Page 78 - SHARP November 2021

and he couldn’t believe that just happened in front of him,’” recalls Braun. “And it’s pretty true.” A few years later, he started studying with an acting coach in Los Angeles and eventually landed roles on Disney TV shows and films including Sky High (playing a high school superhero with glowing yellow skin called Zach Attack), Minutemen, and Princess Protection Program (with Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato). Wary of being pigeonholed, Braun decided to step back and attend boarding school before transitioning into more adult roles after graduating. Although he scored a few minor parts, Braun ad- mits that his towering height sometimes dissuaded casting agents.
But on Succession, which premiered in 2018, both Braun’s physicality and willingness to improvise made him a natural choice to play Greg. Watching the show, it’s easy to draw parallels between the deeply unlikable Roys and real-life magnate families like the Trumps and the Murdochs. But Braun insists that Jesse Armstrong, the show’s writer and creator, doesn’t have the cast reading news headlines 24/7 to find inspiration. “My feeling is that he wants the writing to speak for itself,” Braun explains. Poll any random Succes- sion fan and they’re likely to have a different favourite “Gregism” (for my money, it’s a line delivered by a nervous, bumbling Greg while testifying before the Senate in the second season finale: “If it is to be said, so it be, so it is”).
Braun says that being surrounded by veteran actors and actresses — and being encouraged to veer off-script after the first or second take — has only strengthened his craft. “When there’s a dinner table scene or a scene with 10 actors in a room talking over each other, part of me is in Greg and doing all the stuff that’s in Greg,” he enthuses. “But in the moments when I’m not a big participant in a scene, it’s really so fun to watch those other actors.” One of his most frequent scene partners is Macfadyen, whose character Tom takes Greg under his wing, a bromance for the ages which eventually leads to a dramatic blackmail. “We’ve meshed well from the start, because we have the same sense of humour,” says Braun. “I pick up so much from Matthew. He interprets the writing in such a clear and meaningful way and balances comedy and drama really well.”
It’s not just the show’s legions of fans who have taken notice of Braun’s scene-stealing performances, either. Last year, he was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, going up against co-stars Culkin and Macfadyen (they ended up losing to Billy Crudup, with whom Braun appeared in the 2015 docudrama The Stanford Prison Experiment). “It was pretty surreal,” says Braun, who attended the virtual ceremony couchside with his family, wearing a navy Paul Smith suit and matching be- dazzled Crocs. “It’s this feeling of ‘People know who I am and they voted and checked my name off?’”
The same week the actor received his nomination, he also made headlines for a completely different reason. While quarantining with friends in Los Angeles in May 2020, Braun put out a call on his Ins- tagram for musicians to help him out with a song idea. His 200,000 followers responded, and the result was “Antibodies (Do You Have
The),” a tongue-in-cheek pop-punk anthem about — you guessed it — the COVID-19 pandemic (sample lyric: “Before you spend the night, can you find a testing site?”). In the accompanying music video released by Atlantic Records, Braun does his best rock star impression, wielding a mic and guitar outside in a tank top, Lenny Kravitz−esque scarf, fingerless gloves, and a face mask. A portion of the proceeds from the single and merch went to the health charities Partners in Health and the COPE program. “It would be really fun to make an album like that, but I’m not Machine Gun Kelly with tattoos all over my body and piercings in my nose,” he says with a laugh.
Braun has a piano in his apartment, though, and in his spare time writes and produces songs, often with his younger brother Christopher, who makes music professionally as DEYO. “A lot of the time I’m like, ‘Should I release this into the world?’ It’ll come at a certain point,” admits Braun, adding that “Atlantic Records has been really welcoming and inviting me to write more music.” (When asked if Succession fans could ever see his character pick up the acoustic guitar à la Kendall’s cringeworthy “L to the OG” rap in season two, Braun good-naturedly deflects, saying “I don’t think Greg’s musical. I won’t speak on any serenading or seducing.”) Lately, he’s been listening to a “lot of hip hop,” indie rock acts like Soccer Mommy, Andy Shauf, and Peach Pit, as well as ’90s radio mainstay Third Eye Blind (“I did a revisit through their big album and was like ‘Goddamn, these songs are classics’”).
Whether he’s addressing rumours of him becoming the next James Bond in an atrocious fake British accent (“I haven’t been working out all year but they were cool with that”) or straight-faced- ly shooting his shot with Kim Kardashian, Braun has embraced Instagram as a place to showcase his comedic chops. “It’s such a fine line,” he says. “You don’t want to put up stuff that’s like, ‘Hey, don’t forget about me! I’m still here!’ But then John Mayer puts up pictures of himself looking cool in a cool outfit, and I’m like, ‘What’s the problem with it?’ He’s just embracing [the fact] that he looks cool today.” Completely aware of his newfound celebrity, Braun says he’ll sometimes run these video ideas by a handful of friends (including Keough) for approval before posting.
As for what’s next, Braun is preparing to star in the film ad- aptation of “Cat Person,” Kristen Roupenian’s viral short story that was published in the New Yorker in 2017. “The script is a nice evo- lution and goes further with that grey area of dating and the power struggle,” he says. He’s also been in the thick of several writing projects, though he admits he’s been content “chilling” after wrap- ping filming Succession in Italy under strict COVD-19 protocols. Braun’s tight-lipped as to what fans can expect from Greg (though if the trailers and pictures are any indication, his professional glow-up will continue), but nobody’s more enthusiastic than him for people to see the new season.
“It was just awesome to see their work again and be like ‘Oh my god, they’re so locked in!’” he says of his castmates. “It’s very thrilling — and I feel super lucky to get to be with these guys.”
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