Why Succession mastermind Jesse Armstrong is still king of the media mountain

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At first glance, it was a little strange that Jesse Armstrong, creator of the HBO hit Succession, delivered a keynote address at the Banff World Media Festival the other week. Succession had run its course in 2023, and it had been more than a year since Armstrong’s followup project, the HBO movie Mountainhead, premiered. Armstrong was mum on whatever his next project might be, and as much as the media world rightfully obsessed over his tale of the world-conquering Roy family, Armstrong wasn’t in publicity mode.

Then again, the timing and locale for Armstrong’s talk couldn’t have been more perfect. Succession was a venomous riff on the trials and tribulations of the Murdoch dynasty, whose empire remains a source of eye-popping headlines. And Mountainhead was about a group of tech titans who gather at a mountain resort while the world falls apart around them – which certainly made an impression on the crowd at Banff, where media leaders gathered by the Rocky Mountains while, well, the world continued to fall apart.

Following his talk, in which Armstrong discussed the insidious language of tech and the deleterious impact of the Elon Musks of the world, the Succession mastermind sat down with The Globe and Mail to discuss the current corporate-media climate – and answer a question that’s been lingering in the minds of certain Globe staff for the past five years.

I have to start off by asking a very specific, inside-baseball question: In the third season of Succession, Kendall mentions that he’s going to “buy The Globe and Mail” as part of his plan to consolidate power in a handful of “illustrious newspapers.” How did that reference come to be?

Ah, I can’t recall unfortunately. Was it clear? I thought ‘Globe and Mail’ was a generic kind of thing. We tended to invent our own media properties because it was more simple. I think that’s what happened. It’s less fun that way, I know.

Way less fun.

We tended to not use real names just because, well, if that is real, how does it relate to this and this? Like the universe starts to get a little bit confusing. There’s a fuzzy line, and I learned this from doing political shows. Like in Veep, you can talk about Reagan, you can talk about Thatcher. But once you start getting over a certain line, it’s like, hold on. If the Clintons are in this show, how does that relate to us? Suddenly, you get this uncomfortable dissonance between the fictional world you’ve created and the real world. George Washington has to exist, right? But Pete Hegseth shouldn’t.

I find your presence at Banff a little funny, considering your most recent project was a movie set at a mountain getaway while the world is burning, and, well, here we are. How much cognitive dissonance do you carry around, talking about these shows in which the media and tech worlds are spinning out of control, for audiences made up of industry power players?

I feel quite out of the world of pitching and making shows, so ... it’s quite nice to be at a festival, where you have a bit of a clearer view of what you’ve made. I’m thinking mainly about Succession, because when you’re making a show, you have to be a bit more of a politician. You have to create a buffer around yourself and your fellow creative people. There are some questions that are hard to talk about when you’re right in the middle of it, which you feel a freedom from when it’s all over. I’m not sure that answered it, but I’ve never stopped reading the news.

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On keeping up with world affairs, do you get pangs of regret that you aren’t able to address the ongoing drama with the Murdochs? There’s enough material out there for several more seasons of Succession.

A bit. I loved making the show, but it was quite high-pressure. We did the right thing finishing it when we did. But can I say hand on heart that I don’t sometimes regret not having another day on set with Sarah and Matthew and Jeremy and Brian and Kieran? No. I do regret that, because they’re so great to work with. The Nevada stuff with the Murdochs, the court case, I couldn’t help but think this is the shape of a story. But the truth is we’d never rip from the headlines. The Roys are not actually the Murdoch clan. I don’t think we were doing a true crime story. Although evidently that [Nevada case] was rich with dramatic possibilities. It did make my ears prick up.

You spoke in your keynote speech about not exporting the good side of the bad people when it comes to tech titans. Has spending so much time in the world of the Roy family given you any sympathy toward the human sides of Bezos and Musk and their ilk?

I was sort of fumbling in that keynote to formulate my feelings, but I find a very clear distinction between what people do and who they are. Being critical of what they do doesn’t mean you’re not interested in why they are the way they are. I’ve always found it curious that bad actions can come out of quite comprehensible and very human desires. It’s boring but true, that’s how the world works. There is the occasional psychopath or sadist who relishes the opportunity, but they’re unusual, right? Most people start trying to do good things and then become a mess, because we’re humans with our egos.

Talking about egos, you can’t help but come to a conference like this and not discuss the consolidation of culture with the Paramount/Warner Bros. deal. Working for HBO, you were right in the crosshairs of that. As a creator, are you concerned about what happens when that goes through – that there will be one fewer door to knock on to sell a project?

Yeah, I mean, it’s tough. I feel for people pitching shows. I wouldn’t want to be too definitive. I grew up in the U.K. when you basically could pitch to Channel 4 or the BBC. So in some ways, the quantity of places you can take a show and get taken seriously has grown exponentially. I guess on the specific one of HBO and Paramount and the Ellisons, we’ll have to wait to see if that is materially different in a couple of years.

You said you’re not pitching shows at the moment, but you do have a film in development with Jesse Plemons – is that still happening?

We have this deal in development and it’s bubbling. We’re trying to raise the money for that.

What world or story would you like to explore next? And in what form – series or film?

I’ll probably end up sticking around politics and business. There’s so much you can do in those worlds that I think, when I go back to HBO, it will be a show about those worlds. HBO is where I want to stay.

On a panel here yesterday, showrunners were talking about the merits and demerits of making a pilot, and how you have to cram everything in, and then a network says they don’t like it because it’s not hooky enough. I was thinking about how lucky I was on the Succession pilot, because I didn’t feel this pressure to set everything up in a super-hooky way. [HBO CEO] Casey Bloys was only encouraging – just make it a good episode.

This interview has been condensed and edited.