Sarah Snook plays 26 roles in Broadway's 'Dorian Gray'
06 May 2025

Sarah Snook, best known for her role as Shiv Roy on HBO's Succession, has taken on a new challenge on Broadway.

She is currently starring in The Picture of Dorian Gray, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel.

In this production, Snook plays 26 different characters, each with its own unique accent and physicality.

In an interview with NPR, she said, "each character sits somewhere differently in my body," adding, "It's very much a physical sensation."

Snook's fascination with offbeat characters brought her here
Character exploration

Snook's obsession with villains and offbeat characters goes way back to her childhood in Australia.

She admitted, "I was the one who came out of that going like, 'Great, I want to be the genie, I wanna be Jafar. I want to be Iago. I want to be Ursula. ... I want all the characters who go and do stuff and who are funny and strange and weird and get great musical numbers."

Snook's challenges and triumphs on stage
Stage success

She admitted there have been times when she accidentally used the wrong voice for a character, but even her director, Kip Williams, didn't realize it.

Overcoming these difficulties, Snook keeps mesmerizing audiences with her one-of-a-kind performance.

The show uses giant video screens, cameras, iPhones, quick costume changes, and recordings to tell its story.

Snook credits her time on Succession with helping her navigate the unique challenges of acting alongside recordings of herself in the play.

Playing so many characters 'forces you to be really imaginative'
Unique experience

Snook performs alongside a videotaped version of herself.

She explained, "It's really strange because there's only once that I can see myself ... but otherwise I just have to listen to the audio recording aspect of it because I'm either back of the stage, or I'm in front of the screen, or I am behind the screen."

"It really forces you to listen to what the person is saying, to what I'm saying, and forces you to be really imaginative."