Sarah Snook Applauds ‘Succession’ Writers for Working Her Pregnancy Into Final Season: It ‘Wasn’t a Planned Thing’
‘I think the fear from women can be that they will be sidelined,’ the actress said of finding out she was pregnant before filming
Sarah Snook is grateful for her Succession family.
In an interview with Variety, the actress — who welcomed her first child with husband Dave Lawson in April — revealed that while her pregnancy “wasn’t a planned thing” ahead of filming the final season, the writers were thrilled to include it as a storyline … despite her fears that she would be “sidelined.”
“I think the fear from women can be that they will be sidelined, or considered less-than,” she told the outlet.
But, according to Snook, show creator Jesse Armstrong’s attitude was just the opposite: “Bring it — let’s work out how we can make this work for you,” Snook recalled Armstrong saying. “Not ‘You ruined my story! You ruined my imagination games!'”
The writers used Snook’s pregnancy to their advantage and created one of Season 4’s most compelling storylines — and, frankly, one of the biggest twists: Shiv’s pregnancy.
Snook debuted her baby bump while posing at the Season 4 premiere of Succession in March. For the announcement, the actress donned a body-hugging black dress with a floor-length shimmering jacket.
“It’s exciting!” she told Entertainment Tonight as she held her growing belly. “I feel great.”
However, she revealed the news to the show’s crew when she and Matthew MacFayden filmed the iconic balcony fight scene between Tom and Shiv in November.
During the scene, Tom tells Shiv that she isn’t capable of being a good mom: “I think you are incapable of love. And I think you are maybe not a good person to have children.”
“I, as Sarah, was pregnant — but when we shot the scene, Shiv wasn’t,” said Snook.
“So when I hear that line, ‘Maybe you’re not going to be a good mom’—maybe that’s me hearing it, just as much as it is Shiv. Because that’s a pretty horrible thing to say to somebody!”
The Succession star revealed the birth of her first baby with an Instagram photo of her and her newborn watching the final season of the HBO drama in May.
She reflected on her experience of taping the series, writing in the caption, “It’s hard to express what this show has meant to me. The places I got to go, the immense talent I got to work with…it breaks my heart that it is all over.”
Continued the new mom, “But my heart had to be this full of all the memories, good times, challenges and triumphs, to be able to break at all…so that makes me grateful. To have been blessed to join this crazy adventure of a show will be a career highlight, which will no doubt be hard to top. I am so, so proud and humbled by everyone’s hard work season after season: we all set the bar high for each other, then exceeded it and excelled, in every department.”
“The friendships, the scripts, the locations, the one liners, the early mornings, the last minute changes, all the highs and lows: I’m going to miss it all,” wrote Snook. “The people of this show are a talented bunch, and I’m proud to have worked alongside them, it’s the people I will miss most of all.”
