Long Live Shiv Roy: Sarah Snook Tells All on That ‘Succession’ Ending, Her Pregnancy and Crying Through the Finale
variety.comSuccession,” the tenuously married couple Shiv Roy and Tom Wambsgans exit their crowded election eve party to viciously scream at each other, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” style, on their balcony.
Half in shadow, half lit by the glow emanating from their Manhattan triplex, they hurl previously unspoken cruelties at one another, all of which are true. “You’re pathetic!” Shiv tells Tom. “You’re a masochist, and you can’t even take it.” Tom is ready — too ready — with a response. “I think you are incapable of love,” he says. “And I think you are maybe not” — Tom pauses for a millisecond before lowering his voice to finish the thought — “a good person to have children.” Shiv’s eyes well with tears for the first time during the brutal argument, and for the audience, it’s a gasp-worthy moment.
We know Shiv — like Sarah Snook — is pregnant, a secret revealed to us earlier in the season, but it’s information the character hasn’t yet shared within the show.
Incredibly, it turns out the scene contained an even greater dramatic irony. Snook says when that balcony scene was filmed, more than halfway through production on the season, “I, as Sarah, was pregnant — but when we shot the scene, Shiv wasn’t.” In other words, that was a plot point that hadn’t yet been written into the story. “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong knew, as did others in the company to whom Snook was close, like Matthew Macfadyen. “Matthew knew that I was pregnant, yeah; Tom didn’t,” she says.
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