'Succession' star Sarah Snook says the show won't incorporate the pandemic because 'really wealthy people' weren't 'affected' by it

• The third season of HBO's "Succession" will not directly address the pandemic.
• Actress Sarah Snook told Vulture that the lives of wealthy people, like the Roys, weren't upended.
• "None of the world's really wealthy people were going to be affected by the pandemic," she said.

Season three of HBO's "Succession" was filmed in the midst of the pandemic, but fans should not expect to see the Roy family quarantining or stocking up on face masks anytime soon.

During an interview on Monday with Vulture, Sarah Snook, who plays Shiv Roy, spoke about "Succession" writer and creator Jesse Armstrong's decision to keep the pandemic removed from the season-three script.

Like most billionaires, the media magnates at the center of the Emmy-winning HBO series probably did not have their lives upended as a result of the pandemic, the 33-year-old Australian actress reasoned.

"These are really wealthy people," she began, continuing, "And unfortunately, none of the world's really wealthy people were going to be affected by the pandemic."

According to a March 2021 study released by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the combined wealth of America's 657 billionaires grew by 44.6%, or $1.3 trillion, between March 2020 and March 2021. In the same time period, 80 million people in the US lost their jobs, Insider's Lina Batarags reported.

"The pandemic has created an astonishing rise in wealth for the nation's billionaires while tens of millions of Americans fell further behind," Frank Clemente, executive director of ATF, said in a statement. "Billionaires are living in a different world from the rest of us."

Snook previously told Variety that Armstrong went into season-three production laser-focused on the Roys' story.

"We want to see the Roys doing the thing that they've been doing that we love, not pivoting towards a pandemic story," she said.

The pandemic did, however, affect the "Succession" cast and crew behind the scenes.

As Hunter Harris reported for Vulture, actor Mark Blum (cast as on-screen cruise executive Bill Lockhart) died in March 2020 due to complications related to the novel coronavirus. And Alan Ruck and Brian Cox - who play Connor Roy and Logan Roy, respectively - both contracted COVID-19.

Though the third season was initially scheduled to start filming in late spring 2020 in time for a fall premiere, there were multiple pandemic-induced delays. Production eventually kicked off in New York City in November, with plans to wrap up shooting in Europe in late summer.

According to a recent announcement from the "Succession" Twitter account, the new season will be released on HBO in October.