Read this: Succession's creator on literary influences and inventive insults
Writer/creator Jesse Armstrong discusses Tom and Cousin Greg's Roman counterparts and writing character-appropriate cursing
When the trailer for Succession’s third season arrived last month, the scant minute-and-a-half of edited footage it showed was exciting not just because it hinted at how the show’s plot will continue moving forward but also because it reminded viewers of how much fun it is to hear characters threaten each other with lines like “Logan is going to fire a million poisonous spiders down your dicky” and “You tell him I’m going to grind his fucking bones to make my bread.”
In an excellent profile of Succession’s creator/writer Jesse Armstrong from The New Yorker, we’re given a bit of insight into how this kind of dialogue is written. Unsurprisingly, given the grandeur of the show’s portrayal of an extravagantly wealthy family and the powerful media empire they control, Armstrong and his writers’ room read everything from the Financial Times and Crime And Punishment to “histories of ancient Rome” to understand their characters better. (Dostoevsky, apparently, to inform “Kendall’s inner turmoil” and descriptions of “Nero and his freedman Sporus” to “illuminate the dynamic between Tom and Cousin Greg.”)