Sometime between Daniel Day-Lewis’ Oscar-winning turn as Daniel Plainview and Jared Leto sending his Suicide Squad co-stars condoms and dead rats, the general public lost their stomach for so-called method acting, a term so divorced from its original meaning that it basically became shorthand for “asshole on set.”
No one told Succession’s Jeremy Strong, though. No one is interested in stopping him either. According to a fascinating New Yorker profile on the 42-year-old actor, his inability to discern himself from his character is part of the show’s secret sauce.
For those who aren’t watching HBO’s hottest and most acclaimed show, Jeremy Strong plays Kendall Roy, the once-supposed-golden child of media tycoon and fascistic corporate chess master Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Succession is a comedy despite the pervasive cruelty and complete disregard for humanity. In some ways, it plays like other cringe comedies on the premium network, like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Vice Principals, using the free rein of HBO to explore the depths of depravity cringe will allow. But Succession hits the humiliation button so hard that it’s sometimes hard to tell where to laugh (particularly last night’s episode, in which one text message makes Larry David’s infractions appear almost saintly).
Unlike his coworkers, Strong doesn’t see Succession as a comedy, and it’s helped bring his performance and the show to new heights. “That’s exactly why we cast Jeremy in that role,” Succession executive producer Adam McKay said. “Because he’s not playing it like a comedy. He’s playing it like he’s Hamlet.” Others aren’t so sure, though. Some cast members wonder if Strong even knows he’s on a comedy. Kiernan Culkin told New Yorker writer Michael Schulman, “After the first season, he said something to me like, ‘I’m worried that people might think that the show is a comedy.’ And I said, ‘I think the show is a comedy.’ He thought I was kidding.”
Schulman paints a stark portrait of an actor born in the wrong time, one who grew up idolizing the thespians of 1970s New Hollywood and tried following in their footsteps long after that “always on, Method acting” fell out of vogue. People prefer colleagues that are easier to work with these days—not that Strong cares. “I don’t particularly think ease or even accord are virtues in creative work, and sometimes there must even be room for necessary roughness, within the boundaries dictated by the work,” Strong said.
Strong’s process has led him down some exciting and unexpected paths to be closer to the actors he respects. He was Daniel Day-Lewis’ assistant and lived in Michelle Williams’ guest house before Succession. He also “nearly bankrupted a hundred-year-old college-theatre company” to have “one wonderful night of getting to hang out with Al Pacino.”
Schulman even spoke to some Avengers who knew him. “I was probably nine, ten, going to my sister’s shows, and even then thinking, Damn, this kid is great!” said Chris Evans, who later helped Strong in his quest for representation. Unfortunately, a production designer on Robert Downey, Jr.’s The Judge, in which Strong plays the actor’s mentally disabled brother, wasn’t so impressed. They described Strong as “an annoying gnat.”
The profile is packed with candid interviews with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and best actors, praising and dissecting Strong in various ways. But the show’s patriarch, Brian Cox, has the sternest message. “The result that Jeremy gets is always pretty tremendous,” Cox told The New Yorker. “I just worry about what he does to himself. I worry about the crises he puts himself through in order to prepare.”
“Actors are funny creatures. I’ve worked with intense actors before. It’s a particularly American disease, I think, this inability to separate yourself off while you’re doing the job.”