Jeremy Strong

Jeremy Strong (born December 25, 1978) is an American actor. He rose to prominence for his portrayal of Kendall Roy in the HBO drama series '' Succession'' (2018–2023), for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 2022, he was featured on ''Time'' list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

A graduate of Yale University, he continued his acting studies at both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. His first off-Broadway performance was as a distraught soldier in the John Patrick Shanley play '' Defiance'' in 2006, with his Broadway debut being in the role of Richard Rich in the 2008 revival of the Robert Bolt play '' A Man for All Seasons''. In 2024, he returned to Broadway in the revival of the Henrik Ibsen play ''An Enemy of the People'' earning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

In film, Strong has acted in several historical films portraying real life figures such as John George Nicolay in ''Lincoln'' (2012), Lee Harvey Oswald in '' Parkland'' (2013), James Reeb in ''Selma'' (2014), Jerry Rubin in ''The Trial of the Chicago 7'' (2020) and Roy Cohn in ''The Apprentice'' (2024). He has also played other supporting parts in films such as ''Zero Dark Thirty'' (2012), ''The Big Short'' (2015), ''Molly's Game'' (2017), and ''Armageddon Time'' (2022).

Early life and education

Strong was born on Christmas Day 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts to Maureen and David Strong. His father's family is Jewish, and his grandfather worked as a plumber in Queens. His mother worked as a hospice nurse, and his father worked in juvenile jails. He lived in a "rough neighborhood" in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston, a place he often regarded as "somewhere I just wanted to get out of". His family was working class. Since his parents could not afford to go on vacations outside the Boston area, they put a canoe on cinder blocks in the family's backyard; Strong and his brothers would often sit in it and pretend to take trips. His parents had a tumultuous relationship throughout his childhood and eventually divorced.

When Strong was 10, his parents moved the family to the suburb of Sudbury, for better schools. Strong recalled Sudbury as "a kind of country-club town where we didn't belong to the country club". His interest in acting began there, as he became involved with a children's theater group and performing in musicals. Among his costars in the children's theater group was Chris Evans' older sister; Evans remembers being impressed by Strong's performances. Later, Evans and Strong acted with each other in a high school production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''.

Strong particularly idolized actors Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman—all famous for the lengths they went to preparing for roles—putting posters of their films on his bedroom wall and avidly following news of their careers as well as reading every interview they gave. When the 1996 film version of Arthur Miller's ''The Crucible'' was filmed near Boston, starring Day-Lewis, Strong got a job on the film's greenery crew—at one point holding up a branch outside a window during the filming of a scene. Strong worked on the sound crew for '' Amistad'', holding a boom mike over Anthony Hopkins as he made a speech, and he helped to edit Pacino's directorial debut ''Looking for Richard''.

After high school, Strong applied to colleges with a letter of recommendation from DreamWorks, which had made ''Amistad''. He was accepted at Yale University and granted a scholarship, intending to study drama. On his first day in class, he found the professor's discussions of Konstantin Stanislavski and accompanying blackboard illustrations so alienating that he decided immediately to change his major to English.

Strong continued to act and starred in a number of plays at Yale, all of them produced through the student-run Yale Dramatic Association, known as Dramat. The plays were all ones that Pacino had performed, such as '' American Buffalo'', ''The Indian Wants the Bronx'', and ''Hughie''. Strong arranged an offstage visit from Pacino, which did not go down well with other members of Dramat, because it was budgeted so extravagantly that it nearly bankrupted their organization. Despite claiming not to remember the cost overruns, Strong admitted to being a "rogue agent" in planning the event. During one summer at Yale, Strong received an internship with Hoffman's production company. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.

Career

2001–2008: Early years on stage

After Yale, Strong moved to New York in 2001. He lived in a small apartment in SoHo, above a restaurant where he waited tables. Strong described it as a state of "gilded squalor" in the words of Francis Bacon, with little but his bed, books, and a closet with expensive clothing. When not working he persuaded local FedEx offices to give him some free envelopes in which he put headshots and recordings of himself performing monologues to distribute to talent agencies. For almost a year, he got no calls for auditions. In an attempt to get representation, Strong contacted his former high school classmate Chris Evans, who had become successful after ''Not Another Teen Movie''. Evans set up a meeting between Strong and his agent at Creative Artists Agency, who chose not to sign Strong.

The following summer, Strong got a spot in the summer company at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in western Massachusetts. Strong continued to work offstage in theater and film. In 2003, his position as an assistant at an independent film production company led to his service as Day-Lewis's personal assistant on ''The Ballad of Jack and Rose'', released two years later. On set, he was so devoted to attending to Day-Lewis, who lived apart from his family during the shoot, that crew members nicknamed him Cletus after the character from ''The Simpsons'', for his focus on menial tasks. Strong has stated that at the end of the shoot, Day-Lewis wrote him a note "that contains many of what have become my most deeply held precepts and beliefs about this work". He has not publicized the contents of the note out of respect for Day-Lewis.

Strong returned to Williamstown in 2004 when he was cast with Jessica Chastain, Chris Messina, and Michelle Williams in ''The Cherry Orchard''. He became friends with all three actors, and for intermittent periods in the late 2000s, he lived in the basement of Williams' townhouse in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boerum Hill when he could not afford his own apartment.

During the mid-2000s, he worked as a typist for playwright Wendy Wasserstein. At night, he performed the role of an alcoholic Irishman in a one-man Conor McPherson play in a small bar in Midtown Manhattan. After Wasserstein discovered how much time Strong was spending observing her building's Irish doorman for the part, she considered writing a play based on Strong and the doorman but was unable to proceed with it before her death in 2006. Frank Rich, one of Wasserstein's close friends, said Strong was "her assistant, slash—to some extent—caregiver."

By that time, Strong had begun getting off-Broadway roles. He took part in Marine weapons training at Camp Lejeune to prepare for his role as a marine in the John Patrick Shanley play '' Defiance'' (2005). David Rooney described Strong's character as a "a distraught, uneducated soldier from the small-town South". Rooney described his performance as "intense" noting, "while hedramaturgical shortcomings hamper the actors...Strong has emotional impact in his single scene." Strong immersed himself in early 17th-century Dutch philosophy to play a young Baruch Spinoza in David Ives's ''New Jerusalem'' in 2008. Also in 2008, Strong was asked to understudy with six hours' notice for an actor who had a family emergency; by the next night, he had memorized all the character's lines. He received favorable notice for this performance, and he was able to sign with an agent.

2009–2023: Film roles and ''Succession''

Later in 2008, he made his Broadway debut in '' A Man for All Seasons'' at the American Airlines Theatre. Strong portrayed Sir Richard Rich opposite Frank Langella as Sir Thomas More. Ben Brantley of ''The New York Times'' described Strong as "talented" actor portraying the "ambitious moral-chameleon". He was chosen as the 2008/2009 Leonore Annenberg Fellow by Lincoln Center Theater and nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor twice within a three-year period. Strong's '' Defiance'' role helped secure his first film role in '' Humboldt County''. He played Abraham Lincoln's secretary John George Nicolay acting opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Steven Spielberg's historical drama ''Lincoln'' (2012).

He went on to play CIA analyst in Kathryn Bigelow's historical drama ''Zero Dark Thirty'' (2012), Lee Harvey Oswald in political drama '' Parkland'' (2013), James Reeb in Ava DuVernay's civil rights drama ''Selma'' (2014), a real estate developer in Aaron Sorkin's drama ''Molly's Game'' (2017). Strong was set to play a leading role in a major film for the first time in Kathryn Bigelow's period crime drama ''Detroit'' (2017) as a soldier and practiced his marksmanship in preparation, but was fired from the film after the first day of shooting because, according to Bigelow, "the character wasn't working in the story". Strong later persuaded her to give him another part in the film. He appeared in Guy Ritchie's action comedy '' The Gentlemen'' (2019), a film that he did not want to discuss on the record with ''The New Yorker''. In 2020 he reunited with Sorkin playing a central role as anti-war activist Jerry Rubin part of the Chicago Seven in the Aaron Sorkin directed Netflix drama ''The Trial of the Chicago 7'' (2020). David Rooney of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' wrote "Strong gives Jerry a touching puppy-dog innocence and vulnerability". For his performance he was nominated Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The film received critical acclaim as well as nominations for 6 Academy Awards.

Strong's role in the 2015 Adam McKay film ''The Big Short'' led McKay to offer him a part in the TV series '' Succession''. He initially was interested in playing Roman Roy, the family's wisecracking youngest son, but after the part was given to Kieran Culkin, Strong auditioned for the part of the middle son Kendall Roy. The role was a career breakthrough for him gaining prominence. Strong's performance in the role has received universal acclaim from critics, and his performance won him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2020. He also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series. ''TVLine'' named Strong "Performer of the Year" in 2021 for his work on ''Succession'', writing, "For three seasons now, Strong has been carefully crafting a portrait of a little boy lost, a man who knows how to play the corporate hero but doesn't know how to be OK with himself.... ''Succession'' remains one of the best shows on television in large part because Strong's central performance is so complex and so fascinating."

In November 2021, it was reported that Strong was to star in and produce ''The Best of Us'', a TV series about the 9/11 first responders. He acted in the James Gray coming-of-age drama ''Armageddon Time'' (2022) alongside Anne Hathaway and Anthony Hopkins. The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Justin Chang of ''NPR'' wrote, "Strong is terrific — and very un- Kendall Roy-like — as Paul's father, a plumber with a big heart and a fierce temper".

2024–present: Return to Broadway

In May 2023, it was announced that Strong would return to Broadway in the Amy Herzog adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play ''An Enemy of the People'' directed by Sam Gold. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, for his role as Dr. Thomas Stockmann. He portrayed Roy Cohn, a ruthless lawyer and mentor to Donald Trump, played by Sebastian Stan, in the biographical drama ''The Apprentice'' which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Owen Gleiberman of ''Variety'' described his performance as "magnetic". David Rooney of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' noted, "It’s to Strong’s credit that, while playing an odious, utterly irredeemable human being, he finds notes of pathos in Cohn’s decline." In May 2024, it was reported that Strong was in talks to play Jon Landau, manager for Bruce Springsteen, in the upcoming film, '' Deliver Me from Nowhere'' which will be based on the book of the same name about the making of Springsteen's 1982 album, ''Nebraska''.

Acting philosophy and technique

Like his idols Daniel Day-Lewis and Dustin Hoffman, Strong prepares intensely for his roles, often to replicate some aspect of the character whether or not it is prominent in his portrayal. He has stated, "I think you have to go through whatever the ordeal is that the character has to go through". For '' The Judge'', where he played the main character's developmentally disabled younger brother, he spent time with an autistic man as Hoffman had for ''Rain Man'', and he requested personalized props for the character not mentioned in the script. "All I know is, he crosses the Rubicon", said Robert Downey Jr., his costar in ''The Judge''. For ''The Big Short'', Strong followed his real life counterpart Vincent Daniel, and observed his mannerisms, which included constantly chewing gum, something Strong did in all of his scenes. In preparation for his ''Succession'' audition for Kendall Roy, he read Michael Wolff's biography of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family, which mentions that Murdoch's son James is known for lacing his shoes very tightly; Strong thus did the same for the audition, believing that it expressed the character's "inner tensile strength".

Strong's devotion to his craft occasionally has led to personal injury. In the first season of ''Succession'', Kendall had to run a considerable distance to be present at an important corporate board meeting after his limousine gets stuck in traffic. Because Strong wanted to be genuinely sweaty and breathless in every take, he ran as fast and far as he could in Tom Ford dress shoes and fractured his foot. Two seasons later, he jumped off a platform, wearing Gucci shoes while filming the episode "Too Much Birthday", impacting his tibia and femur and requiring a leg brace. The take ultimately was not used.

Strong seldom rehearses, saying he wants "every scene to feel like I'm encountering a bear in the woods", an approach he admits may not be popular with his costars. On ''The Trial of the Chicago 7'', Strong asked to be sprayed with tear gas. Director Aaron Sorkin stated "I don't like saying no to Jeremy... But there were 200 people in that scene and another seventy on the crew, so I declined to spray them with poison gas".

On ''Succession'', Strong intentionally deepened his alienation from the rest of the cast by timing his visits to the makeup trailer so that he is the only one there at the time. His costar Kieran Culkin has described Strong as being in "a bubble" before shoots: "It's hard for me to actually describe his process because I don't really see it". Culkin has stated that Strong's methods are not intrusive to his own process. Matthew Macfadyen has described Strong's techniques as "not the main event... That's not to say that's wrong. That's just not useful". Brian Cox, who portrays Strong's character's father on the show, has expressed his concerns that Strong's intense approach to acting may lead to early burnout. However, he added that Strong's performance "is always extraordinary and excellent". During the shooting of ''The Big Short'', Strong similarly reduced the interactions with his cast mates, although he admitted to having a good time, he also found it to be "distracting" and "depleting," recalling, "These guys can all be in a comedy, but I need to feel like I’m in a global warming catastrophe documentary."

Such techniques are often referred to as method acting, but Strong prefers the term "identity diffusion" because he does not draw on his own life experience. "If I have any method at all, it is simply this: to clear away anything—anything—that is not the character and the circumstances of the scene... And usually that means clearing away almost everything around and inside you, so that you can be a more complete vessel for the work at hand". He quoted jazz pianist Keith Jarrett to explain his approach to acting: "I connect every music-making experience I have, including every day here in the studio, with a great power, and if I do not surrender to it nothing happens".

Strong admits the intensity he brings to his work might cause him problems, and he has stated "I don't know if I even believe in balance... I believe in extremity". On the contrary, his wife, a psychiatrist, has stated that "He does a really good job of maintaining what he's doing but also creating a space for the family and a normal life".

Strong tends to pick films based on actual events, such as ''Selma'', ''Detroit'', and ''The Trial of the Chicago 7''. He has mentioned his preference for such films, saying he "never wanted anything more than to be part of telling stories that feel meaningful, films about social justice in particular."

Along with Day-Lewis, Hoffman, and Pacino, Strong has mentioned Isabelle Huppert, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Olivier, Robert Duvall, Ian Holm, and Kenneth Branagh as his influences.

Personal life

In 2016, Strong married Emma Wall, a Danish psychiatrist; they had met four years earlier at a party in New York during Hurricane Sandy. They have three daughters, born in April 2018, November 2019, and September 2021. They reside in New York and have homes in Copenhagen and Tisvilde

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