Yahoo News ‘Succession’ Creator Jesse Armstrong in Best Drama Win Emmys Speech: “We Can Now Depart the Stage”
Succession won best drama series at the 2023 Emmy Awards for its final season that debuted last March, and creator Jesse Armstrong made a joke about the show’s impact on politics and media.
“This wasn’t necessarily an easy show to commission right at the very beginning,” Armstrong said during his speech following the win. “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. So we can now depart the stage. Listen, we are so honored. We’ve loved making the show. Thank you very much indeed.”
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Earlier in the night, when accepting the award for best writing in a drama series, the British screenwriter — after thanking his writers room, cast and crew — acknowledged that Succession is about “some things that are close to the center of American life and politics, and we’ve always been met with generosity and good faith, and that’s part of America’s tradition of being very welcoming to our side and it’s very nice.”
He then turned to media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whom he has named as a parallel inspiration for the series: “And for some reason the name of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch comes to mind,” he said to laughs from the room. “I can’t speak for him, but I’m very grateful for the generosity I’ve been shown working in this country. It was a great sadness to end the show, but it was a great pleasure doing it.”
In total, Succession won six Emmys on Monday night, including best actor and actress in a drama series (Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook), as well as best supporting actor for Matthew Macfadyen.
The show was nominated alongside Andor, Better Call Saul, The Crown, House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets. Better Call Saul had been nominated for an Emmy 53 times in its entire six-season run, but never won a single one. Succession, on the other hand, has been nominated 75 times and won 19.
The Bear won best comedy series, which was celebrated with a kiss between stars Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Matty Matheson. See a full list of winners here.
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