In the middle of a conversation at the clothing boutique Jeffrey New York on Tuesday night, Nicholas Braun, the very tall actor who plays Cousin Greg on Succession, was approached by a fan of the show.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you, but you’re fabulous,” the woman said. “I wish it was on every single day.”
“I wish it was a soap opera too,” Braun replied, after thanking her. “That’d be a whole different thing.”
He didn’t miss a beat, which might be because, over the course of the HBO series’s two seasons to date, Braun has gotten used to these sorts of interactions. His turn as the shambling, widely beloved Greg led to the adoption of a standard (and lighthearted) talking point: “When people come up to me and go, ‘Greg the Egg!’ I just tell them my name.”
In the midst of fashion week in New York, Braun was hosting a party for the U.S. launch of Au Départ, the recently revived French ultraluxury trunk maker. Founded in 1834, the brand was a longtime competitor to the likes of Louis Vuitton and Goyard but shut down in 1976. In September, WWD reported that a group of 15 investors would relaunch the brand with former Dsquared2 executive Gianfranco Maccarrone serving as CEO. One of the new Au Départ trunks is designed to transport a video-game console, and at the high end the cases retail in the five figures. In short, working with the brand isn’t the maneuver you’d choose if you wanted to avoid being further associated with the world of Succession.
“They’re kinda ridiculous,” Braun said on Tuesday. “They feel Succession-y. I thought it’d be fun. They’re super nice, I would like to own one. Maybe by the end of the night they’ll throw me a bag or something, a wallet.”
Perhaps it’s also a natural extension of Braun’s increasingly visible set of extracurricular pursuits. He was wearing a Reiss suit, Elder Statesman sweater, and Christian Louboutin shoes despite professing a longtime lack of fashion affinity. (“Working on Succession,” he said, “you start to realize what’s the cut of the suit you like. I started seeing Jeremy Strong in really nice things, and everybody likes to be fashionable.”) Last year, when Justin Theroux opened Ray’s, a kind of dive-bar facsimile on the Lower East Side, Braun invested. “I like hanging out there, I’m glad that I don’t dislike it,” he said. He might be directing a music video for Andy Shauf in the next few weeks, but they’re still waiting to get the budget approved. “He’s a brilliant songwriter and I love his voice, and I was a fan before I met him,” Braun said.