Harriet Walter Interview: ‘Succession’

“It’s another world out there, the Emmy Awards,” admits acclaimed British veteran actress Dame Harriet Walter about her first ever Emmy nomination this year. “I’m in semi-disbelief as I speak to you now because you know I’ve managed to get through life with relatively few awards actually but I’ve not stopped working!” Watch our exclusive video interview with Walter above.

In “Succession,” Walter plays Lady Caroline Collingwood, the prickly ex-wife of magnate Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Logan is the authoritarian patriarch of the Roy family and his Waystar Royco media empire, who looms over their adult children Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Connor (Alan Ruck) and the associates and sycophants that orbit them.

The epic drama leads all drama series (alongside “Ozark”) with 18 nominations across the board, up from five nominations for its first season (it won for writing and main title theme music). That impressive haul includes nine nominations for its cast, including Cox and Strong in the lead category and fellow freshmen Snook, Culkin, Matthew Macfadyen (Shiv’s husband Tom) and Nicholas Braun (cousin Greg) in the supporting categories. Walter joins fellow veteran James Cromwell (Logan’s estranged brother) and Cherry Jones (rival matriarch Nan Pierce) in the  guest acting categories.

While Walter has spent decades on stage and screen, the actress is most renowned for her acclaimed work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK. Asked about whether there were parallels between the greatest Shakespeare plays and the HBO drama, Walter says that they share more than meets the eye. “It’s very Shakespearean to clash history and the inevitability of power with individual people who have real emotions,” she explains. “That’s the ingredients for great drama really.”