Where Do You Know ‘Succession’s Senator Gil Eavis From?

Eric Bogosian has been making the rounds in Hollywood for a very long time. His appearance in Succession since 2018 as cutthroat populist politician Gil Eavis over the first three seasons is just the most recent entry into a career that has spanned close to 40 years in the business. The 69-year-old Armenian American actor/playwright/novelist/historian was born in Boston and is a man of many talents. The unmistakable dark curly locks that have taken on a little more salt with the pepper over the years and his deep, throaty voice make him hard to forget on both the small screen and in movies. He has been in blockbusters like 1995’s Under Siege: Dark Territory as ruthless cyberterrorist Travis Dane, in the Steven Segal sequel to the action blockbuster Under Siege earlier in the decade. Dark Territory made over $100 million on a budget of $50 million and is the most commercially successful project in which he has starred. But Bogosian has always leaned into the world of smaller, independent, and esoteric movies. He first started acting in the early 80s with bit parts that would eventually lead to his breakout role in Talk Radio in 1988.

The Success of ‘Talk Radio’ and a Breakthrough

Talk Radio was a massive coming-out party for Bogosian. His role as Barry Champlain, a Denver shock jock talk radio host, came at just the right time as Howard Stern was revolutionizing the medium in Washington D.C. before his move to New York City in 1982. The new devil-may-care attitude of Stern quickly became the gold standard for the new era of talk radio, and Bogosian capitalized on the cultural zeitgeist when he wrote the screenplay for Talk Radio and starred in the lead role opposite a young Alec Baldwin who plays his meticulous producer and manager. Oliver Stone directs coming off the success of his Vietnam War epic Platoon two years prior. But it is Bogosian’s electric turn as the abrasive, irreverent, and quick-talking Champlain who isn’t afraid to tackle hot-button political issues and other taboo subjects that stand out in the movie. His brash approach draws all manner of opinionated nut jobs onto the air to engage with him and the back-and-forth nature of the extended discussions makes for some of the most compelling dialogue of any film that year and of the decade. It was a success with critics who applauded Bogosian’s raw, take no prisoners approach to both the story and the role.

Related: Oliver Stone’s ‘Talk Radio’ Was Prophetic in Its Depiction of Outrage Culture

As Gil Eavis On ‘Succession’

We get our first look at Bogosian as Gil Eavis in Season 1. He is a Senator from Pennsylvania who is a loose interpretation of current political figure Bernie Sanders, and he has eyes on the White House. He wants to pull Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) away from her father Logan (Brian Cox) and the rest of the conservative Waystar Royco family to work for him on his campaign. Eavis’ position against Logan and Wayster’s attempt to take over the local New York news outlets to add to their cable news company ATN makes him persona non grata in Roy circles, and he eventually becomes a target of Logan’s. He offers Shiv a job, and she is forced to weigh her allegiance to her family versus her belief in the social policies of Eavis.

In Season 2, when Eavis’s presidential poll numbers come in better than expected, Shiv is gobsmacked when Eavis promises to make her his Chief of Staff when he wins the upcoming presidential election. Ultimately, Shiv calls out his hypocrisy as being a voice for the common person, but not wanting to rub elbows with them seeing all his supporters as just a means to an end. They have a heated exchange and Eavis ends up firing Shiv over her insubordination. Later in Season 2, Eavis grills Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) when he is called before Congress to address the accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior of the infamous employee, “Moe”.

Bogosian’s Eclectic Career

For Bogosian, acting is just one of several creative outlets in which he has found success. He is also a celebrated playwright who has drawn critical acclaim for his stage version of Talk Radio, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and 1994’s SubUrbia, a study of a group of floundering twenty-somethings who loiter around their suburban New Jersey neighborhood. It is noted for its particularly fatalist nature of young people who are in the purgatory part of life following school, but before finding a career. He has also been published by the renowned book house Simon & Schuster having written a number of successful books including Mall, Wasted Beauty, and Perforated Heart.

In 2015, the outspoken critic of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1918 at the hands of the Turks and Germans wrote The Secret Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide which tells the story of “Operation Nemesis”, a group of assassins who set out for a measure of revenge against the people responsible for the genocide. But if you want to catch Bogosian on screen, he is currently starring in Interview with the Vampire, an American gothic horror series airing on AMC. Or perhaps he will pop up again in the final season of Succession.