Why 'Succession' Creator Is Writing About Rich People Again

Jesse Armstrong, one of the UK's most successful screenwriters, is not one to settle.

Right after its hit series Succession , which followed the twists and turns in the lives of media mogul Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, and his four children, Armstrong is back with his first feature film, Mountainhead .

It's a satirical film about a group of four billionaire tech friends who go to a mountain resort for the weekend, only to find themselves and their social media companies under scrutiny as social unrest spreads across the world.

Speaking at the Hay Festival, Armstrong said: "People start saying, 'Why are you writing about rich people again? ' And it's a fair question. They're tech billionaires. Succession was about a big media family. And I think it's because I'm interested in power, I don't think it's just about wealth."

" Succession was clearly about why the world is the way it is, who has power?"

HBO's Mountainhead , starring Steve Carrell and Ramy Youssef, was produced very quickly.

"We did it in high gear. I pitched the idea in December, and wrote it in January... I kept rewriting it during pre-production, shot it in 22 days, and then edited it."

"We only finished (editing) about a week ago, and it's going to be on TV this weekend!" he explained before the film's release, which premiered on streaming last Saturday (31/5).

Armstrong, 54, wanted to move the film quickly to try to capture the feel and pace of technological developments and society's fear of keeping up with them.

"The anxieties we have about technology, especially artificial intelligence, seem very present and moving very quickly. And I wanted to try to write it in the same mood that you would be in when you were watching it, so I was keen to get it done quickly," he said.

"Another attraction for me was that I had never driven anything before, which made me less anxious to accelerate and do it really, really fast."

Armstrong, who started out working on children's television before writing scripts for shows like The Thick of It and co-creating series like Peep Show and Fresh Meat , said the inspiration for Mountainhead came from listening to podcasts.

"I wrote a book review about Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency fraudster, and then I started reading more and more about technology, and I started listening to podcasts from big names in technology like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, but also from people at the mid-level and even lower levels — it's an ecosphere."

"I couldn't stop thinking about the voices of these people. I love using the right vocabulary. It opens doors for me when I can hear them speaking. And since it seems like AI companies are extracting a lot of our hard work to train their models, I thought I'd extract it back [using their podcasts]!"

Armstrong told the Hay Festival audience that while he knew his job was to engage viewers, writing the film "was a way to express a lot of feelings about this world and these men — almost all of them are men in this world — and that's cathartic."

His series are known for their dark humor, and Armstrong says that if he had to write his job description on his passport renewal form, he would put "comedy writer", adding that he does not consider himself a storyteller.

"I'm trying to create an engaging story that will probably make people laugh. And the part that I find most challenging is finding a story, because people remember the jokes, but you just can't get past that half hour or an hour unless the story is compelling enough to make the audience follow along."

'More fearful'

Many writers and showrunners end up directing episodes of the series they create, but Armstrong says he couldn't do that on Succession , which has won multiple awards, including 14 Emmys.

"I always thought the people who did this were so good at it, that it would be a bit rude of me to suggest that I could just jump in and do the same."

Armstrong doesn't seem like the stereotype of a confident showrunner, appearing quite shy and humble despite his success.

"Sometimes very creative people have a 'what the hell' attitude towards authority, and I don't have that. Maybe I'm a little more fearful, a little more flexible. I like everyone to be happy. I want to give people what they want in a very decent, human way."

"I don't have a confrontational attitude toward the people I work with, unless someone is an idiot — I hope I can defend myself and the work."

'Mountainhead' premiered on the HBO Max platform last Saturday (5/31).