Think Succession and Australian talent, and Sarah Snook will always be the first name to spring to mind. The second: Ashley Zukerman, the Nate Sofrelli to her Shiv Roy.
Among the many skills that the four-season HBO smash wielded with the utmost precision, casting its supports as astutely as its main players ranks among its finest. Playing a political strategist with a messy romantic connection to Logan Roy’s only daughter, the American-born, Melbourne-raised Zukerman did ‘determined and ambitious but thoroughly complicated’ with the absolute best of them.
Now Silo is capitalising upon that same knack of Zukerman’s, giving the Aussie actor – who also boasts Manhattan, Designated Survivor, A Teacher, the Fear Street movies, The Lost Symbol and City on Fire on his resume – his next big international role. After popping up in the final episode of the Apple TV hit’s second season, Zukerman is one of its leads in the show’s 2026 return.
Ashley Zukerman interview – quick links
Unearthing a new lead role
The Dune and Mission: Impossible franchise star Rebecca Ferguson still anchors Silo’s futuristic timeline, as she has since the page-to-screen effort’s 2023 debut. However, Zukerman now mirrors that job in the series’ jump back to the past, which follows what happens before the remnants of humanity inhabit underground chambers.
Tasked with slipping into a show that already has so much of its world built and story intricately laid out, and getting audiences curious about a new figure and how his tale ties in with everything that’s already been seen, Zukerman instantly felt the weight of his Season 2 surprise appearance. ‘I think it was a little daunting,’ he tells ScreenHub.
‘It wasn’t lost on me the stakes of that moment – that after 1.99 seasons of a TV show, you suddenly change everything and meet two new characters in a completely different universe. And that we had a very limited amount of time to build a certain amount of intrigue and chemistry between us.’
Audiences were introduced to Zukerman’s engineer-turned-US Congressman Daniel Keene in Washington DC alongside investigative reporter Helen Drew, as portrayed by Game of Thrones and The Royal Hotel’s Jessica Henwick. She has questions about strained relations between America and Iran, including word of a possible dirty bomb; he has no answers but swiftly starts digging.
Joining the series for such a pivotal role with someone in the same position helped temper any fears or apprehensions, Zukerman says.
’As soon as we started working, Jess and I just really worked so well together and everything was just right there. From that moment on, it felt like “Oh, I understand exactly how to play this”. I understood how to play Season 3. Everything became very clear.’
Watch the trailer
Everything’s heavy underground
The key mystery of Silo since its premiere is why: why are Ferguson’s Juliette Nichols and her 9,999 fellow residents of a literally stratified subterranean society living in the show’s buried namesake at all? Relaying an origin story, Zukerman and Henwick’s side of the narrative starts inching towards those all-important explanations, as the series’ third season cuts back and forth between Daniel and Helen’s search in ‘the before times’ and the escalating dystopian chaos of Juliette and company’s daily underground existence.
It all makes for immensely gripping and twisty viewing. As has been welcomely apparent since episode one, Silo is as much a character study as it is a sci-fi thriller. Understanding its main characters deeply, be it Juliette or Daniel, is instrumental to ensuring that the weight of their decisions lands, along with the impact of the many forces outside of their control, too.
That focus on character, plus the layered storytelling and insights that come with it, was indeed an attraction for Zukerman, and influenced how he approached stepping into Daniel’s shoes. While any parallels with present US-Iran relations are coincidental, Zukerman was also invested in Silo’s reflection of our off-screen reality beyond its genre lens.
‘I think what I loved about the show to begin with, even before it came to me as an opportunity to be involved in, was that it probably didn’t feel like a sci-fi,’ he says.
‘We live in a time where there’s a lot of post-apocalyptic material out there, and I’m not necessarily drawn to most of it – but there was something about Silo that I was drawn to, and I think it’s that. It’s the fact that this is a show about human beings, and they’re living in a mirror world of our own where they too were trying to understand how to navigate these dark times, where it’s sort of difficult to see how the world is working and what the machinations are, and to trust the machinations of the world.
‘So the idea that we’re playing characters, human beings, and not functions of sci-fi, is very true. And I think I did feel that my task was absolutely just to try to imbue him with as much humanity and complexity as possible, to try to bring as much of myself to the guy as possible.’
The power of personal connection
Whether in his international triumphs or homegrown parts – such as Rush, Underbelly and his AACTA Award-winning role in The Code as his career was kicking off, and Apple Cider Vinegar, In Vitro and One More Shot in the past two years – Zukerman’s ability to make audiences feel like his character has moseyed out of real life and onto the screen has long been one of his own vital traits.
It doesn’t come easily, he notes, but he greatly appreciates being at a point in his career where he’s able to play someone who he feels so personally connected to, and to do so while joining a thriving must-see series a couple of seasons in – and as such an integral character.
‘I don’t think I have been as connected to a character as I have this one before,’ Zukerman says. ‘Every new thing I learned about the character, I felt very connected to. So I did just try to meditate on everything that he was meditating on, and that was not difficult.’
That’s unsurprising given that Zukerman is portraying someone traversing polarised times and caught in a constant fight for survival on multiple levels – relatable experiences for Silo’s audience as much as its cast.
‘Everything that he is concerned by, I’m concerned by, and so it gave me an opportunity to, scene by scene, just explore that,’ Zukerman shares.
‘I feel very privileged. It’s a really nice thing to be able to play him and to be trusted with him,’ he continues, with Zukerman particularly feeling the honour of his task due to everything that Silo’s third season throws Daniel’s way over its 10 episodes. (World-changing secrets, potential wars, conspiracies and an injured sister are just the beginning.)
‘To be trusted with that on – not just a show that where everyone is starting at the beginning and trying to create a world – to do that on a show that is already established, that is already well-loved, yeah, the privilege wasn’t lost on me. But I had to try to rid it from my mind so that I could just sit down and do the work. And if anything, it just fuelled me more.’
When patterns recur and doors open
While Zukerman has been busy since Succession wrapped up in 2023 – as he was with other projects during its run – Silo is a perfect latest step. As Daniel, his is a performance brimming with dedication and earnestness, and sincerity and vulnerability, as his character weathers shock awakenings.
Silo also follows a number of patterns that have recurred across his career so far. Playing someone in the political sphere obviously isn’t new. Neither is a dystopian angle, as seen in Aussie film In Vitro. Puzzle-like narratives and investigations similarly keep finding a place on his resume.
‘It’s just how the parts have come my way. You have to trust the process, in a way,’ Zukerman says, while pointing out one more regular theme throughout his work. ‘I’d say that there’s another very strong throughline in my career, where I’ve been cast alongside incredibly strong women in many projects.’
‘And I think that it’s nice that I get seen as someone who can fit in that paradigm.’
Succession, Apple Cider Vinegar, In Vitro, One More Shot, and now Silo with both Ferguson and Henwick – virtually each of Zukerman’s roles of late demonstrates his point. He doesn’t think there’s been a Succession effect on the type of projects that he’s been interested in over the last few years, although his involvement with such a deservedly lauded series has had its benefits.
‘It just has opened a lot of doors to the kind of roles that are allowed to come to me,’ Zukerman says, ‘which means that I’m very fortunate to be able to get a pick of some really meaty things, Silo being one of them.’
Returning home after international success
His recent filmography might also feature his first Australian fare since 2017’s Friday on My Mind, but there’s no ideal mix of overseas and local projects that fulfils Zukerman creatively. That said, being able to use his success to boost Australian work is a valued benefit of Succession, Silo and the like.
‘I do hope to continue to look out for Aussie projects, and I’m helping develop a few projects as well. That’s something that’s really interesting to me, and I’m glad I’m at a stage in my career where I can help get projects up.’
‘In terms of a balance I look for, it’s just project to project,’ Zukerman says. ‘It demands a lot, I think, the way that I approach the work. And so when I do it, I want to make sure I’m doing it for the right reasons, so that it gives me everything I need to make sure I get up every morning wanting to do everything I can.’
One consistent, persistent motivating factor for Zukerman, one guaranteed way to ensure that he wakes up daily with that drive, is feeling like he’s at the coalface. ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a main character in something. I’ve had that experience as supporting characters,’ he says, but with Silo, it ‘absolutely’ applied.
‘In this, I absolutely felt like – both the way that the set was established and the story especially, it really felt like Jess and I in this third season, and whoever was the director and whoever was the writer, and then the crew, we really certainly tried to eke everything out of every moment.’
‘There are projects which are difficult for the wrong reasons. This was difficult for the right reasons – and that being just to try to understand these characters better and better, to try to go deeper and deeper into them. And that’s sometimes very hard given the situation that they’re in.’
‘This is a perfect example of being right at the coalface.’
