There’s been two moments in television history where my jaw literally dropped,” says Anya Taylor-Joy, on Zoom with Total Film from Australia as she shoots the title role of Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa. “One was the end of Season 2 of Fleabag. I was overwhelmed. And then the second is the rap in Succession. I could not move. It was the most extraordinary, sensational feeling.”
The infamous rap, performed by Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) in a bespoke baseball jersey at a black-tie gala (“My boy Squiggle cooked up this beat for me,” he tells the wide-eyed, slack-jawed onlookers), is a car-wreck performance that’s at once hilarious, mortifying and heartbreaking. It can be found in ‘Dundee’, the eighth episode of Season 2 of Succession, and though that particular instalment was not directed by Mark Mylod, the British helmer is behind 13 of the 29 episodes that so far make up HBO’s stunning hit show. It’s little wonder that Taylor-Joy wanted to work with him. Or that screenwriter Will Tracy, who’s penned two episodes of Succession, including the Mylod-directed ‘Tern Haven’, chose to wave his feature script under Mylod’s nose.
Co-written by Tracy and head writer Seth Reiss, is the tale of Margot and Tyler (Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult), a young, wealthy couple travelling to a remote island to dine at the super-exclusive restaurant of Chef Slowik
