Succession Cast Reflect on 'Lightning in a Bottle' While Having 'One Last Hurrah' with SAG Drama Ensemble Win

Succession has closed it's four-season run with a big win: 2024's Screen Actors Guild Awards' outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.

As the acclaimed HBO show's cast assembled onstage, star Alan Ruck stood before the microphone to speak on the crew's behalf.

"Well, one last hurrah," the Ferris Bueller's Day Off actor, 67, began. "I think right now you're looking at some of the luckiest people on the planet and some of the most grateful because not only did we get to all work on one of the best television shows, you know, maybe ever, we made friends for life. And I think the magic of Succession was that the writing was so fabulous. It inspired all of us to bring our A-game from the very beginning. And we got off on watching each other work, and we caught lightning in a bottle. Lucky, you know? So, now we're thrilled to be recognized by our peers."

"And so on behalf of Brian [Cox] and Snookie [aka Sarah Snook] and Jeremy [Strong], who can't be here, thank you to our fellow actors for giving us this award," he continued. "Thanks to everybody at HBO. Casey, Franny, Nora, Frank, everybody for being so smart. Thanks to Francine Maisler for casting us and giving us this gift. Thanks to our lovely crew who could never do enough for us. Thanks to Mark Mylod and all our directors who guided us through all the nuances."

Concluding, Ruck added: "And mostly, thanks to Jesse Armstrong for having this idea. You know, and then for hiring the most glorious writers room and they just kept delivering the gold, so you honor us and we honor them. Thank you."

The final season of Succession saw the death of Logan Roy (Brian Cox), leaving the fate of the Roy family and the ownership of their company Waystar Royco in limbo. The series concluded with ​​Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) becoming the company’s new CEO.

“The idea of Tom being the eventual successor, that had been something that I thought was the right ending for quite a while now,” series creator Jesse Armstrong told HuffPost following the series finale in May. 

"Even though he’s not exactly the most powerful monarch you’ll ever meet — his power comes from Matsson [Alexander Skarsgård]," he added. "Those figures that drift upwards and make themselves amenable to powerful people are around."

In addition to Cox, Macfadyen and Ruck, the series stars Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Nicholas Braun, J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche, Fisher Stevens, Hiam Abbass, Justine Lupe, Scott Nicholson, Zoë Winters and Jeannie Berlin.

Cox, Culkin, Macfadyen and Snook also scored individual nominations at this year’s SAG Awards.

Fellow drama shows The Crown, The Gilded Age, The Last of Us and The Morning Show were also up for the coveted prize.

The final season of The Crown was released in two parts. The first focused on Princess Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) final days before her fatal car crash in August 1997 while the second part chronicled King Charles (Dominic West as the then-Prince Charles) and Camilla's (Olivia Williams) progression in their relationship, as well as the love story between Prince William (Ed McVey) and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy).

Debicki — who is also nominated for outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series prize — told PEOPLE that the weight of playing Diana for the major streaming series was not lost on her, sharing, "I did a lot of research for this role. I probably spent about a year doing research and that just filled in all these pieces and made me have such deep, deep respect and love for this person who I didn't know so much about."

She continued, “The battle that she went through in terms of media, public perception. I didn't know things about the divorce and how difficult all of that was for everybody in the family.” 

The Gilded Age chronicles Marian Brook’s (Louisa Jacobson Gummer) move to New York City to live with her aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon) following the death of her father. Marian finds herself in the center of a battle between her aunts, who come from old money, and their neighbors George and Bertha Russell, who have new money.

The cast of the American period drama from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes also includes Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Louisa Jacobson, Denée Benton, Ben Ahlers, Michael Cerveris, Kelley Curran, Taissa Farmiga, Jack Gilpin, Simon Jones, Sullivan Jones, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Debra Monk, Donna Murphy, Kristine Nielsen, Kelli O’Hara, Patrick Page, Harry Richardson, Taylor Richardson, Blake Ritson, Douglas Sills, Erin Wilhelmi, Audra McDonald, John Douglas Thompson, Ashlie Atkinson, Laura Benanti, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Christopher Denham, David Furr, Ward Horton, Matilda Lawler and Robert Sean Leonard.

Nixon told Entertainment Tonight that the 1800s is “such a fascinating part of history, and New York history in particular. It’s a period that has so much in common with our own and I think it’s a period that people don’t know that much about.” 

“We’re so lucky as we say to be part of this world that [Julian] creates,” Baranski added, explaining that everyone “not only enjoyed the stories,” but they all “loved the costumes and the sets and entertaining that fairy-tale world where manners were very strict and formal.” 

The Last of Us — which stars Game of Thrones alums Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey — followed Pascal's Joel reluctantly partnering with teen Ellie (Ramsey) to survive a post-apocalyptic world beset by zombie-like creatures and relentless human survivors.

The series takes place decades after civilization has been destroyed and is based on a 2013 video game. Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett, Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Jeffrey Pierce, Anna Torv and Storm Reid also had roles in season 1.

Pascal — who is up for outstanding performance by a male actor in a drama series — opened up about his experience filming the series in Alberta, Canada, telling Business Insider, “It was incredibly challenging, but it was more fun than anything else because of how delicious the scripts are, the characters, the creators, the team, putting it all together, the locations, the cultural environment of being in Canada and having a Canadian crew and all of these elements that fell into line with one another.”

"It didn't mean that it wasn't hard work, and that it wasn't a very specific kind of physical labor for everyone," he continued. "That's kind of what happened. A very large family going through a very contained experience, and it was really wonderful for everybody.” 

The second season of The Last of Us will premiere on HBO in 2025, with production starting this month. 

Starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show gives an inside look at the fictional news network UBA, including the lives of those who bring the world’s top stories to the screen and the internal politics at play.

Season 3 introduced Jon Hamm as billionaire Paul Marks, a corporate titan who is being courted by UBA president Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) to rescue the network from its financial woes. While Marks and Levy develop a romantic relationship during the season that could jeopardize the deal, suspicions about Marks’ past and intentions start surfacing.

Since premiering in 2019, the show has been a top performer on Apple TV+, earning more than 50 award nominations to date. Aniston won the SAG Award in 2020 for playing anchor Alex Levy and Crudup won an Emmy Award in 2020 for his portrayal of Cory Ellison.

Aniston and Crudup are also both nominated for the roles on the hit show this year.

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See PEOPLE's full coverage of the 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards as they stream live on Netflix.