Roman Roy — and by extension his portrayer, Kieran Culkin — has been given a bit more to do on the final season of Succession. He’s now the interim co-CEO of Waystar Royco, which means he’s had to step things up. His dad also suddenly died, meaning we got to see some real emotion from a guy who’s usually a sarcastic quip machine. But getting promoted and acting like a real person with real feelings is just the start.
As per Variety, HBO has decided that when they submit award contenders for the Emmys this year, Culkin will be promoted for the lead actor category. Culkin has been nominated twice before, in the supporting actor section. That made sense at the time: Roman is a main cast member, but in past seasons he wasn’t ever center stage the way Jeremy Strong’s Kendall has often been. While Kendall was been dealing with a drug habit and duking it out with the father that doesn’t believe in him, Roman has been doing things like sending dick pics to one of his dad’s most trusted employees.
But now Roman is (maybe temporarily) running the ship with Kendall. He’s even making bold moves, like accusing the blood-collecting weirdo who wants to buy their company of effectively killing his dad, and during a heated negotiation. (Hey, apparently it worked!) He even looked pretty despondent at the end of the fifth episode. And there’s still five episodes left for Culkin to strut his stuff.
(Via Variety)