Succession creator Jesse Armstrong says he struggles with impostor syndrome | Jesse Armstrong

The award-winning screenwriter Jesse Armstrong has stated a writers’ room can really feel like “strolling on the moon” when it’s working properly, however has admitted to experiencing impostor syndrome throughout his profession.

Armstrong was behind the hit HBO drama Succession, starring Brian Cox as the worldwide media tycoon and household patriarch Logan Roy, who units off an influence wrestle amongst his 4 kids.

He’s additionally an Oscar nominee for co-writing The Thick of It spin-off movie In The Loop with Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, and has received TV Baftas for his work on Peep Present.

Talking on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs to Lauren Laverne, Armstrong, 55, stated: “When a writers’ room is working properly, it’s such as you’re strolling on the moon.

“You’re all of a sudden launched from the factor that would take you per week to determine at your desk by yourself.

“You’re all of a sudden bounding round and selecting up rocks and the whole lot’s veined with gold and it’s like you may have these golden moments of the concepts coming from everybody and also you’re all on the identical wavelength and it may really feel fairly magical.”

He added: “You will get actually good days and hours working writing alone, however when it’s not working and you are feeling you’re not going to equal one of the best model of the factor you’re making an attempt to make, I might discover that very, very troublesome.

“The theoretically consoling concept that ‘oh, it’ll be all proper since you’ve accomplished it earlier than’, really turns into one other rod on your again.

“You don’t know the way doable it’s for me to be a extremely dangerous author since you don’t see all these drafts the place it’s actually dangerous.”

Succession, which received 19 Emmys together with excellent drama collection and 9 Golden Globes, concluded in 2023 with its fourth collection.

Regardless of the quite a few accolades, the author stated he nonetheless experiences impostor syndrome.

He stated: “All the nice writers I do know that I’ve ever met are riddled with self-doubt and lack of certainty about whether or not what they’ve simply accomplished is nice.

“I feel you go in perhaps with this 70% feeling that it’s like: ‘Oh, that is going to be a catastrophe and I’m going to be uncovered because the fraud I at all times thought I used to be all alongside’.

“You want that 10 to twenty% – for those who’re fortunate, 30% – feeling of: ‘If I may do the model of this which I feel it needs to be, it may very well be actually nice’.

“I feel perhaps that little little bit of confidence that you realize that that’s the way it feels, perhaps that grows in you.

“Additionally, figuring out that the destructive emotions should not essentially true.”

The complete Desert Island Discs interview may be heard on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4 from Sunday at 10am.