00:00 I have given you endless approval and it doesn't fill you up because you're broken.
00:05 I don't like you.
00:09 It's really, really freaking cold on the top floor of a triplex in downtown Manhattan.
00:14 And as Matthew would yell, "You're going to send me to prison, Shiv!"
00:17 I could hear like, "Shiv, Shiv, Shiv, Shiv!"
00:20 Bouncing off the walls of all the buildings around, which made me laugh
00:23 because I thought if anyone actually could hear us arguing, that they actually
00:26 think that this husband's wife sent him to prison.
00:28 The difficulty of that scene is I used a lot of practicals.
00:31 I let the practicals be the main light.
00:33 It really was just as exciting to watch it, to film it, to edit
00:38 it as it was to first read it.
00:40 I mean, it really was a beautifully realized moment, I think, in this show.
00:45 My name is Ken Aluto.
00:56 I'm one of the editors on Succession.
00:58 My name is Patrick Capone.
00:59 I'm the director of photography on Succession.
01:02 I'm Robert Polcini.
01:03 I'm the co-director of the episode, "Tailgate Party," Succession.
01:07 And I'm Shari Springer-Berman.
01:09 I'm also co-director, and this is Variety's "Making a Scene."
01:13 I wonder if we shouldn't clear the air.
01:15 Yeah?
01:16 Yeah.
01:16 I'm sure.
01:17 Well, the first time we read the script, this big moment wasn't in the script.
01:21 It went through a few iterations.
01:23 And when this scene finally arrived, Shari and I were just overjoyed
01:27 because the writing was so unique for Succession because Succession
01:32 is so much about subtext.
01:33 It's not really about direct confrontation.
01:36 These two people dance around so many things and to have something so
01:40 confrontational with these two was just such a gift.
01:44 I think you shouldn't have even married me, actually.
01:48 What the fuck?
01:48 Yeah.
01:49 What the actual fuck?
01:50 This fight was a long time coming for Chev and Tom to have finally an
01:54 explosive moment to really say what they thought about each other and also
01:58 to express their deepest, rawest, most vulnerable emotions.
02:02 The first thing I said to everybody is, "This is who's afraid of Virginia Woolf.
02:07 This is Georgia and Martha."
02:09 And I think that kind of was the thing that was going on in our head as we were
02:13 thinking about how to shoot it, where to shoot it, and how to proceed with it.
02:17 It's supposed to be my lowest fucking ebb.
02:19 My dad was dying.
02:21 What was I supposed to say?
02:22 Perhaps no.
02:23 I don't want to hurt your feelings.
02:24 Oh, thanks.
02:25 Thanks for that.
02:26 We were doing night shoots, maybe for four days straight.
02:29 We had to shoot at night.
02:30 We had to shoot over the course of at least a week and we
02:35 needed it to feel very fluid.
02:37 So if somebody walked out of the room and went onto the balcony, we had to
02:40 remember where everyone was so that when we came back the next day, it made sense.
02:45 We didn't want it to be a big cutaway mess.
02:47 And we drew diagrams of where people encounter each other and what
02:51 conversations they would have so that by the time this huge explosive fight
02:56 happens, everybody's right where they should be.
02:59 But the actual filming of that language back and forth that the actors achieve
03:05 so brilliantly happened in one day, one night.
03:08 The night before, Matthew had learned his lines, but wanted to sort of just
03:11 practice them and I had not yet learned the fight scene, even though we were
03:15 shooting the next day, I hadn't had a chance.
03:17 And so what we did is every time we had a break between the scenes that we were
03:20 shooting the day before, just sort of kept running the lines and it was really fun.
03:25 It felt like rehearsing a play because we just go outside and yell at each other
03:28 and then come back in and pretend as if nothing had happened.
03:31 Yeah.
03:31 You really kept me safe while you ran off to fuck the phone book.
03:33 Oh, fuck off.
03:34 You're a heck.
03:35 We wanted it to be a fishbowl where the sound, when you see it from the inside,
03:41 looking out, you just see this argument going on and you don't really know what's
03:45 going on.
03:46 So that was a very purposeful choice by the directors.
03:50 We really pushed for this confrontation to occur on the balcony.
03:54 The way that balcony is kind of very narrow and runs the length of the entire
03:59 party, we thought would really be just an amazing place to stage the scene
04:04 because it was originally written in the kitchen.
04:05 We're a married couple, so we know a lot about fighting in different places.
04:10 And there's something about having that kind of an argument where there are
04:14 people watching, let alone in this case, the most influential people.
04:20 This is a small group of very important, influential people.
04:24 And to go to a place where you're fighting, even if they can't, people can't
04:28 hear you, they can see you.
04:29 They know your body language.
04:31 It means that that's a fight of some kind of epic, emotional proportions that you
04:37 wonder, can you come back from that?
04:39 Because your whole family is striving in parochial.
04:42 That's not, that's not a fair characterization.
04:46 Oh no?
04:46 Well, your mom loves me more than she loves you because she's cracked.
04:49 We cross shot, we often cross shoot, maybe two or three takes each side.
04:53 Well, one of the things that we are very proud of on Succession is we give our
04:58 actors as much freedom as we can.
05:00 We don't block it.
05:01 We really protect the performances.
05:03 And I always give them the ability to go wherever they want to go.
05:07 So having said that, I needed to light the entire balcony.
05:12 I also needed to light it in such a way that we can look into
05:16 the apartment and not see lights.
05:18 I'm very fortunate that I have a great team behind us and we work very fast and
05:23 we've learned to hide lights everywhere.
05:25 And then luckily we had access to the roof on top since this was the penthouse.
05:29 So we were able to create a little bit of a moonlight coming from up top.
05:34 I'm not sure if they use any of the cuts, but we did do several passes from inside
05:39 the apartment through people, and then you would see this argument going on outside.
05:43 There was some stuff from indoors, looking out of them on the patio.
05:48 And there were some shots of them, people looking in, watching them talk.
05:53 And initially I had done a pass where I use a piece of that, where Tom's talking
05:57 about, you're going to send me to prison.
05:59 Then he gave me that crappy wine, because it was really screaming at that point.
06:03 And it was kind of like in the middle of the scene.
06:04 So I cut inside, I kind of muted the sound a little bit, but you could see
06:08 people listening and watching them.
06:09 You know, we definitely tried a more like extreme cut and it felt like it let
06:15 the tension go a little bit.
06:16 It was almost funny, which was a tone you didn't want to introduce there because
06:22 it's almost funny, like, oh my God, like what the hell is going on out there?
06:27 And then you fogged me off with that fucking undrinkable wine and you won't
06:31 have my baby because you never even thought honestly, you'd be with me more
06:35 than like four fucking years.
06:36 You offered to go to jail, Tom!
06:38 That night was the first night that I told the broader sort of crew community
06:43 that I was pregnant, which was really fun to be like, oh, by the way, yeah, when
06:48 he says this line, it means something different to me as the actor right now.
06:51 At that point, we knew that Sarah Snook was pregnant, but we didn't know that
06:58 the character, that Shiv Roy was going to be pregnant in the show yet.
07:02 There was a, ooh, it would be cool if she was pregnant, but we hadn't, it hadn't
07:08 been written into the script yet.
07:10 At the time, Tom doesn't know that Shiv's pregnant.
07:13 There's so many different layers that are being dealt with that, yes, they're
07:16 being honest, but there's still things that they're not saying to each other.
07:19 And I think you are maybe not a good person to have children.
07:23 Well, that's not very nice to say, is it?
07:28 I found it really upsetting watching it.
07:30 I felt really sad for Shiv and how she couldn't have, you know, the dissolution
07:35 of her marriage and she just really has nobody and really felt genuinely that he
07:39 did take away the last six months she could have had with her dad and how
07:42 hurt they both were, I felt really sad for them.
07:45 You took away the last six months I could have had with my dad.
07:48 No.
07:49 Yes.
07:50 No.
07:50 Yes.
07:51 You sucked up to him and you cut me out.
07:53 Matthew and I are having a lot of fun.
07:55 Like, it's a game.
07:56 We're playing.
07:57 None of it's real.
07:58 You yell at each other and you get all upset and then you're like, ooh, spicy.
08:02 That's fun.
08:03 I should yell at you.
08:04 I like to, with actors, let them put it down.
08:09 Whatever way they're feeling and with these actors, it's so brilliant that you
08:14 are like, it's a gift every way, every time they read the lines and then just
08:20 make slight adjustments, almost like sculpting.
08:23 I remember having a conversation with Sarah about at what point are tears
08:28 undermining her power in the scene?
08:31 Little things like that.
08:32 It is kind of this incredible tennis match of words between them and they're
08:37 both such skilled players and that's really what we wanted to maintain is like
08:42 that level of nobody's winning here.
08:45 Both are losing actually and where they end up after.
08:48 And I think Succession is filled with a lot of very different actors
08:52 with very different approaches.
08:54 I would say of the whole group, these two are the most in sync with how
08:58 they approach a scene, their dream when they're together.
09:01 Have we cleared the air?
09:04 Huh?
09:04 Feel good now?
09:05 Yep.
09:07 Yeah.
09:07 Fucking great.
09:08 Tip top.
09:09 Jesse pays equal respect to everyone on that show and it really, and because
09:14 of that, people are so willing to give and it, it really, you know, I've had a
09:18 lot of good experiences and I've had a lot of bad experiences.
09:21 Succession is one of the best and I have to attribute that to
09:25 the way people are treated.
09:26 I think that's the brilliance of Succession is that everybody is working at their
09:31 best, the actors, the writers, the wardrobe designers, the production
09:36 designers, the cinematographers, the camera operators are incredible.
09:41 It's, there isn't a weak link.
09:43 Everybody wants to bring their best.
09:46 And when everybody brings their best, it's special.
09:50 You don't deserve me.
09:52 And you never did.
09:53 [Music]
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