There are many moments in HBO’s Succession when you are simply forced to ask: Wait, why did that person just do that?
One such moment occurs in the Season 2 finale of the hit series, when Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed) sniffs a sprig of lavender during the “one bang, final deal offer” face-off with Logan Roy (Brian Cox). During a very quick meeting in a waterside restaurant in Greece, as Logan lays out the details, Stewy inexplicably sniffs the flower ahead of a string of expletive laden threats thrown from Kendall when the negotiation fails.
Um, what?
So, why did Stewy do this? Was it scripted?
Well, according to Hosseini — who currently stars as Anna Delvey’s lawyer Todd Spodek in Netflix’s Inventing Anna — it was improvised. He told Stephen Colbert in an interview on The Late Show Thursday that just before they filmed the scene, the first assistant director was smelling the lavender, and so Hosseini followed suit.
“Right before the first take, I saw that the first AD [assistant director] was sniffing some lavender and the props person was also sniffing some lavender and I was like, ‘Let me smell that,’ and they were like, ‘Alright we’re ready to go,'” Hosseini tells Colbert.
“I took a sniff of it and I was like, this is amazing. I put it down. The scene starts. Brian’s right in front of me — you know, Brian Cox — and right as it’s happening, he’s telling me the pitch of the deal. I look down, I just grab the lavender, and I smell it while he’s doing the scene,” he continues. “And I was like, well, eventually they’re gonna tell me to not do that, and then take after take after take, and now it’s like a meme.”
So, there you have it. Another diabolical Succession scene to add to the list.
