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Season 4 didn’t have to be the end of “Succession”.
In the latest instalment of Variety‘s “Actors on Actors”, series star Kieran Culkin revealed to actor Claire Danes that the creator of the show had a pitch worked out for a fifth season.
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Asked if he was aware going into season 4 that it would be the HBO hit’s final season, Culkin admitted, “Not really.”
“What does that mean?” Danes asked.
“It means Jesse Armstrong, our showrunner-writer, didn’t know,” Culkin explained. “He told me before the season started that he thinks this is the end, but he doesn’t know. I’d actually stopped asking what was coming later. And that was the thing: I liked it. I liked not knowing!”
He continued, “And then this year, he mentioned that it might be the end before we started shooting, so I started asking him questions. He told me what happens with Logan, and I asked him to break down everything. And he explained the entire season to me. And then when he got to the end, I said, ‘Well, that seems like that’s the end of the show.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Although …’ And then he just started talking about all these different ideas off the top of his head.”
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Culkin recalled, “And he was like, ‘This is just off the top of my head.’ And then he just pitched an amazing fifth season and then another and another.”
“And then denied them to you,” Danes joked.
“Then denied,” the actor said. “He kept us guessing the whole time. There were some of us that were so sure that there was not going to be another season. Sarah Snook, the entire time, until the very end was like, ‘There’s going to be a fifth season.’ And had very clear ideas on what it was. And it was after the table read for the final episode, he told us.”
“Did he tell you why?” Danes wondered.
“He felt like the story was complete, and creatively that was it?” Culkin told her. “He’s like, ‘I feel like it’s complete.”’I feel like he’s satisfied as a writer.”
The finale of “Succession” aired on May 28.