Succession’s Arian Moayed On The Final Season: “Piercing. Heartbreaking. Genius” | Exclusive
In honour of the culminating season of Succession, Bazaar Arabia speaks with the actor about his experience working on the show and what we can expect from the finale…
Arian Moayed is having quite the month; it’s filled with premieres and performances, plenty to celebrate. Making his Broadway comeback after eight years at the Hudson Theatre in the role of Torvald Helmer on Henrik Ibsen’s protofeminist masterpiece A Doll’s House, the Iranian-American actor, writer, and director is celebrating the premiere of the final season of Succession, as well as the dawn of a new year with Nowruz – the Persian New Year.
Chronicling his twenty-one-year-long career – which includes roles in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Inventing Anna – as well as his socially-conscious work with Waterwell, a non-profit theatre production company that he founded, Arian spoke with Bazaar Arabia about what it was like to work on the critically-acclaimed HBO series.
Since its release in 2018, Succession has reached unprecedented levels of global success as it followers the story of a fictitious family-owned media conglomerate, Waystar Royco, owned by the menacing Logan Roy and the thorny relationships he shares with his children — Kendall, Roman, Shiv, and Connor. In the cold-blooded world of this piercing spectacle, Arian takes on the role of the cunning and ever-charming Stewy Hosseini who fits snugly into the labyrinthine machinations of Jesse Armstrong, the creator of the show.
In honour of the culminating season of Succession, which is streaming now on OSNTV and OSN+, Bazaar Arabia speaks with Arian about his fondest memories on set; the relevance of A Doll’s House today, and what’s in store for the future.
Harper’s Bazaar Arabia (HBA): How would you describe your experience working on Succession?
Arian Moayed (AM): It’s been one of the greatest experiences of my life. There’s so much about it that I love, that I’m going to miss. So much about it that I’m thankful for… and humbled by.
It’s rare for an actor to get an opportunity to be on something that is so lauded and loved. The whole experience has been a real shift for me, in my own career… As an artist, you never know where it’s going to lead you. I’m so grateful for it.
HBA: Tell us about the chemistry you’ve built with the other actors in the five years you’ve been working together. How would you describe it?
AM: A few nights ago we had our Season Four premiere, after which we all danced until they literally kicked us out. My co-stars are some of the greatest actors and people in the world right now, and to have the opportunity to have scenes with them – as well as have relationships with them – it’s a beautiful thing. It’s bittersweet because I don’t know how many more opportunities we’re going to have to hang like that. They really are some of the most skilled practitioners in our field, from the crew level all the way up.
HBA: How do you work with Jeremy Strong’s method acting?
AM: Outside of being an actor I also have a non-profit here in New York City called Waterwell. For years we’ve been telling young artists, “I don’t care what your methodology is to get to that place to get you the goods.” The same goes for Jeremy. His process is his process. I respect and admire it. He really cares and he goes deep.
Navigating through his process and my process is something that I feel comfortable with, just because I know that artists all have their own ways of attacking something. I don’t want to be the one that judges that. I just need to know that on the day, it’s working. Obviously, with Jeremy, it’s beyond working; it’s an honour just to share space with him, as an artist of that calibre.
HBA: There’s been some talk of a “final battle” between Kendall and Logan Roy in this upcoming season. Does Stewy play any kind of role in it?
AM: Stewy is always going to be a character who could be your enemy and your friend at the same time; his real bottom line is winning. In the Logan vs. kids dynamic, I think there is a definite opportunity for both sides to see how Stewy could be swayed in one way or another. I will just say that Stewy is loyal to money and winning more than people – which is what Logan really wants; but, I think, Stewy also has a deep friendship with Kendall which makes it complicated.
HBA: We have heard a lot about how the environment on the Succession set is open with a lot of room for improvisation. How has that helped you figure out the character you play?
AM: Outside of the unbelievable writing, one of the other big revolutionary acts of Succession on the crew side is that we shoot on film. The reason why that’s important is that when you’re shooting on digital, it’s very easy to be like, “Oh, you know what, let’s just cut for a second,” because we’re not wasting any media.
But when you’re in the middle of shooting an eight-page scene on film, you can’t say, “Hey, let’s just stop and start over.” The film will run out. So, as a performer, you’re already put in a pretty dangerous scenario.
On Succession, we’ll shoot twelve to thirteen pages all at once. You have to learn to improvise. Maybe on one of the takes someone accidentally bumps you, or something falls. If you don’t acknowledge that or your surroundings, you’re just not being in the space. The process feeds itself because of the medium, making sure that it’s much a very alive take. That’s why when you watch it, you’re also watching people interact in the background and all of a sudden it zooms to someone else who is having a whole other conversation. A lot of that is dictated by us shooting on film and the director – especially Mark Mylod – putting us all in long takes.
HBA: When did you find out that the Fourth Season would be the last?
AM: Early on in the season, in maybe August, Jesse took all the lead actors and gave us an idea of what the season is going to look like and mentioned that it could be, potentially, the last season. This didn’t come as a surprise to us because we all know him very well. We know that he wants to leave everyone wanting more, instead of saying, “Oh, we went too far.” We didn’t officially know until early January when we were shooting Episodes Nine and Ten.
Season Four is the best season of Succession. Jesse knows what he’s doing, you just have to trust the artist in that way – and trust us when we say that we trust him.
HBA: How do you feel now that Succession is ending?
AM: Bittersweet. I’m going to miss all the people a lot. I’m going to miss Jesse’s words a lot. I’m going to miss so much of it. But overall, I feel that this landmark show has a landmark ending and I’m honoured to be a part of it.
HBA: Esquire Middle East recently published an interview with Brian Cox, who said that Jesse Armstrong is thinking of doing a “spin-off on one of the characters.” Do you know anything about this?
AM: No, I don’t know anything about that. I have no idea, but man would I love a spin-off for Stewy Hosseini.
HBA: Who do you think would be an interesting subject for a spin-off?
AM: Tom and Greg. I could watch that for, probably, six years. Also, the “Logan Crew” of Gerri, Karl, Frank, Hugo and Karolina – the little pawns – I would watch seasons of that.
HBA: Could you describe the final season in three words?
AM: Piercing. Heartbreaking. Genius.
HBA: You’ve been performing on Broadway alongside Jessica Chastain in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which originally premiered in 1879. How is it still relevant to the world we live in today?
AM: It’s unbelievably, powerfully relevant to today’s world. I am an Iranian immigrant. I’m heavily involved in the Iranian revolution that’s happening right now. My family came and saw the show a couple of Saturdays ago and the whole time when watching the show, they only thought about Iran.
The play has Nora at the centre of it who is trying to figure out how she fits within this society, which has put all these rules and boundaries on her. She finally says, “Why is this like this?”We should be asking that question often when it comes to women’s rights which are constantly in flux. A Doll’s House really taps into that. To be real with you, a huge part of why I’m doing this is because of the women of Iran, leading this woman-led movement. I was reading the play while going to protests in Europe for the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. It’s a long, complicated answer to say, I feel that it’s too relevant.
HBA: How do you approach roles you play on screen and prepare for them vs. roles you play on stage in front of a live audience?
AM: There are so many similarities there. As an artist, I’m trying to do pieces of work that actually fit under this Zoroastrian understanding that’s called “Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.” Those little rules are how I pick the shows that I do.
The medium at which it is shouldn’t actually make a difference. I just have to understand, “Does it fit under these parameters?” And if it does, I have to put on different tool belts. For theatre, your voice has to be ready. You have to be completely relaxed, and you have to be stretched out. It’s a marathon and A Doll’s House is a massive marathon.
HBA: Lastly, what’s in store for the future? Are you working on any exciting projects you can share with us?
AM: A couple of years ago, Waterwell did a show called The Courtroom which was a re-enactment of one woman’s deportation case in the United States from 2007. We took the transcripts of this piece and performed them in courtrooms in New York City. And it became a socially-conscious piece of art that we performed in 2019 and 2020. That was made into a movie during the pandemic.
I have a couple of movies coming out as well. I’m in the new Nicole Holofcener movie starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus called You Hurt My Feelings which comes out in May. I’m also going to be in a movie called House of Spoils with Ariana DeBose and Barbie Ferreira which is this psychological horror-thriller that Blumhouse is doing, hopefully coming out later this year as well.
Lead Image Courtesy/@arianmoayed on Instagram