“What I read about these media mogul families and corporations is that there’s a serious level of fandom in the room,” she said in an interview at the premiere. On the show, she added, “the ever-shifting tide of who you’re fastening your trust to and who you feel betrayed by is always surprising.”
Camille Perri, a former assistant to David Granger, the former editor in chief of Esquire, noted that the high levels of trust required between executives and their assistants could be treacherous for everyone involved. (Her own experience was overwhelmingly positive, she added.)
Powerful bosses can easily take advantage of their assistants. But as Ms. Perri explored in her 2018 novel, “The Assistants,” the underlings’ access can amount to its own kind of power. “If you’re underestimated and you’re invisible, they sort of don’t see you coming,” she said.
Irina Totok, 24, who lives in Brooklyn and worked for four years as the executive assistant to three partners at a private equity firm, said that one of her bosses once requested a pair of hiking shoes he had seen in an Instagram post. Mrs. Totok combed through comments to find the German brand that made the shoe, then traced her boss’s foot on a piece of paper to figure out his European shoe size. When the shoes arrived a month later, he did not like them.
“In a lot of TV shows, assistants are shown as superheroes,” Mrs. Totok said. “I’m very happy with that.”
On “Succession,” viewers mostly see Jess and Kerry in boardrooms and black cars. If they have lives outside of work (Is Jess in a weekend bocce league? Does Kerry binge-watch “Survivor”?), it never makes it onscreen.
At least not yet. Ms. Winters told Vulture that she and Ms. Canfield had joked about a spinoff focusing on Kerry and Jess. Maybe, Ms. Canfield said, “they’re roommates and best friends and it’s really sweet!”
