Is ‘Succession’s Lukas Matsson Based on a Real Person? Here Are All of the Details
Published April 8 2023, 1:12 p.m. ET
A fan-favorite character on the hit series Succession is Lukas Matsson. Played by actor Alexander Skarsgård, Lukas is a wealthy but reckless CEO who owns a company called GoJo. He made his first appearance in Season 3 and is here to stay in Season 4.
Fans are now starting to wonder if the billionaire is based on someone in real life. Who is Lukas Matsson similar to? Has the creator of Succession confirmed this? This is what we know.
Is 'Succession's Lukas Matsson based on a real person? He might be based on these two CEOs.
Logan and Roman Roy walk with Lukas Matsson.
While there isn't a real-life CEO that matches Lukas' exact personality and career, there are a few that give an uncanny comparison. The main one is Daniel Ek.
Daniel is a young billionaire and is currently the CEO of Spotify. And, similar to the actor who plays Lukas, he is from Sweden. Another real-life mogul that can be compared to Lukas is Elon Musk.
Elon is known for being the CEO of both Tesla and Twitter. He is also known for posting controversial tweets, which Lukas does in abundance on Succession.
The creator of 'Succession' was inspired by real-life people as he outlined the show's characters.
While he hasn't specifically stated who each Succession character is based on, creator Jesse Armstrong did admit that the team did pull from a few real-life success stories.
He said at a press conference that, "There’s loads of succession stories to draw on. We wanted to draw on all the good, rich stories there are about succession and about media and high politics.”
The producer of the series, Scott Ferguson, even revealed that it was intentional for the character of Lukas to be from a Scandinavian country, perhaps like Daniel, huh? Of course, Elon is from South Africa.
Scott said that, "We were really excited when Alexander came onboard — he’s a wonderful actor. And from the beginning, [showrunner Jesse Armstrong’s] idea was that the tech company was going to be led by someone from a Scandinavian country. In the writer’s room, around February, Jesse had an idea for an episode they wanted to be in [Matsson’s] part of the world.”
Alexander, who is also known for his role in the show Big Little Lies, has also talked about the personality of his character.
He said that, "Once he focuses on a task he is almost unstoppable and it's almost like a fun challenge to him to see if he can do this, if he can pull it off. He has to figure out a way to work the different members of the family and the different members of the board."
Lukas Matsson isn't the only character who might have a real-life inspiration.
Since the beginning of Season 1, fans have speculated that the Roy family in Succession is based on the well-known Murdoch family. But, actor Brian Cox has since dispelled the rumors and the other theories surrounding his character Logan Roy.
He revealed that, “He’s not Rupert Murdoch. He’s certainly not Donald Trump, and he’s not Conrad Black."
New episodes of the fourth and final season of Succession air every Sunday on HBO at 9 p.m. EST.