The TV and films Sarah Snook is watching, from Nobody Wants This to Bad Sisters

Siobhan “Shiv” Roy is one of the most iconic roles in television history. With her sharp tongue, power suits, and never-ending disdain for her family (including her own hapless husband), Shiv brought a ruthless feminine sensibility to Succession. Without her and her endless ambition, the drama might have devolved into the macho-dick swinging competition her brothers were desperate for.

It took a strong actor to realise such a complex character – someone like Sarah Snook, a previously little-known Australian theatre actor. Snook’s withering stares and ability to silence a room made Shiv a real woman to root for – perhaps the only redeemable Roy in the whole family.

It made Snook a star, earning her two Golden Globes and an Emmy. But rather than sticking to television, the actor returned to the stage, playing all 26 roles in a West End production of The Picture of Dorian Gray to critical acclaim. Now, two years on from Succession, Snook is returning to television – and her American accent – in Sky thriller All Her Fault.

All this is to say that Sarah Snook has great taste when it comes to the art of the small screen. Here’s everything she’s been watching recently:

Bad Sisters 

“Bad Sisters is incredible, oh my god,” says Snook, who recently watched the second season of Sharon Horgan’s thriller. “I love how there’s not one person you can definitely lean on as good. It’s a great way to tell a story.” The series follows the Garveys – Eva (Horgan), Becka (Eve Hewson), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene) and Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) – Irish sisters who would kill for one another… literally. The target is Grace’s abusive, controlling husband (a deliciously evil Claes Bang) – the question is, how does he die? And which of the sisters – if any – did the deed?

Streaming on Apple TV

Nobody Wants This 

Netflix’s comedy about a “hot Rabbi”, Noah, who falls in love with agnostic (ie not Jewish) podcaster Joanne, has been renewed for a third season mere weeks after the second arrived. Adam Brody and Kristen Bell have incredible chemistry as the central couple, but they’re not what draws Snook in: “My friend Justine is in it. I think she’s brilliant and so funny.” She is of course talking about Justine Lupe, who starred alongside Snook in Succession, as her sister-in-law Willa. Snook is right – Lupe is hilarious and steals every scene as Joanne’s chaotic sister Morgan.

Streaming on Netflix

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight

This dramatisation of writer Alexandra Fuller’s award-winning 2001 memoir tells a story of political upheaval and racial tension through the innocent eyes of an eight-year-old girl, Bobo. Set in Zimbabwe in the years following the civil war, the film tells of how the unrest put white farmers in a dangerous predicament, fearing for their land and families. “Lexi Venter [who plays Bobo] is just extraordinary,” says Snook. “It’s directed by Embeth Davidtz and she also stars in it – sometimes I see that and think ‘red flag’, but there’s no ego here. It’s quite an incredible realisation of a world in turmoil.”

In cinemas now

Big Little Lies

David E Kelley’s 2017 thriller was a “big reference” for All Her Fault, says Snook. Big Little Lies is set in the affluent Monterey Bay area of California, home to Madeline (Reese Witherspoon), Celeste (Nicole Kidman), and Jane (Shailene Woodley). But when a murder rocks the community, the ripple effects expose the many cracks behind the perfect exterior of life among the elite. “We’re dealing with wealthy and elite kinds of people who seemingly have it all,” Snook says. “But what’s the undercurrent? What’s really going on at the subterranean level?”

Streaming on Now

All Her Fault

Snook stars as Marissa Irvine, a well-off business executive and mother who lives through every parent’s hell when she goes to pick up her son, Milo, from a playdate only to find he’s not there. Based on Andrea Mara’s 2022 novel, the eight-episode thriller follows Marissa as suspicion begins to turn on her. But of course, that’s only the beginning of the nightmare. “The thing that really drew me to doing this project in the first place is the twist,” says Snook. And what is that twist? Well, that would be a spoiler…

All Her Fault continues next Friday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic and is streaming on Now