Succession creator declines to say if the show is a comedy or drama

The Hollywood Reporter

Creator Jesse Armstrong may have worked as a comedy writer on British sitcoms, including Veep creator Armando Iannucci's In the Thick Of It and Peep Show, but he refuses to classify his HBO series about a dysfunctional media family. "No, I’m not going to solve that," he says with a laugh. "No way. I’m glad it’s a matter for debate. If the show had a voice, it would refuse to say. We’re not unaware of it. In the writer’s room, we spend a good deal of time talking about what’s funny. The shows that I love — like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad — could also be described as comedies in a way. And not every plotline that comes out of a comedic place necessarily expresses itself in scenes that are going to make you laugh loads. But there’s usually an energy — a twist — to the approach which you might call comic."

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• The finale solidified a sense of what the HBO drama is: A fight for power, like Game of Thrones
• Succession is indeed a comedy with its nihilistic, squirm-inducing humor
• Succession is mostly a show about people telling each other to f*ck off
• Kieran Culkin was originally supposed to play Cousin Greg: "Oh, I think they made a mistake. This isn’t somebody I can play"
• Hiam Abbass on tackling her first major TV role: "It’s almost like you give her a longer life because, in a movie, you just know where she starts and where she ends"
• Nicholas Braun on how Cousin Greg became Succession's breakout character
• Cousin Greg has been the secret weapon of Succession
• Jeremy Strong and Brian Cox discuss grounding the show in reality