Succession has one last trick in his back pocket. After a crushing ending, the parody of the 1% media class returns and is on a mission to turn into a star Harriet Walter, also known as the disinterested aristocrat mother of a dysfunctional Roy, Lady Caroline Collingwood.
By appearing and disappearing from the life of the Roys in the final episode, Lady Caroline brought Dame Harriet — she won a DBE in 2011 — a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. It's just one of two nominations for 72-year-old Walter, who is also in contention for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series after returning to play the mother of Hannah Waddingham's character in Ted Lasso.
This is the second year that Walter, Christopher Lee's niece, has received two Emmy nominations — last year she was again shortlisted for the Succession and Ted Lasso awards. And these may not even be her best recent performances. She was fantastic on Apple TV+ dystopian thriller Silo and demonstrated a flair for ironic comedy alongside Cate Blanchett in Spinal Tap-style documentary Now! (in which she portrayed a skinny barbershop owner).
What's remarkable about all these twists is their versatility. In Legacy, she makes Caroline the most unlikable character, and possibly the most human. She is a terrible parent who sees her children as a hindrance to her flamboyant lifestyle. Plus, it's hard not to see her marriage to billionaire Logan Roy as a cynical combination of old and new money.
But she was also closest to a living, breathing person in the finale. Beneath her layers of indifference, one could detect glimpses of feelings for her children—or at least empathy for the dysfunctional adults they had grown up to be (and for whom she was partially responsible).
However, she brought a very different energy to the 2022 documentary Now! episode «Two Barbers in Buggyport», where she succeeded as a barbershop owner in a northern coastal town.
In these parts, and in Ted Lasso, where her character is the lifeline of a Rick Astley fan who thinks Astley is black, she brings delicacy and irony. She can justify herself under a tent pole too — she played a rebel leader in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where she made communicating with Wookiees the easiest thing in the world.
In a neat part of the symmetry of the awards season, her star came in tandem with the star of Brian Cox, her on-screen ex-husband Logan Roy in The Succession. A successful character actor for decades, he jumped the classes to superstardom thanks to Legacies.
Harriet Walter and Kieran Culkin on Succession. Photo: HBO
Walter, of course, has been known in Britain for many years; and, like Cox, is one of the few well-respected actors who seems to switch easily between theatre, film and television. Early memorable performances include The Imitation Game, a 1980 television play by Ian McEwan in which she played an ATS woman who ends up in Bletchley Park. Her many fine stage productions include Mary Stuart (2006), in which she plays the snarky, indecisive Elizabeth I, and she wowed audiences as Lady Croom in Tom Stoppard's original production of Arcadia at the National Theatre. 1993). Like many great actors, Walter is happy that she isn't always a star (among her many TV roles, she played Clemmy Churchill in The Crown and Lady Shackleton in Downton Abbey).
But now, in At 72 years old, amid her recent string of Emmy nominations, it feels like she's finally gotten the recognition she's long deserved. Lady Caroline appeared on The Legacy from time to time, but was one of the defining personalities in the lives of her poor rich children: Walter completely made you believe in her selfishness and her children's emotional impoverishment. Winning an Emmy — who knows, maybe a brace? is the least she deserves.
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