HBO's wildly popular dramedy Succession, which centers on the billionaire Roy family of media moguls bent on each other's destruction, is often compared to plays like Shakespeare's King Lear, shows like The Sopranos, and movies like The Godfather.
You know, stuff about knock-down drag-out power struggles and sibling rivalries that make your family Thanksgiving look like an episode of Little House on the Prairie, right? One of the main characters' names is Shiv, for God's sake.
But the actress who plays Shiv, a very pregnant Sarah Snook, had a different comparison in mind when she stopped by The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently, in advance of Succession's much-anticipated fourth and final season premiere.
Taking the stage just after star Jennifer Aniston, Snook and Fallon had Friends on the brain, and when Fallon asked Snook which Friends character she is, she had a perfect answer—not just for herself, but for all her Succession coworkers too.
See her take on the whole thing beginning at the 2:56 mark below.
Sarah Snook Addresses a Succession Fan Theory and Announces She's Pregnant | The Tonight Show youtu.be
"Who would be who?" Fallon asked, holding up two pictures of the Succession and Friends casts.
Snook started of with galumphing, hapless Cousin Greg, played by Nicholas Braun, a fan-favorite of the show. He's the Phoebe of Succession, according to Snook, which definitely fits, given how spacey he is.
Jeremy Strong's character, Kendall, the one who struggles with depression and addiction and is broken by his father's rejection, came in as Ross.
Snook quipped:
"Because sad, sad face! Very sad face, serious sad face, just kind of like, awww."
As for her own character of Shiv, there is of course only one choice.
"Shiv is Monica, because she's got her sh*t together."
That left acerbic, wise-cracking kid brother Roman, Shiv's dim-witted doofus husband Tom and the bloodthirsty, merciless patriarch Logan Roy to round out the cast, and this is where things got really interesting.
"Chandler's Roman then, Joey is Tom, and then Logan is Rachel."
What?! Logan, the man who threw his own son to the wolves to save the family company Waystar Royco is the flighty popular girl everyone has a crush on at one point or another? How?! Snook had it all figured out:
"Yeah, you know, the world revolves around...It's like it turns on an axis."
Okay yeah, when you put it that way? Never have two TV characters ever been so convinced the world revolves around them. Logan is definitely the Rachel.
Naturally, people on social media loved the comparisons—and plenty of fans agreed with her takes.
Of course, Snook and Fallon's analysis left out one vital Succession character—eldest son Connor Roy, played by Alan Ruck. But HBO itself had that covered.
The afterthought who never really gets his time in the spotlight and spends the entire show pining after his dad, the Rachel character?
Yep, Connor is definitely Gunther.
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