Sarah Snook

The risk of science fiction

Sarah Snook was born in Adelaide in 1987 and trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. She graduated in 2008 after spending her childhood in a rural area of South Australia.

That same year she began working in local television in small roles. But it was in 2010 that the TV movie Sisters of War earned her her first major recognition from the Australian industry.

It wasn't all smooth sailing.

In 2014 she starred in Predestination alongside Ethan Hawke, and that role changed her profile outside her country. She played a character who required an extreme physical transformation and won the AACTA Award for Best Actress.

And thanks to that success, the first serious offers came in from Los Angeles. In 2015 she took part in Steve Jobs under the direction of Danny Boyle and shared scenes with Kate Winslet.

Because Snook has always preferred meaty supporting roles over empty leads in big-budget blockbusters.

A seat on the board of directors

The offer to join the cast of Succession came in 2017. At first she had doubts about accepting the role of Siobhan Roy, since she didn't see herself fitting into a satire of the New York elite.

Filming for the first season finally began that same year in New York. Her performance balanced corporate coldness with a vulnerability audiences didn't expect.

The series ended in 2023.

She won the Golden Globe in 2022 and repeated the award in 2024. She earned about $350,000 per episode during the final stages of production for HBO.

But the end of the Roy family didn't slow her work pace. In 2024 she moved to London to star in an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray in the West End.

It was a risky bet.

In this play she performed 26 different characters simultaneously and won the Olivier Award for Best Actress. In 2023 she also founded her own production company, Golden Squid Boy, and signed a first-look deal with HBO to develop new content.

Her contract for her last theater tour in the United Kingdom limited performances to eight per week to protect her vocal health.