Main Characters (Logan Roy, Kendall Roy, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Roman Roy]) | Extended Roy Family | Waystar RoyCo | Other Companies | Politics | Other Characters
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Furness Media Group
Sandy
Sandy Furness
Portrayed By: Larry Pine
The owner of a rival media conglomerate who plots a hostile takeover of Waystar Royco with Kendall and Stewy.
- Affably Evil: So far, he's shown to be a polite and considerate older man in spite of his amoral actions.
- Ambiguous Situation: The exact nature of his illness is unclear; syphilis is the rumor, but Waystar-Royco execs are pretty sure it's a rumor they cooked up.
- Arch-Enemy: To Logan; their exact history is unknown, but they're bitter business rivals and Sandy is explicitly described as the Pepsi to Waystar-Royco's Coca-Cola.
- Bait the Dog: He tells Stewy to let Roman think he’s made his dad happy by getting a deal, and then throw him back, justifying himself with “this fucking family”.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The show is more focused on Logan as the Big Bad who poisons his life, the lives of his family and the world as a whole, but Sandy provides the most openly antagonistic external voice: an unambiguous enemy seeking a hostile takeover. It takes until the middle of Season 3 to get resolved.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Readily admits he’s a parasite on a parasite, already attached to Stewy’s private equity fund into Waystar.
- Dirty Old Man: Attends highly exclusive and bohemian sex parties (typically attended by artists and execs a 1/3 his age) and is rumored to have contracted syphilis during Season 2 (explaining his absence from public view).
- Evil Cripple: While his poor health has put him in a wheelchair, it hasn't diminished his hatred.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses and is one of the most amoral characters on the show. The way the light reflects off them, obscuring his eyes, only reinforces his villainy.
- The Man Behind the Man: Sandy is the one using Stewy as a mouthpiece for his plans. However, his health declines severely to the point where he doesn't wield control as he once did; ironically his own daughter Sandi ends up speaking for him, but it's never made clear if she is making her own decisions in her father's name.
- Manipulative Bastard: He managed to plant himself within Waystar-Royco and eventually instigate an attempt at a hostile takeover, all without Logan having no idea until the moment Kendall hands him the bear hug.
- Not So Above It All: He usually comes across as more pragmatic and affable than Logan, but he turns out to be just as motivated by spite as his rival.
- Pragmatic Pansexuality: His scenes with Kendall are full of business/fucking subtext (Kendall telling Roman in “Lifeboats” that Sandy tried to fingerbang him, and Logan asking if Kendall opened his legs on the first date), but on both sides it’s a lot to do with taking Daddy’s number one boy away from him, as well as Kendall being slutty and Sandy being a Dirty Old Man.
- The Rival: To Logan Roy, with whom Sandy has a long-standing and bitter business rivalry. Sandy makes it to Logan's wake, smiling the entire time that he outlived his old rival.
- The Unintelligible: Come Season 3, Sandy is only capable of muttering grumbles which only Sandi can understand.
- Villain Decay: His health declines and he loses the ability to speak. Once his takeover is settled in Season 3, his remaining appearances do not present him as a threat, other than voting to sell Waystar-Royco to Matsson in the finale.
Sandi
Sandi Furness
Portrayed By: Hope Davis
Sandy's daughter, who is aligned with Stewy in the proxy battle for Waystar's ownership. She largely negotiates on behalf of her ailing father.
- Mirror Character: To Shiv; both are the daughters of media moguls who present themselves as the obvious heirs to the company, but still go underappreciated by their fathers, who don't see an issue with using them to advance their interests.
- Mouth of Sauron: She's become the mouthpiece for her father since his decline, but it's ambiguous as to what extent he's lucid, and whether she's merely relaying his wishes or if she's truly the power behind the throne.
Pierce Media (PGM)
The Pierce Family
In General
The Pierce Family
Portrayed By: Cherry Jones, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Jeremy Shamos, Mark Linn-Baker, Max Gordon Moore, Christina Rouner
- Bourgeois Bohemian: As the liberal counterpart to the Roys, they're very rich but frown upon the Roys' conservative media.
- Foil: A thorough foil to the Roys, being another wealthy family who owns a big media group. But unlike the conservative, toxic, new-money Roys, the Pierces are a matriarch-led family of liberal Bourgeois Bohemians, seem like they're genuinely on good terms with each other, and old money (Logan calls them "blue-blooded fucks" and the Family Business has been mentioned to be theirs for 150 years).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: They're based on
prominent legacy media families from the East Coast, like the Sulzbergers (of The New York Times), the Bancrofts (of The Wall Street Journal) and the Grahams (of the Washington Post). - Not So Above It All: They take pride in their moral stance on how their corporation is run, but they're still willing to let their worst enemy in through the doors with a hug if it means more profit.
- Theme Naming: They all have N or M names, save for Peter.
Nan
Nan Pierce
Portrayed By: Cherry Jones
The defacto head of the Pierce family and majority owner of PGM.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She makes a big deal of her moral superiority, but the best she can really say is that she isn't nearly as bad as Logan Roy... which isn't saying much at all.
- Good Counterpart: Subverted. Like Logan, she's a major media mogul, and is positioned as Logan's ideological opposite: the kind, liberal rival to his bullish abuse. However, she reveals herself to be just as self-serving and proud of her wealth as the Roys.
- Hypocrite: Some humour is drawn from the fact that she brands the bidding dispute between Logan and his children for the acquisition of PGM as "disgusting", while actively encouraging it.
- Iron Lady: She's made of tough stuff, as the Matriarch of the Pierce Family.
- Nice to the Waiter: Subverted. Unlike the Roys, who ignore or are dismissive of the help, Nan makes a show of asking her housekeeper to take a break in the middle of dinner. However, a later scene where she takes the dish her housekeeper cooked and serves it as if she made it while said housekeeper looks on resentfully implies that it is indeed largely for show.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A combination of the cruises scandal and Rhea's betrayal of her results in Nan calling off the deal with Waystar Royco, storming away from Logan while he pathetically chases after her, ranting.
Naomi
Naomi Pierce
Portrayed By: Annabelle Dexter-Jones
Nan Pierce's niece who suffers from substance abuse and falls for Kendall.
- Ambiguously Bi: Is in a relationship with Kendall, and is said to have slept with Tabitha.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Naomi and Kendall are mutually bad influences on each other, but she does genuinely care for him, as evidenced by her reaction to his emotional meltdown at his birthday. He even acts like an asshole to her, but he sincerely apologizes and she takes him home to comfort him.
- Black Sheep: She's the "black sheep" of the Pierce family, suffering from narcotics addiction.
- The Consigliere: Despite her addiction, she acts as Nan's closest advisor.
- Ethical Slut: She’s an oblivious enabling Womanchild, but she’s one of the nicer characters and the fact that she gets around is not treated as one of her flaws.
- Parenting the Husband: By the time he’s brokenly laying his head on her lap, and wrapping himself in an A Team blanket, she’s realised this is her role.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Kendall. He's from the conservative, toxic, "new money" Roys, and she's from the Shakespeare-quoting, liberal "old money" Pierces, whose empire Logan both resents and covets. They bond over their shared issues with addiction and the overall feeling of being trapped by their families.
- Weakness Turns Her On: Makes out with Kendall after affectionately calling him pitiful.
Mark
Mark Pierce
Portrayed By: Jeremy Shamos
A guileless but talkative member of the Pierce family.
- Idle Rich: He seemingly has nothing to do but spend his inherited fortune collecting degrees.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Mark is working on his second doctorate, but is otherwise a goober without much in the way of social skills.
- Nice Guy: He might be a smug dummy, but he's also very placid.
Maxim
Maxim Pierce
Portrayed By: Mark Linn-Baker
A Pierce family member who works for the Brookings Institution.
- The Consigliere: This seems to be his role within Connor's political campaign, giving him advice from behind the scenes.
- Not So Above It All: Like the rest of the Pierces, he's plenty self-righteous but is happy to ally himself with his idealogical opposite for his own benefit.
- Odd Friendship: With Connor. They're complete opposites and for all his smugness Maxim seems to be much more sensible than the eldest Roy kid, but they still end up becoming fairly steadfast allies.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To Connor, his polar opposite. They snipe, they spar, they get drunk together and Connor offers Maxim the state department.
Peter
Peter Pierce
Portrayed By: Max Gordon Moore
A member of the Pierce family who distrusts the Roys.
- Establishing Character Moment: Peter is introduced when he butts into a conversation between Roman and Gerri about the meaning of the Pierce family motto ("I triumph in the truth"), which establishes him right off as a pretentious jerk.
- Jerkass: He's the most outwardly antagonistic Pierce family member; an unpleasant, smarmy jackass.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As much of an insufferable dick as he is, Peter is correct to distrust the Roys.
Marnie
Marnie Pierce
Portrayed By: Christina Rouner
A member of the Pierce family.
- Rich Bitch: She certainly gives off this vibe during the dinner, in which she openly asks if they'll be getting rid of Tom, smugly remarks about Tom and Shiv having a dog called Mondale and barely hides her interest in the peculiarities of Roman's relationship.
Other PGM Employees
Rhea
Rhea Jarrell
Portrayed By: Holly Hunter
The CEO of Pierce Media Group who aligns herself with Logan during the attempted acquisition.
- Broken Pedestal: Logan thought well of her, but becomes gradually disillusioned upon realizing she has politically liberal leanings and (to Logan's horror) does not drink to excess.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: She's the CEO of Pierce Media Group, but actively works against the company to secure more profit for herself, offering bad advice to Nan.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Rhea might be a self-serving manipulator, but she proves to actually have a sense of morals (however threadbare) when Logan's sheer amorality causes her to ditch him.
- False Friend: Rhea positions herself as an ally to Kendall, Roman and Shiv in three distinct private conversations in an attempt to ingratiate herself to the family. For the most part, none of them fall for it and instead feed her bad information, which in turn leads to her falling out of Logan's favor.
- High-Powered Career Woman: Rhea is extremely powerful within the Pierce family and she appoints herself the go-between for the potential Roy-Pierce deal. She spends much of her time alternating between maneuvering against the Roy kids, convincing each that she thinks they're capable of being the CEO, and getting in Logan's good graces through subtle suggestion. She then betrays them all, with her clear ambition being to take over herself. Having apparently succeeded, though, she's named CEO...which backfires on her massively because the Roys just got implicated in a huge sex scandal.
- Promoted to Scapegoat: Shiv arranges for her to be promoted to CEO of Waystar Royco just as a big scandal becomes news-hogging public knowledge, essentially using Rhea as a shield to absorb the blowback.
- The Mole: She hazily settles into this for Logan, although she's really working for herself.
- Southern-Fried Genius: Rhea has Holly Hunter's very distinctive Southern accent, and she's a sharp-witted, highly intelligent CEO.
- Sudden Principled Stand: Rhea has thought nothing of backstabbing everyone who stands behind her and her money/a position in Waystar Royco, but she finally draws the line at manipulating/intimidating Lester's whistle-blowing rape victim into silence.
GoJo
Matsson
Lukas Matsson
"I just wanna get myself the best of everything."
Portrayed By: Alexander Skarsgård
The founder and CEO of streaming giant GoJo, which Waystar is attempting to acquire.
- Arch-Enemy: To Roman. While Matsson is a thorn in the side for all of the Roy family due to his intent to purchase Waystar, Roman is the one who consistently meets with him, and is disgusted with him all the way. It culminates in Roman giving Matsson a "The Reason You Suck" Speech while meeting him in Norway, declaring him to be a sociopathic and greedy narcissist who only cares about his own profit. In turn, Matsson sees Roman and the rest of the family as beneath him, even as he promises them money beyond imagination.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The main antagonist of the final season and about as close as the series gets to a one-dimensional bad guy aside from Mencken; Matsson gets everything he wants: he buys out the company, sees the Roy brothers humiliated, keeps Shiv in his orbit, and has Tom as his puppet CEO. He’s ready to begin breaking down Waystar into pieces. He sees no comeuppance for his faulty subscriber numbers, sexual harassment of Ebba, or bad business ploys.
- Big Bad: Becomes the main obstacle in the siblings way in season 4 after Logan's death.
- Bully Turned Buddy: He and Oskar take a special dislike towards Greg––until Greg wins them over by revealing he's the one who is sent to fire people at Waystar. It's ambiguous on whether it lasts after the acquisition, as Matsson openly calls Greg "Judas" due to him tipping off the Roys about Shiv not becoming CEO.
- Brutal Honesty: Matsson tends to just say whatever comes into his mind without much concern for others.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: He tends to be in his own little world much of the time and doesn't even seem aware of others. This isn't treated as endearing though as it leads to him being blunt and unpleasant to deal with.
- Creepy Monotone: Rarely raises his voice, and mostly mumbles in a low tone while staring off into space.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor:
- Tells Shiv he’s been sending his ex liters of his frozen blood as a ‘joke.’
- Makes a particularly tasteless holocaust joke tweet in regards to Kendall's Living+ presentation.
- Fan Disservice: Played by the tall, handsome and chiseled Alexander Skarsgard, but his abrasive and cold personality, thousand-yard stare and sophomoric sense of humor will probably turn most viewers off.
- Foil: To Roman. Both are juvenile immature men in their thirties.
- Hate Sink: In a show full of Jerkasses, Matsson stands out as one of few characters who are never shown as sympathetic, reasonable, redeemable or having standards in any way, shape or form, not even when he has a point.
- Jerkass: A blunt and pretentious prick who's a bit too comfortable shitting on others (such as plainly asking Roman when his father will die), complaining to Kendall's face that his party is boring, complaining he just wants to get laid while playing on his phone and not socializing, and seems overall totally self-interested. He thinks very highly of his creation and is noted by Kerry as "thinking he's a genius" and he treats most conversations as though he's having his time wasted. This becomes worse in Season 4, where he repeatedly belittles Kendall, is smug throughout his interactions with the American executives, shows no concern for Logan’s death and doesn’t relent in rushing through the deal, and even uses Logan’s death as an insult against Ken and Roman during negotiations.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Matsson is very clearly inspired by 21st century entrepreneur billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who are marked for their focus on tech and eccentricities and for not being real tech geniuses, just having the money to acquire tech and market it.
- No Social Skills: Matsson seems incapable of even the bare minimum of polite interaction with other people and either seems unable to understand how rude he is or just doesn't care. He even embarrasses himself at the Roys' election tailgate by bad-mouthing New York––the city he is currently in––by comparing it unfavorably to 'better' foreign cities, and then dropping some gamer humor like calling Waystar's numbers 'gay'...in front of a room of stuffy New York bureaucrats.
- Obfuscating Insanity: It's a little unclear as he does seem to have some mental disorder, but his meeting with Roman at his home has him behaving in a vague, semi-erratic way. He talks about wanting to experience failure and speaks about not feeling great within himself but he's definitely together enough to manipulate his way into trying to become an equal partner with Waystar, so it might just all be a big mind game.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He cracks several rather prejudiced "jokes" at inappropriate times, notably trying to insult Kendall by deriding his numbers as "gay" in a childish, mocking manner.Kendall: "That's kinda homophobic, man."
- Psychopathic Manchild: He's extremely immature and childish, preferring to play games on his phone and enjoying things like pissing on it, but also arrogant and cutthroat enough to spearhead a hostile takeover of Waystar-Royco with the express intention of brutally slashing it down and rebuilding what's left in his own image, and explicitly tells Tom that he wants him to be a yes-man CEO who'll take all the heat.
- Self-Made Man: Created his own streaming app and coded it himself, and specifically notes he doesn't like the idea of another man/mentor figure leaning over his shoulder, insisting on independence and self-reliance. This image is soiled when Ebba tells the Roys that Matsson isn't even a real coder and basically only took a pre-built app to market.
- Smug Snake: Particularly when negotiations with Waystar start to ratchet up following Logan’s death.
- Stalker with a Crush: Tells Shiv his head of comms Ebba used to be his girlfriend, but he’s been harassing her since then. Of course, it could all be a mind game with Matsson. But later confirmed to be true.
- Tech Bro: Matsson is the creator of a very impressive tech platform, and seems interested in parties, girls and frat boy antics like literally pissing on an app he doesn't like.
- Villain Respect: Only shows Greg some friendliness when Greg regales him with tales of how many people he gets to fire (and how little he cares).
Ebba
Ebba
Portrayed By: Eili Harboe
GoJo's head of communications, who has some tensions with her boss Lukas.
- Create Your Own Villain: Ebba tells the Roys that she and the other Go Jo execs essentially built Lukas's reputation as a self-made genius, which fostered his ego and rise to power, now leaving her trapped working for a megalomaniacal Manchild.
- Irony: Lampshaded by Lukas himself, but Ebba apparently has some form of social anxiety, despite being in charge of communications for a major company, which requires constantly meeting with people.
- NiceGirl: Out of any of GoJo's team, Ebba is the most consistently polite towards the Waystar crew, and shows no real signs of malice.
- Sleeping with the Boss: Ebba and Lukas used to date, and Lukas has been harassing her ever since, which is causing some internal tensions in their operations.
Oskar
Oskar Guðjohnsen
Portrayed By: Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson
Matsson's second-in-command at GoJo.
- Big Fun: Deconstructed. Oskar is a burly guy who loves to party, though he's less 'fun' and more boorish and malicious. Lukas even laments his 'number two' shows up to an important and politically tenuous party absolutely trashed to begin with.
- Bully Turned Buddy: He and Matsson take a special dislike towards Greg, with Oskar even spitting at him and swearing at him at the Roys' own party––until Greg wins them over by revealing he's the one who is sent to fire people at Waystar.
- Jerkass: Oskar is shown to be as crass, buffoonish, bullying and cruel as his own boss.
- Smug Snake: He, along with most of GoJo's team, is pretty clear about his distaste for the American execs from Waystar and takes a superior attitude towards most of them.
- Villain Respect: Only shows Greg some friendliness when Greg regales him with tales of how many people he gets to fire (and how little he cares).
