The Rundown: Please Consider Casting Lance Reddick In ‘Succession’

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

Succession is busy casting season three. This is great news, in part because it means the third season is a real thing that is happening and coming to our screens at some point in the near future, and in part because the casting decisions they are making are wondrous. Earlier this week they announced that Alexander Skarsgard will appear as “a confrontational CEO and tech founder.” Then, a few days later, they announced that Adrien Brody will appear as “a billionaire activist investor.” You know a casting decision is good when something like “Adrien Brody as a prickly billionaire who is yelling at Kendall Roy” goes from something you never think about to something that lives in a cabana in your brain. The people who make Succession are good at their jobs.

But if we are doing some casting, if we’re pulling in notable names who have appeared in notable television shows before, if we are apparently going about the business of making Brian deeply happy with all of it, then let’s also please consider this: Put Lance Reddick in Succession.

Lance Reddick would be perfect on Succession. Succession is all about swaggering authority figures shouting at sniveling weasels and no actor alive does that as well as Lance Reddick. Between his booming voice and the posture that makes it look like he has a flagpole for a spine, Lance Reddick is a perfect on-screen authority figure. He did it on The Wire for a while. He’s done it in a bunch of movies including, briefly, Godzilla vs. Kong. And he’s done it for the entire run of Bosch in such a powerful way that he does not even need to speak to get this across. He gave an adversary this look during an episode early-ish in the show’s run and it made me want to apologize to him even though I was sitting in my living room and he was playing a fictional character who was not, as far as I know, upset with me for any particular reason.

This is exactly the energy a Succession character should have. At all times, too. And that’s before we even get to the things where he wears a suit better than any human alive and has an exquisite voice for dismissive and/or disgusted grumbling. This is where I mention Bosch again. Specifically, it’s where I mention him grumbling Bosch’s name whenever Bosch is up to his loose-cannon shenanigans. This happens so much, often with an “effing” tossed in front of it, which, as we know, is an important skill for any Succession character. One time it happened while he was sitting at a piano and drinking a large glass of red wine, which might honestly have been the single most Succession thing that has ever happened on a show that is not Succession.

There are so many options here, too. He can play so many characters that would fit on the show. Need a no-nonsense rival CEO who values order and rigorous attention to detail and is therefore constantly annoyed by the chaotic nature of the Roy family and the constant goings-on at Waystar Royco Lance Reddick can do that. In the market for a steely senator whose heart is in the right place and has the company in his crosshairs with intentions on breaking it up for legitimate reasons and to play to his base in the lead-up to a potential presidential run led by a sleazy and ambitious campaign advisor That is some extremely Lance Reddick stuff right there. Looking for a strong figure to run a growing national rehab program that Cousin Greg convinces the family to invest in after he goes there to kick the nasty cocaine habit he appeared to be developing as season two progressed Buddy, take one single second right now to imagine a scene where Lance Reddick yells at Cousin Greg and tell me I’m wrong even a little. That could be an entire spinoff. I would watch and recap every episode.

It gets better, too, because Lance Reddick already has experience playing a cutthroat business titan on a midnight-black comedy, as you would know if you watched Corporate on Comedy Central. He played that so evil and so straight and it was amazing, just taking decades of well-earned gravitas and deploying it like a freaking comedy laser at each scene. It was kind of like how the movie Spy unleashed comedy Statham by taking decades of serious action roles and turning the knob about 30 degrees toward goofs. Succession is not as overtly funny as Corporate was, but the point stands. Lance Reddick can get you a laugh without begging for it.

The only problem with this suggestion is that now I’m getting kind of angry it hasn’t happened already. I’ve talked myself too far into it. It’s not a healthy way to do things, this whole “dreamcast yourself into a blind rage” business, but here we are. Here I am, at least. It’s a good idea. I need it. Will I settle for, say, Danny DeVito as a legendary blowhard pundit on the Roy’s news network who is being pushed out in favor of a younger blowhard pundit played by Zac Efron, or Joe Pesci as a U.S. Attorney who starts poking around Logan’s affair, or Regina King as the damn President I mean, yeah, sure, absolutely. But I’ll still be thinking about this one. A lot. And hopefully, they will, too.

Two things are true here, and both are important to the following discussion, so let’s knock them out right away via bullet point:

With me so far Great. So I’m watching Without Remorse, half paying attention as the plot has lulled me into a kind of daze, when suddenly I glance at the side of the screen as Guy Pearce is explaining how Things Are More Complicated Than They Seem or whatever, and there, clear as day, is Perd Hapley himself, Jay Jackson, as a talking head on the fake news show airing in the background. Here, look.

I shouted. I know people on the internet always say “I shouted” when they didn’t actually shout, like how you’ll toss off a polite “lol” in response to a text that did not make you actually L let alone OL. But this one was legit. I shouted “PERD HAPLEY” at my television loud enough that there’s a non-zero chance my neighbors heard me through the wall. I’m fine with it. It’ll probably happen again the next time he pops up in a television show or movie I’m watching. They’ll get used to it.

And it could be happening soon. He pops up in so many things, always as a reporter or news anchor. There’s a good reason for that: he is a real former news reporter and those are basically the only roles he takes. There was a fascinating interview with him a few years ago, mid-Parks fame, where he explained all the how’s and why’s of this, the path one takes from “quitting your job as an on-air reporter to become a professional jazz singer and somehow stumbling into the role of go-to fictional newsman for dozens of movies and shows,” which was all incredible. Read the whole thing when you have some time, but please, start here.

Well, Perd Hapley, turned into a little bit of a cult figure. You know, I’ll tool around online, and I’ll Google “Perd Hapley” like any other actor would. It’s so funny — the people who follow Perd and quote all the lines, and Tumblr pages, and people around the world who make these paintings and artworks of Perd. I was a little surprised when Scandal picked me up, because I auditioned for Scandal just like any other role. Maybe they just didn’t know who Perd Hapley was. So I was doing all these Scandal reports, and then all these tweets started coming: “Why is Perd Hapley on Scandal” And all of a sudden, I stopped getting those calls from Scandal. I think they figured out that [when] you’ve got this guy who’s known as this quirky idiot on one show, you can’t have him on this serious drama. It was really a surprise that Revenge called, because I knew they know who Perd Hapley was. But maybe it’s part of the trick, I don’t know.

It’s perfect. It’s one of those things that means very little to you until you know what’s going on and then suddenly becomes the only thing you can see. Sometimes I’ll forget he’s in something and shout all over again when he pops up on-screen with a microphone in his hand. The best example of this will always be in the opening of Fast Five, right after Dominic Toretto has escaped from the prison transport bus with the help of his crew. Because that is the type of thing the news would cover. And so…

A legend. An icon. Put him in every major movie franchise. Let him report on stuff the Avengers do. Let him play a talking head who has opinions about the rise in assassin on assassin violence in John Wick. Let him interview Paddington. I am not joking about any of this.