‘Succesion’ Cast and Crew at the 2023 Emmys.Photo:FOX
FOX
Successionended its run with a win for outstanding drama series at the 2023Emmy Awards.
Andor,Better Call Saul,The Crown,House of the Dragon,The Last of Us,The White Lotus, andYellowjacketswere also up for the coveted prize.
“Thank you very much indeed,” series creatorJesse Armstrongshared while accepting the award. “We want to thank HBO. This wasn’t necessarily an easy show to commission right at the very beginning. So thank you to Casey Bloys who I first pitched it to, to Francesca Orsi and Nora Skinner who have seen it through and to Richard Plepler who was there at the beginning.”
“Succession”.HBO
“I just want to say thank you toBrian Cox. The show revolved around whether he was in it or not,” he added. “This is a show about family but it’s also about when partisan politics, partisan news coverage gets intertwined with divisive right-wing politics and after four seasons of satire, as I understand it, that’s a problem we have now fixed.”
He concluded: “So we can now depart the stage. Listen, we are so honored. We’ve loved making the show. Thank you very much indeed.”
The final season ofSuccessionsaw the death of Logan Roy (Brian Cox) leaving the fate of the Roy family and the ownership of their company Waystar Royco in limbo. The series concluded with Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) becoming the company’s new CEO.
“The idea of Tom being the eventual successor, that had been something that I thought was the right ending for quite a while now,” series creatorJesse ArmstrongtoldHuffPostfollowing theseries finalein May.
“Even though he’s not exactly the most powerful monarch you’ll ever meet — his power comes from Matsson [Alexander Skarsgård]. Those figures that drift upwards and make themselves amenable to powerful people are around,” he added.
In addition to Cox and Macfadyen, starsJeremy Strong,Alan Ruck,Sarah Snook,Kieran Culkin,Nicholas Braun,J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche,Fisher Stevens,Hiam Abbass, Justine Lupe, Scott Nicholson, Zoë Winters and Jeannie Berlin.
Successiondominated the2023 Emmys Awards nominationswith a whopping 27 nods.
Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) in “Andor”.Disney+
Andoris a direct prequel to the 2016 standalone filmRogue One: A Star Wars Story, which itself was a prequel to the original 1977 filmStar Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
The Disney+ series followsDiego Luna’s Cassian Andor, a thief who is recruited to become a Rebel spy. Season 1 was a tense espionage thriller that followed Andor through a high-stakes heist and a prison break.
Luna, 44, previously saidAndor’s second season will be its last— and he’s happy about it.
“It is just a two-season show, which is really important for my mental health,” the actor toldVariety. “But knowing this is the end, I want to enjoy it and get the best out of this experience.”
Bob Odenkirk in “Better Call Saul”.Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television
Better Call Saulconcluded its six-season run in August 2022. TheBreaking Badspinoff sawBob Odenkirkstar as criminal–turned–lawyer Saul Goodman before the events of the original series took place.
In addition to praisingSaul’s co-creatorsVince Gilligan and Peter Gould, Odenkirk shared his appreciation for fans' support over the years.
“Thanks for giving us a chance. We came out of maybe a lot of people’s most favorite show ever, and we could have been hated for simply trying to do a show,” he said. “But we weren’t. We were given a chance, and hopefully we made the most of it. Thank you for staying with us.”
The show earned numerous accolades, including more than 40 Emmy Award nominations, over the course of its run.
Des Willie/Netflix
The final season ofThe Crownwas released in two parts. The first focused onPrincess Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) final days before herfatal car crashin August 1997 while the second part chronicledKing Charles(Dominic Westas the then-Prince Charles) andCamilla’s (Olivia Williams) progression in their relationship, as well as the love story betweenPrince William(Ed McVey) andKate Middleton(Meg Bellamy).
Debicki told PEOPLE thatthe weight of playing Dianafor the major streaming series was not lost on her, sharing,“I did a lot of research for this role. I probably spent about a year doing research and that just filled in all these pieces and made me have such deep, deep respect and love for this person who I didn’t know so much about.”
She continued, “The battle that she went through in terms of media, public perception. I didn’t know things about the divorce and how difficult all of that was for everybody in the family.”
Debicki was also nominated for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series forThe Crownat this year’s Emmys.The Crownreceived 69 Emmy nominations over its six-season run.
Matt Smith and Emma D’Arcy in “House of the Dragon”.Ollie Upton / HBO
Ollie Upton / HBO
House of the Dragon— based on authorGeorge R.R. Martin’sFire & Bloodsaga — portrays the events leading up to the beginning of the decline of House Targaryen.
Matt Smith,Olivia Cooke,Emma D’Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno and Rhys Ifans starred in theGame of Thronesprequel series’ first season.
“Season 1 was setting the table for a very bloody feast to come,” the show’s co-creatorRyan CondaltoldEntertainment Weekly. “The reason that I wanted to really spend our time doing this is because I wanted everybody to understand who all of these characters were and the long history they had behind them — behind their fathers and their grandfathers — that led us to this point where they end up fighting a civil war against each other.”
The hit HBO series scored eight Emmy nominations for its first season. The show is expected to return fora sophomore run this summer.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in “The Last of Us”.Liane Hentscher/HBO
Liane Hentscher/HBO
The series takes place decades after civilization has been destroyed and isbased on a 2013 video game.Nick Offerman,Murray Bartlett, Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Jeffrey Pierce,Anna TorvandStorm Reidalso had roles in season 1, with Offerman and Reid winningguest actorandguest actressEmmys on Jan. 6 for their work.
Pascal opened up about his experience filming the series in Alberta, Canada, tellingBusiness Insider, “It was incredibly challenging, but it was more fun than anything else because of how delicious the scripts are, the characters, the creators, the team, putting it all together, the locations, the cultural environment of being in Canada and having a Canadian crew and all of these elements that fell into line with one another.”
“It didn’t mean that it wasn’t hard work, and that it wasn’t a very specific kind of physical labor for everyone,” he continued. “That’s kind of what happened. A very large family going through a very contained experience, and it was really wonderful for everybody.”
Thesecond season ofThe Last of Uswill premiere on HBO in 2025, with production slated to start next month.
Haley Lu Richardson and Jennifer Coolidge in “The White Lotus”.HBO
HBO
The second season ofThe White Lotuschronicled the comings and goings of vacationers and staff at the Italian branch of the infamous hotel chain.
Jennifer CoolidgeandJon Griesreturned for season 2, and new cast members includedSabrina Impacciatore,Michael Imperioli,Haley Lu Richardson,Theo James,Aubrey PlazaandMeghann Fahy.
“It’s more juicy, it feels like the stakes are higher and there’s more intense drama and plot twists than the first season,” Plaza, who portrayed lawyer Harper Spiller, toldEntertainment Weekly. “It’s more heightened in the way that it made sense for the stories that happened on this volcanic island.”
“Of course the stories and the characters are more volcanic because that was the energy in Sicily. Italy has this kind of machismo culture that we’re thrust into and when you have a bunch of Americans going to Europe, there’s always that discourse with the puritanical American style versus the Italians who just seem to be much more open and sexual, to be blunt,” she added.
The White Lotushas received 43 Emmy nominations in its two-season run. A premiere date forseason 3has not been announced.
Christina Ricci as Misty, Juliette Lewis as Natalie, Tawny Cypress as Taissa and Melanie Lynskey as Shauna in “Yellowjackets”.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
Lynskey, who plays Shauna Shipman on the series, celebrated her youngerYellowjacketscostars after they wrapped their part for season 2 of the hit Showtime drama.
She thanked the cast and crew for their “hard work” and “brilliance” and “the love I feel from all of you.”
“Sorry to be sappy but the 90s cast ofYellowjacketswrapped yesterday and we all sat and watched episode 201 together…” she wrote onX (formerly known as Twitter)at the time. “And other than my siblings,I have never felt this level of pride and respect and adorationfor a group of people. I can’t believe their talent and their hearts.”
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source: people.com
