The other issue is that the work of writers doesn’t end solely when the scripts are written. As Armstrong noted, on “Succession,” multiple writers are on set at any given point. When writers are on set, they gain valuable experience that helps them move up in the industry and eventually lead their own shows.
It also improves the quality of the show: When writers are present during filming, they can make adjustments if a line or a scene needs improvement. For instance, on dialogue-driven shows like “Succession,” writers prepare what are known as “alts”: alternate lines or jokes that actors can try during different takes of a scene to see what lands best.
In demonstrating support for the strike, many of the show’s writers and actors have often cited these very conditions as examples of why all writers need to be paid equitably and given these conditions to do their work.
In the “Fresh Air” interview, among Armstrong’s first extensive comments about the “Succession” series finale, he also discussed why — to borrow a phrase from actor Jeremy Strong — each character’s ending made sense dramaturgically. Ultimately, the show is about characters who are fundamentally incapable of change, perpetuating the same cycles of abuse they received from family patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox). (Or as Strong’s character, failson Kendall Roy, says on the show: “Maybe the poison drips through.”)
“There’s a sort of sense about narrative, especially screenplay, that that’s what happens in a script: that people grow, they learn, and that is the shape of the script. And I would gently reject that, I guess,” Armstrong told Gross. “I don’t think that has to be the shape of the story. I don’t think it’s a true shape of all stories. Not that you can’t make a great story out of those things — and I’d like to write some of those — but that isn’t the story of this show. That doesn’t seem to be the truth of these people. And so we had to find story shapes which didn’t follow that particular shape.”
This content was originally published here.
