How Matthew McFadyen took Succession’s Tom Wambsgans from a supporting part to a role of a lifetime… as he scores Golden Globe for playing  the ‘wonderful human grease stain’

Before Succession’s 2018 inception, Matthew McFadyen was best known as a period drama sweetheart with a plummy English accent or a Spooks super sleuth. 

However the tides changed for the Norfolk-born star when he seized the role as the hapless Tom Wambsgans in Succession – starring in the career-making role for all four seasons of the show, which concluded in May last year. 

On Sunday evening, in front of the crème de la crème of Hollywood at LA’s Beverly Hilton, Matthew, 49, scored the coveted Best Performance By A Male Actor In A Supporting Role On Television Award to rapturous applause. 

In his acceptance speech, he said: ‘I just adored every second playing the weird and wonderful human grease stain that is Tom Wambsgans’, in his description of the power-hungry yet mildly-moronic husband of Shiv Roy. 

Matthew has spoken in the past about how he enjoys taking a less central role in shows, however his incredible depiction of Tom left him as a fan favourite – and by the end of the show the ultimate successor of Waystar Royco. 

So how did Matthew climb the ladder to become the King of Succession? 

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN: Supporting from the start 

Matthew revealed in the past that his first ever role was in his school nativity, when he played Caspar, one of the Three Kings carrying gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

He revealed that he loved the part – with the supporting aspect being a key selling point to his younger self thanks to the lack of pressure.

He said: ‘I didn’t have the terrible pressure of Joseph or Jesus. It was just: The king arrives with his buddies and gets off again. I was much happier at school being the mayor of Hamelin than the pied piper. And that’s probably still true.’ 

When asked if he was always theatrical, he said: ‘Yeah, I always wanted to be in the school play. My mother’s father was an engineer, but he was passionate about amateur dramatics, and that was sort of transmitted to my mom and down to me a little bit…

‘I was quite a shy child, so the structure of being in a play and being able to make people laugh, or be in a room where everyone is paying attention, was quite intoxicating and took me out of myself a little bit.’

PERIOD GAIN: Journey back in time  

Matthew then went on to score Hollywood success playing Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennett in Pride And Prejudice in 2005.

He even revealed – in a rather Tom style gaffe – that he hadn’t read the Jane Austen book before taking on the role, relying instead on  the script. 

He said: ‘I haven’t read it. It’s not the book we are shooting, is it? It’s the screenplay. If you’ve got a good screenplay, which we have, stick with that…

‘I think people ought to do what they feel useful at the time. If I do things because I ought to do them, I switch off.’

Pride And Prejudice led him down a path of period dramas as he starred in 2012’s Anna Karenina and 2008’s Little Dorrit – yet little did he know the role of a lifetime was pending.

ALONG CAME SUCCESSION 

Succession follows the story of the cutthroat Roy family, headed by Brian Cox’s character Logan, battling it out to tale control of the world’s biggest media conglomerate when the patriarch steps down. 

The final episode of Succession saw the fate and future of the Roy children and the company their late father Logan created hanging in the balance. 

The series built up to the last episodes, as Logan’s children – Kendall (Jeremy), Roman, Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Connor (Alan Ruck) – get ready for the final Waystar Royco board vote on the merger with Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgard) GoJo.

The 90-minute series finale is directed by Mark Mylod and written by series creator Jesse Armstrong, and after many twists and turns, it is Tom who ultimately takes over as Waystar CEO, under new owner Matsson.

When asked when he knew about Tom’s ultimate victory, Matthew said: ‘Maybe halfway through? Jesse was very open with us all on set, and said, “If you want to know, come and see me.”..

‘Sometimes you don’t want to know — the other two seasons, I hadn’t known. But I sort of knew it was coming to an end. And so I thought, let’s find out.’ 

Matthew has spoken about first receiving the script and his initial thoughts on the character, who is married to Shiv, the daughter of Logan. 

I thought: ‘I don’t know if this is going to have a life and I don’t know where the characters are going to go. But it’s clever and farcically funny. It’ll show I can do an American accent’. 

Speaking about Tom, he said: ‘[He is] dreadful. Excruciating. And joyful to play because he’s so particular. I’m flexing a muscle that I haven’t flexed for a bit…

‘We laugh a lot, me and Nick Braun who plays Greg [Logan Roy’s pathetic grandnephew and the only person lower in the family food chain than Tom]. It’s exquisite.’

Further adding to his thoughts on the character, he went on: ‘Tom’s quite sweet in some ways. He really does love Shiv…

‘And they have reached an arrangement about their modern, polygamous marriage, which he is manfully going along with. I think he’d really like to, you know, just go and be a ski instructor or open a hotel in the west.’ 

On his characters unique name, he said: ‘My initial impression was that it was the clue to everything. It’s a weird, hard-to-sit-in-the-mouth sort of name…

‘It sounds like “womb” and “glands” mixed together. It’s strange, and not quite right. And he’s a sort of interloper in a family called Roy, which has its roots in the French word for “king.”