Nicholas Braun and Arian Moayed Have a Succession Summit

While shooting the first season of Succession, Arian Moayed and Nicholas Braun went to lunch in Tribeca. “Do you vaguely remember?” Moayed, who played the ruthless private-equity hawk Stewie Hosseini, asked Braun on a Zoom call last month. “You and I went to that Mexican restaurant and we started talking about theater.” It would seem rather pedestrian if it wasn’t also prophetic. There, Braun, best known for his Emmy-nominated turn as Cousin Greg Hirsch, told his co-star that he hoped to do stage work one day. “And here you are, dude,” Moayed exclaimed, “doing fucking theater!” The occasion for their conversation is playwright Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries, a new production of which opened last month at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the West Village, pairing Braun with Tony Award winner Kara Young in a tender and surprising two-hander that charts the duo’s tumultuous friendship over three decades. With a few weeks left in the run, Braun was feeling a bit contemplative. “I don’t want this to ever end,” he said when he joined his old friend to talk about the professional and spiritual rewards of performing live, twice a day.

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ARIAN MOAYED: Yo, baby. How are you?

NICHOLAS BRAUN: What’s up, buddy? How are you? 

MOAYED: I’m okay. You just did your first show?

BRAUN: Yeah, so I’m in the post-first show haze where you’re like, “How was that? What can I change before tonight?”

MOAYED: Yeah, totally.

BRAUN: The two-a-days is interesting. I kind of like it. We get another take, you know what I mean? It’s crazy.

MOAYED: There’s something about it that’s just so addictive, isn’t it?

BRAUN: Yeah. When you go outside and you talk to people at the stage door and they’re like, “Oh my god, you’re going to do another one? How do you do it?” But this play is just very energizing in a way. I end these shows feeling very revved up.

MOAYED: Yeah. When I do any play, whether it was Hamlet or A Doll’s House, at 10:00 PM they’d be like, “You must be so exhausted.” And it’s like, “I’m going to be up for three hours.”

BRAUN: Completely, completely. And I feel like this is just not a play where you can go, “Okay, cool. I’ve got it and that’s that.” It’s like, “No, dude, this can go further.” I guess you could say that about any play. But I don’t know, I feel like there’s a lot on the line in this play, and you have this instinct to be like, “I know there’s more in this half-page. There’s something here I’ve not dropped into.” But even more so than in film and TV, these words must be heard. And if you don’t have a super strong intention and a reason to say this loudly, then it feels like you only half did the line. You know what I mean? So you’re always just checking like, “How can I make that more loaded for myself in order to project that to the one-third of the theater that’s behind me when I’m saying this?”

MOAYED: Yeah, totally.

BRAUN: In Succession, we would be able to drop in a couple little things or fill in a gap with some improv.

MOAYED: Add a couple of “fucks” in there.

BRAUN: Add some fucks and totally just destroy Jesse [Armstrong’s] writing. He loved that.

MOAYED: [Laughs] He loved it. I saw the original production of this play. I’ve seen many productions actually. I taught high school students doing these scenes. And what’s amazing about you and her [Kara Young] is that you both genuinely care about each other in a deep, deep way. How quickly did that happen for you?

BRAUN: I think it happened very quickly.

MOAYED: I could tell.

BRAUN: I’d never met Kara but I’d heard such good things. Then I spoke to Neil Pepe, the director, and he was like, “Kara Young and you will just be perfectly suited for each other.” He was like, “She’s explosive. She is exciting to watch. She will never do the same thing.” So I knew I’d be able to learn from her, and I think we just vibed early.

MOAYED: As an audience member, you feel that we can watch you guys do this five times and it’ll still be fresh every single time.There’s certain people and certain combos and certain actors, and you and Kara 100,000% have this energy where it’s like, “This is electric.”

BRAUN: Not to tie it into Succession too hard, but there are so few actors that I have felt this with, and Matthew Macfadyen reminds me of that connection. It’s that thing where you’re amazed and feel privileged to get to look at them and be with them and create with them. That’s like a fucking dream.

MOAYED: I remember when we were doing “Argestes,” that episode in Lake Placid. We were all hanging out for those two weeks whenever we were there. And you and Matthew, when we did the table read, were coming up with a new slogan like, “I hear you, we hear you.”

BRAUN: “We hear for you.”

MOAYED: [Laughs] I remember all of us thinking, “I wonder what Nick and Tom are going to with that…” There’s a dynamic when you get two great people together and you’re just like,  “I wonder what the fuck they’re going to do with all that.”

BRAUN: Yeah, it’s exactly like that.

MOAYED: What’s the dressing room situation?

BRAUN: It’s chill. I’ve got a couch here that is large enough for my body to sleep on. I’ve got a really long mirror. Too much mirror, in fact.

MOAYED: And Neil Pepe, what a G that guy is. How did you like working with Neil?

BRAUN: I loved working with Neil. He is so detail-oriented, he’s just all over it. We were doing tech and working on the transitions and if I forgot to pick up my shoes at the right time he’s like, “So what happened with the shoes that time?” He’s one of those guys, just like Kara and I, that’s just pushing, pushing, pushing. “How can we go further? How can it get better?”

MOAYED: He also loves actors, which is so exciting.

BRAUN: True, true. Sometimes when we were rehearsing and some of these lines stump you, I’d just be like, “Neil, can you just say this line?” Because he’s such a great actor. Every time he did either one of our parts he’d be like, “You do this, and then you do this.” So I could just use him as a cheat code.

MOAYED: Cheat code Neil.

BRAUN: Right, and then I would just steal that. 

MOAYED: Was Rajiv [Joseph] in the rehearsal room?

BRAUN: He was there the first few days as we were talking through. It was just great to have him there. I actually voice-noted him the other day about this one line. I was like, “Hey, what is this line for you?” And he voice-noted me back what he thinks. He’s always there for us, which is super helpful. Him, Neil, Kara, and I—it’s just a good, tight unit.

MOAYED: Let’s just knock him down a little peg. [Laughs] I know you’re a basketball fan too, but he’s super annoying about LeBron.

BRAUN: He wrote a play about him.

MOAYED: I know, it’s too much.

BRAUN: I haven’t read it, and honestly, I’m not going to.

MOAYED: The LeBron of it all is too much. You have to mention to him all the time that he’s lost six finals. He’s lost more finals than he’s won, and he’s just like, “I know, but he’s the GOAT.” And then you have to be like, “No, Michael Jordan was six for six.”

BRAUN: Was he?

MOAYED: Six for six, bro. And that’s actually GOAT level, you know what I mean? I hope Rajiv reads this and starts sending me some bullshit memes. Anyway, how long do you guys go to?

BRAUN: December 28th. 

MOAYED: You’re going to have to do a Christmas schedule too?

BRAUN: Yeah, three two-a-days in a row. But I don’t want this to ever end. It’s such a cool life, to be able to walk over to the theater or just be in the West Village and do this.

MOAYED: At the Lortel.

BRAUN: At the Lortel, which is such a vibe.

MOAYED: Do you have any after-show things, any rituals, that you have to do after it’s done?

BRAUN: We do get a drink most of the nights after the show. It feels like you need something like that, right?

MOAYED: Oh, yeah.

BRAUN: It’s nice to just go have one to two to three martinis and…

MOAYED: You’re talking after the show, not before, right?

BRAUN: [Laughs] Oh, yeah. After.

MOAYED: The hang pre and post-show, the lovely moments of connection and joy, it’s intoxicating.

BRAUN: It’s also such a small group of people compared to movies and TV.

MOAYED: Yeah, exactly. And for you and Kara, you fall in love every night, you fucking hate each other every night. You leave it all on the stage and then you just regroup afterwards. And especially when you’re doing Rajiv’s words, you’re doing a service to us all so we can find out who we are and what love is, in a weird way. I don’t think I would be talking to you if Rajiv wasn’t in my life, because I did Bengal Tiger and that got me that Tony nomination. I’m telling you, it altered my existence. Spiritually, too. Fuck, we’re giving him props again.

BRAUN: He’s such a dick.

MOAYED: He’s a tool.

BRAUN: Yeah. He’s a fucker.

MOAYED: Can I say one thing that I just want to remind you of? It might’ve been one of our first days of shooting, but we went to lunch, that Mexican restaurant? Do you vaguely remember?

BRAUN: Yes, I do. In Tribeca or something?

MOAYED: In Tribeca. You and I went to that restaurant and we started talking about theater. Do you know what you said? 

BRAUN: Wait, tell me.

MOAYED: You were like, “I really just want to do a lot of theater.” I remember that vividly. And here you are, dude, doing fucking theater. You’re killing it, man.

BRAUN: Thank you, man. It really is a dream come true. I’ve had this desire for so long, and it just happens when it’s supposed to, I guess.

MOAYED: It’s true.

BRAUN: I had a lot of frustrating auditions around that time. I’d get really close to a bunch of really good plays at the Linnet, at MCC, at MTC, at Playwrights Horizons. I’d be auditioning for really good stuff, and then I’d get really close to it and then I wouldn’t get it. I’m like, “Do I have some technical stuff I’m supposed to work on?” But it just wasn’t meant to happen, I guess. I was seeing all this theater, I was trying to learn. I’m like, “What do I not know? What do I have to convey in these audition rooms?” But I think it just takes however long it takes for the right thing, and for Succession to have happened, and all this stuff…

MOAYED: You’re meant for it, dude. I remember, at the time being like, “Oh my god, he’s going to do so much theater,” but you’ve really just been working on film. And not because you didn’t want to do theater, but because you’ve been busy.

BRAUN: Yeah.

MOAYED: Being famous is hard, Nick.

BRAUN: Full-time job, brother.

MOAYED: “Full-time job, brother.” That’ll be fun to see in print, if they use that.

MOAYED: Put that right next to: “Rajiv, you suck.”

BRAUN: Either one’s a really good headline for this.

MOAYED: It’s going to sell all those tickets.

BRAUN: This was so great, man. Thank you so much.

MOAYED: Oh my god, please. Anytime. Say hello to Kara for me.

BRAUN: I will, I will.

MOAYED: All right, bye.