get in the car. It's not.
- [22:40]
Diya Hadid
Hold on.
- [22:41]
Sarah Snook
What?
- [22:42]
Matthew McFadyen
I felt bad and I false memoried it. Like, I'm totally clean. I can do this.
- [22:47]
Sarah Snook
Wait, did it happen or did it not happen?
- [22:48]
Matthew McFadyen
It did not happen. It did not happen. I wasn't even there. It did not happen. Dude, vote for me. Just plea. Vote for me, Shiv. Vote for me.
- [23:05]
Sarah Snook
No.
- [23:07]
Matthew McFadyen
Yes. Shiv, don't do this. You can't do this.
- [23:12]
Sarah Snook
Absolutely not, man. Absolutely not. No.
- [23:15]
Matthew McFadyen
Why?
- [23:16]
Sarah Snook
No. Why?
- [23:17]
Matthew McFadyen
What? Just.
- [23:18]
Sarah Snook
I love you. Really, I love you, but I cannot stomach you.
- [23:22]
Matthew McFadyen
This is disgusting. It doesn't even make any sense. I'm the eldest boy. I am the eldest boy.
- [23:33]
Diya Hadid
You're not.
- [23:34]
Matthew McFadyen
And, you know, it mattered to him. He wanted this to go on.
- [23:38]
Diya Hadid
That's a scene from Succession. What's it like to hear that scene now?
- [23:43]
Sarah Snook
It's so funny. Oh, my gosh. Listening to it and kind of, you know, forgetting. I guess I've forgotten the lines. Getting to listen to it. And I guess not seeing the visual of it is really, really. That's so fun. What great writing. Oh, my gosh, Jessie. Such great writing. It just makes you go like, oh, oh, no. Oh, no. Kendall, you did not just say that. What? Like, it's so cringy and heartfelt and gross and wonderful. Like, it's just like it's. Yeah.
- [24:20]
Diya Hadid
Jesse Armstrong is the creator of Succession, and a lot has been made about how some of Succession was improvised. And once I heard Kieran Culkin, who played your brother Roman, say that you're his favorite improv partner. Can you talk about the improv or if there was a lot of it? And even in that scene, we just heard, there's your character and Kieran Culkin's character reacting to what Jeremy Strong is saying. And all the nos and the oofs feel very in the moment.
- [24:51]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's the sort of the funny thing about. About this show and the writing in the show. I would be hard pressed to know which parts were improvised and which parts weren't, but I would suggest that most of the, like, the oofs and the nos and the interstitial kind of moments, I always felt that those were improvised. And that was the beauty of it, where we could be live and real and expressive without worrying about going over someone else's line for sound or for stitching them up, for reacting too loud or whatever it was, which gave everything a lot of aliveness and energy.
- [25:25]
Diya Hadid
I want to play another scene from Succession. This is a really emotional scene. It's when Logan, Roy's children, find out that Logan is dying. They're all on a boat celebrating the wedding of the oldest son, Connor. They've received a call from Shiv's husband Tom, played by Matthew McFaddy, who's on a plane with Logan. When he's passed out in the bathroom and isn't responsive, Tom calls the siblings to Shiv, share the news. Kendall and Roman have tried to say goodbye and have handed the phone to Shiv, who's just finding out.
- [26:01]
Sarah Snook
Hey, dad.
- [26:02]
Diya Hadid
Hello.
- [26:05]
Sarah Snook
You're gonna be okay. And I'm sorry. Is he dead?
- [26:09]
Diya Hadid
I don't know.
- [26:09]
Sarah Snook
I don't know if he's dead.
- [26:10]
Diya Hadid
Is he dead?
- [26:10]
Sarah Snook
I don't know. Tom. Tom.
- [26:17]
Matthew McFadyen
Hey. Hey.
- [26:20]
Sarah Snook
Is he even alive? I don't know, honey. Are you just being nice to me? Is he gone? He's. I don't.
- [26:29]
Matthew McFadyen
I don't know. We.
- [26:31]
Sarah Snook
He.
- [26:31]
Matthew McFadyen
We don't know. We don't know. Okay, I'm putting you back there. Okay.
- [26:41]
Sarah Snook
Okay. Well, I don't know what you do. You're by his ear. Yeah. Okay, just. Just, like, go private.
- [26:51]
Diya Hadid
Be somewhere private.
- [26:52]
Sarah Snook
Just speak.
- [26:53]
Diya Hadid
It's weird, but speak.
- [26:53]
Sarah Snook
Okay. Like, you never know.
- [26:54]
Diya Hadid
He might hear you.
- [26:56]
Sarah Snook
Dad. Hey, dad. Daddy. I love you. Don't go. Please. Not now. No, I, I, I. I love you. You. God, I don't know. There's no excuses for being. But I. And it's okay. It's okay, Daddy. It's okay. I love you.
- [27:34]
Diya Hadid
That's a scene from Sex Session. That episode was such a killer. And it shows how the siblings are still their father's kids. They hate him, but they. They still love him and want his approval. Was that episode difficult to film?
- [27:48]
Sarah Snook
It was challenging in its expectations, but rewarding because of that. I think the challenges were we were all on a boat in the East River. I can't remember if that was docked at that point. I think we were docked at that point. But, you know, you're on a boat, you're at close quarters. Mark had decided as a group with. With Jesse and everybody to. To shoot that sequence as like. And so each time we did that scene, it was a 29 minute take from that room, then up onto the next level, following Jeremy up, Kendall up, and then coming back down. And then we would go up into the top level room. Yeah, it was hard. It was hard. We shot it over two days though, that. That sort of sequence.
- [28:36]
Diya Hadid
I heard the director of that episode and many episodes, Mark Mylud, talk about how you film this scene, gave it all of this weight and then you sort of snapped out of it and were your delightful Sarah Snooks self again. Is that how you usually are able to do things? Are you able to go in and out like that?
- [28:56]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, I made a choice to do that on this one particularly because. Particularly on that discovery moment. The lines that Jesse had written, this particular speech, I really wanted to learn exactly as he'd written, with all the ellipses and the hyphens and the stuttered thoughts. I wanted to do it exactly as it was because it was. Was so simple the way he'd created that. And I really could see that there were thoughts that she couldn't finish and there were things that were too difficult to be said. And she's going between all these sort of emotions and finding that really sure footing with that. And having felt like I'd rehearsed and prepared well enough to come to the day. I knew that I would lose the impetus and lose the freshness if I stayed, quote, unquote, in character all day. If I was like down in the dumps and dealing with the passing of my father all day it's just gonna run out. Like I'm gonna get dehydrated in a sort of practical sense because I'm gonna be crying and I'm not gonna be refueling enough with water. I'm gonna get desensitized to the fact of my father dying. So I was doing stupid stuff to actively put myself into a different space. And part of that came from being inspired by working with a young actress called Lili Latour in Australia on a film called Run Rabbit Run and dealing with really heavy things and dealing with really big scenes and seeing her ability to go into the scene to be fully present, fully active. And then because she was using her imagination, because she's a kid, when they called cut, she was out, she was doing cartwheels, she was getting doing other things. Like it was it was a real eye opening moment to go like, oh, wear elastic. If you work hard enough, you can be elastic. If you lean on your imagination enough, you can come in and you can come out. You just have to be maybe as an adult mindful of how you do it because you don't want to shortchange your performance, but to trust that there is that ability to do that.
- [30:58]
Diya Hadid
My guest is stage and screen actor Sarah Snook. She played Shiv Roy on the Emmy Award winning show Succession. Now she's on Broadway playing all of the roles in the stage adaptation of the Picture of Dorian Gray. More after a break. This is FRESH air. You're listening to the NPR Network.
- [31:18]
Terry Gross
Live from NPR News. I'm Lauren Schmies.
- [31:20]
Diya Hadid
A living, breathing record of your neighborhood, the country, the world, told by thousands of local journalists who live in the places where stories unfold, backed by a national newsroom that puts it all in perspective. Hear the whole country's story, hear ways of thinking that challenge your own. Hear the bigger picture with npr. I want to ask you about Shiv's marriage to Tom. And spoiler alert, Tom, the son in law, ends up becoming the head of the company. Shiv's by his side. And I want to play a scene, though, from earlier in that last season. Tom and Shiv are hosting a pre election party when it looks like their candidate is going to win. And there are all these powerful people there, but they're so angry with each other that they go out on the balcony and have a blowout fight.
- [32:13]
Sarah Snook
You betrayed me.
- [32:14]
Matthew McFadyen
You were going to see me get sent to prison, Shiv, and then you me off with that undrinkable wine. And you won't have my baby because you never even thought honestly you'd be with me more than like four years out of now.
- [32:29]
Sarah Snook
You offered to go to jail, Tom. You offered because you're servile. You're just you're servile.
- [32:34]
Matthew McFadyen
You are incapable of thinking about anybody other than yourself. Cause your sense of who you are, Shiv, is that.
- [32:41]
Sarah Snook
Oh, yeah, you read that in the book, Tom.
- [32:43]
Matthew McFadyen
You're too transparent to find in a book.
- [32:46]
Sarah Snook
You're pathetic. You're pathetic. You're a masochist and you can't even take it.
- [32:49]
Matthew McFadyen
I think you are incapable of love. And I think you are maybe not a good person to have children.
- [32:57]
Sarah Snook
Well, that's not very nice to say, is it?
- [33:00]
Matthew McFadyen
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But you, you. You have, you have hurt me more than you can possibly imagine.
- [33:10]
Sarah Snook
You. You took away the last six months I could have had with my dad.
- [33:14]
Matthew McFadyen
No.
- [33:15]
Sarah Snook
Yes.
- [33:16]
Diya Hadid
No.
- [33:16]
Sarah Snook
Yes. You sucked up to him and you cut me out.
- [33:20]
Matthew McFadyen
It's not my fault that you didn't get his approval. I have given you endless approval and it doesn't fill you up because you're broken.
- [33:35]
Sarah Snook
I don't like you. I don't. I don't even care about you. I don't care.
- [33:46]
Diya Hadid
That's a scene from the last season of Succession. Can you talk about filming that scene with Matthew McFaddy?
- [33:54]
Sarah Snook
Yeah. It's so weird to listen to, hearing it back. I feel so sorry for them because you can hear it from like more of an objective side, like, oh no, you're such broken people. Yeah, filming that was, was so fun working with Matthew. He's so present and generous as an actor. He's so giving. But we rehearsed a little bit the night before and so when we came in it was really just like in us, I guess, and all the kind of the. Well of pent up aggression, the things that we've never been able to yell at each other or been able to say as Shiv. And Tom was really there, like all the. Oh, it's really just deep subterranean in them and really fun to have a go at each other. Cause they don't argue well as a couple. They never really had good arguments that would clear the air or see another person's point of view. But here they really go for each other's throats. And that was really fun. I mean, I think I just told everyone that I was pregnant as Sarah at that point. And so hearing, hearing Tom say, I don't think you're going to be a very good mother was an easy thing to act in response to because it's all that kind of bound up in there and wondering whether you will be, you know, as Sarah, let alone as Shiv, be a good parent.
- [35:21]
Diya Hadid
And Shiv is pregnant at that point but hasn't told him.
- [35:24]
Sarah Snook
Yeah.
- [35:24]
Diya Hadid
Which makes it even more hurtful.
- [35:26]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, it's just a horrible, horrible scene. And so, again, so well written. And that's the wonderful bedrock of this show.
- [35:37]
Diya Hadid
Now, you grew up in Australia, and I read that you grew up near a national park. So was that very rural or picturesque or.
- [35:45]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, it was so very picturesque and I felt rural. But looking at it now and looking on like Google maps, it's like 30 minutes from the center of the city. It's so close to the center of the city. It's crazy. But this national park's so beautiful. Yeah, I guess Australia has a real wonderful blurred line between nature and metropolis or city.
- [36:12]
Diya Hadid
And you have two older sisters, so you were the youngest. Just like Shiv. Your parents got divorced when you were young and you moved a bit. But I read the one thing that was constant was your love of watching movies. And your mom even worked for Disney for a time.
- [36:28]
Sarah Snook
Yeah, she at one point she was distributing Disney vhs, so she got to bring home a bunch of those. And I loved them. I really just repeated those all the time. I had Snow White, Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin just on repeat in my house. Yeah.
- [36:50]
Diya Hadid
I read that you were sort of more interested in the character actor or the villain.
- [36:55]
Sarah Snook
Yeah. You know, there's a part of me, the feminist in me is like, oh, but if you watch Disney films, you might end up wanting to be a princess and being saved by a prince and a princess can save herself, you know? Sure. I mean, that is true. But also I grew up watching those films and I was the one who came out of that going like, great. I want to be the Genie. I want to be Jafar. I want to be Iago. I want to be Ursula. I want to be Scar. I want to be Simba. I want to be all the like the characters who go and do stuff and who are funny and strange and weird and get great musical numbers.
- [37:27]
Diya Hadid
Yes, they have the good lines.
- [37:28]
Sarah Snook
They have the great lines.
- [37:30]
Diya Hadid
Well, Sarah Snook, thank you so much for joining us.
- [37:34]
Sarah Snook
My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Nice to chat.
- [37:36]
Terry Gross
Sarah Snook spoke with FRESH air's Anne Marie Boldonaro Last week. Snook received a Tony nomination for her leading role in the stage adaptation of the Picture of Dorian Gray. The show's run has been extended until June 29th. Coming up, our rock critic Ken Tucker remembers David Thomas, the lead singer for the band Pair Ubu. He died last month at age 71. This is FRESH AIR. David Thomas, lead singer and principal songwriter for the band Per ubu died on April 23rd at age 71. Thomas and Per Ubu emerged from the Cleveland punk rock scene in the late 1970s and were immediately recognized as unique artists. Our rock critic Ken Tucker reviewed the band's 1978 debut album, the Modern Dance, for Rolling Stone, describing the music back then as harsh, ugly, vivid and exhilarating. Here's Ken's appreciation of David Thomas work.
- [38:34]
Ken Tucker
I wanna make a deal with you girl Get a sign out of here to stay I wanna make a deal with you Gail Be recognized around the world Not a line of crap give it a try Not a line of PAP.
- [38:59]
David Thomas
In 1978, that was most people's introduction to David Thomas voice. The central sound of Per Ubu on the opening song of their debut album, the Modern Dance. Everything Thomas would do for the next 47 years was already in place. The high pitched growl and prickly phrasing, his stop start way of blurting out the lyrics. The surrealist approach to imagery. The band's personnel would change regularly over the decades. The one Per Ubu constant was David Thomas. His singing, his songwriting and his immense physical presence on stage. Not for nothing was one of his Pre Ubu stage names. Crocus Behemoth.
- [39:54]
Ken Tucker
It's a lovely day by the sea Mr. Potato Head is strumming a guitar the beggar on the bench is acting lewd and crude Weekend father's got his kid up for a stroll Winter born offshore Shredding the seagulls once more so that's.
- [40:26]
Sarah Snook
Good.
- [40:30]
Ken Tucker
And it is as it should be On a lovely day by the sea.
- [40:43]
David Thomas
Thomas death at age 71 brings to a close one of the most significant avant garde experiments ever conducted within the confines of pop music. Emerging from Cleveland, the band was as inspired by the clanking sounds of the city's industrial factories as it was by the blues that David Thomas loved. As he said more than once, we don't promote chaos, we preserve it.
- [41:08]
Ken Tucker
Save the emotional garbage for someone who's gonna pretend much better than I Shut up, shut up. A better boys dance, the dreamboat, a bit of car who sings like a girl Take on something they're gonna want to show you Shut up, shut up. Picking up a man, you got delus. You have intentions, you think that this is real.
- [42:07]
David Thomas
Over the years, certain themes recurred in Thomas songwriting. He wrote lyrics that revealed a deep knowledge of 20th century hardboard fiction. Novelists like Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson and James Crumley would have covered their ears at Per Ubu's noise. But they'd recognize a kindred spirit in the man who wrote repeatedly about desperate getaways in the ink black night, about cynical men and tough women trying to make emotional connections. In the extraordinary song called Irene from 2014's Carnival of Souls album, Thomas steals a phrase from 50s rocker Screamin Jay Hawkins to tell Irene he thinks their love is probably doomed. For a few moments, the harsh clatter of per Ubu music subsides. His croon only underlines his despair.
- [42:59]
Ken Tucker
I put a spell on you because you're mine. I put a spell on you. You, you will say you love me and I will say it's all gonna.
- [43:39]
Sarah Snook
Go wrong.
- [43:43]
Ken Tucker
You'Re not gonna turn well.
- [43:50]
David Thomas
Thomas go to facial expression was the scowl. He liked to come off crotchety and did not suffer fools gladly. In his later years, he'd sing while seated in a chair on stage like a king surveying his subjects, like, in fact, the mad King ubu. In Alfred Jarre's 19th century absurdist play that inspired the band's name, this per Ubu enunciated like a man caught mumbling in a dream to convey the sound of distraction, confusion or pure bliss. In the song Mandy from the 2013 album lady from Shanghai, Thomas sings the line, I could sleep for a thousand years.
- [44:30]
Ken Tucker
Another crazy jukebox is playing Bottom of.
- [44:35]
Sarah Snook
A Hole and the Holies.
- [44:38]
Ken Tucker
There's death of My soul and my soul's end. I could sleep for a thousand years. I could sleep for a thousand years. Would you come out to play with me, Mandy? Would you come out to play?
- [44:56]
David Thomas
The people overseeing Perubu's Facebook page included this statement in announcing his death. David Thomas and his band have been recording a new album. He knew it was to be his last. We will endeavor to continue with mixing and finalizing the new album so that his last music is available to all. I cannot wait to hear it.
- [45:18]
Terry Gross
Ken Tucker is FRESH AIR's rock critic. David Thomas died April 23rd. He was 71. Tomorrow, our guest will be Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Michelle Williams. In the new limited TV series Dying for Sex, she plays a woman who finds out she's dying of cancer and decides to leave her unhappy marriage and her life behind to seek pleasure and sexual satisfaction. She'll tell us about portraying characters experiencing grief, loss and resilience. I hope you'll join us.
- [45:53]
Ken Tucker
Sing a word song.
- [45:57]
Terry Gross
To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram @NPR. Fresh Air Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller, our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Bodonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly. Sivi Nesper. Roberto Shorok directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Moseley. I'm Terry Gross.