-Sarah, how are you?
-Hi. Good. Yeah. Thanks.
How you doing? -I'm doing well.
This is the longest-distance interview
we have done since social distancing started.
You're in Australia right now.
Thank you for waking up so early to do this.
-I am, I am. It's not too bad.
It's like 9:00 a.m. It's fine.
It's a regular workday. It's a regular workday.
-It is a regular workday. And I should --
I want to congratulate you for your Emmy nomination
for "Succession," but because of the time difference,
that must have happened in the middle of the night for you.
Are you the kind of person who sets an alarm
to find out if this happened? -No.
[ Laughs ] No. I totally --
My manager asked if I wanted to be woken up,
I was like, "No. It's like 2:00 in the morning.
I'll sleep. Either I've been nominated or I haven't.
It's not gonna change whether I wake up or not."
No, I got woken up by my friend
who I'm living with at the moment in lockdown.
And they ran into the room and pulled the pillow
off my head and said, "You've been nominated for an Emmy!"
And, yeah, it was a pretty good way to find out.
-That's a great way to find out.
You know, I was talking to --
Matthew Macfadyen was on the show.
He obviously is fantastic playing your husband, Tom.
And he was saying one of the disappointing things,
the depressing things, one of the many depressing things,
but you guys won't be able to celebrate together
at a virtual Emmys. Is that a bummer?
-Yeah, it is. It is, because I miss everybody.
And, you know, I want to be working again.
And everyone's in the same boat, globally,
no matter the industry.
Everyone wants to get back to work,
to be social and with their friends.
But I feel like we've got such a great team
and have such a great chemistry on and off screen that,
yeah, it's a shame not to be able to do that all together,
particularly for so many of us being nominated at the Emmys.
It's -- It's wild.
-I also want to point out that I was lucky enough to meet you
last year, like, the night-before party.
And the whole "Succession" cast,
not just yourself but all of you,
you guys were like the hot people
that everybody wanted to talk to.
-[ Laughing ] -Everybody wanted to come up --
'Cause I felt like, right as the Emmys was hitting last year
was when everyone had finally caught up to the show.
It was cresting just at the right time.
-It was pretty, in some ways, confronting, I guess, for me,
because I really didn't expect to go to the Emmys last year
and, like, slip under the radar, not be seen,
just work out what it's all about.
"Okay, that's a very famous person,
there's another one, I'm from Australia,
just be cool, chill out."
But then, when they all started coming up to me and going,
"Hey, I love your work!" yeah, that -- [ Laughs ]
-I do feel like now everybody is thirsting for a third season,
whereas the second season maybe caught people
a little by surprise.
Obviously, you're thirsting for a third season, as well.
Is there -- I mean, you hear whispers
that it's maybe gonna start in the winter?
-Uh...yes?
I mean, I want to get back as soon as possible.
And in a couple months' time, that will happen.
But I think everything changes so fast at the moment
that you can say it's October,
and it'll end up being sometime later because,
you know, we don't know.
-It's good that you guys, as a cast,
are taking the pandemic seriously,
because I don't think a single character on the show would.
-No. Well, only in the way of, like,
constantly hand-sanitizing and just isolating themselves
way ahead of any advice to isolate.
You know, and they've got their summer palace.
They wouldn't even have to isolate together.
They could all have a house or a ranch to themselves.
Yeah, but they probably would want to isolate together
in some ways just in case
somebody made some moves or positioning.
-Right. Just to keep eyes on them.
Has the show taken off in Australia?
Because some might even say it's based on Australians.
-It has taken off in a way that I feel it's still, like,
what first season was in America.
Like, there's still a bit of word of mouth going on.
It's on a TV channel --
Like, it's on Foxtel and on Binge now, I think.
So, it's -- it's there.
But it's still simmering, which is nice. Yeah.
-You did find out on Halloween that it was
slightly more popular than you had known.
-[ Laughing ] I did, yes.
I keep getting tagged in photographs that sort of
jarred me a little, to go, "Oh, that's not me.
That's not me. That's a -- That's a terrible red wig.
But it's meant to be me. Okay.
That's just paper-bag pants and a turtleneck with a gold chain.
That's "you didn't know you would be going to this
Halloween party and you just found that
in your closet and you made a costume."
My favorite was -- -But it was funny to hear that
and realize, "Oh, yeah, Shiv does have a very
iconic style that you could also not have to do
a ton of planning for but also nail the Shiv look.
But this is a style you sort of brought to the character, yes?
-Yes. I mean, I wear high-waisted pants
and sort of a wider-leg pant, I guess.
But there's no way in which I am stylish as Sarah.
[ Both laugh ]
Any style I brought to the character
was cherry-picked from other things
and put together by Michelle far more than it was me.
Yeah.
-I do want to provide you this opportunity, before we go,
to clear up an Internet rumor about your birthday.
-[ Laughing ] Oh, yes. Please.
I'm a proud Sagittarian.
I am not born July 28th.
My birthday's the 1st of December.
Someone made a Wikipedia page up for me,
and they just decided that 28th of July was me.
And so, for a couple of years now,
I've been getting happy unbirthdays from friends.
And even my agent actually wished me a happy birthday once
a couple years ago. -It's nice, though.
I feel like it's a good way to distinguish your real friends
from your friends who just sort of
are living off Internet knowledge of you.
-Oh, 100%. Yeah.
When I get a happy birthday from someone who's maybe not
in the know, I'm like, "Okay.
Well, we need to work on this friendship.
I need to let you in a little closer.
Maybe it's my fault that I haven't told you
my birthday is December the 1st. -That's very helpful.
I'm thinking of planting a poison pill
fake birthday myself now on my Internet page,
just so I can separate the posers from the real deal.
-Yeah. I mean, it's lucky that I'm only six months out.
But I feel like, if I was gonna fake my own birthday,
I should've gone, you know,
three, four years, five years earlier.
-Yeah, that's true.
That's, I guess, how we know you didn't do it.
-Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah.
-Congratulations again on the nomination.
Thank you. Again, it's 9:00 a.m.,
but for a lot of actors, that's a big deal.
So we will say thank you. And, uh...
-I'm going back to bed, to be honest.
[ Both laugh ]
-Always great to see you, Sarah. -Good to see you.