Jeremy Strong never fails to captivate audiences with his piercingly precise performances on screen and stage alike.
Famed for going “method” in his roles, the actor has built a career on intense dedication.
In “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” he portrayed Jerry Rubin, the ultimate radical hippy.
In “Armageddon Time,” he embodied Irving Graff, a Jewish father in 1960s America.
But it was his portrayal of Kendall Roy in “Succession' that catapulted Strong to A-lister status.
With"Succession"complete after four acclaimed seasons, Strong is looking to the next big thing.
“There is a feeling of ‘Now what?’
that I don’t have the answer to,” he admitted toGQin 2023.
Strong grew up in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston, Massachusetts.
“Often, it was somewhere I just wanted to get out of.”
Another influence was his grandfather, who was Jewish and lived in Queens.
The actor toldVulture, “I used to live in his basement growing up in the summers.
I was very close to him.”
As the actor toldCBS, his father saved his life, risking his own.
When Strong was 8 years old, he was nearly struck by a vehicle.
“So, he picked me up and he threw me out of the way.
And he got hit by the car, broke all the bones in both of his legs.
Saved my life.”
“There’s not some hidden trauma in my life or my background.”
As he put it when speaking toW Magazine, “It was preconscious.
All I ever wanted to do was act.”
Although he was introverted, the stage became a place where he could express himself.
I think I played the hell out of a lisp.
We’re all so playful when we’re young.
We’re present; we’re full of wonder.”
By the fifth grade, Strong was a member of Act/Tunes, a children’s theater company.
Even then, he made an impression.
He landed a scholarship at Yale but once at the university, Strong felt like an outsider.
“I don’t come from a very highly cultured, highly educated …
In fact, he even thinks that Yale gave him the serious persona he is now known for.
Although he initially wanted to study theatrical theory, he eventually decided to major in English.
“Something in me just shut down,” Strong said of the theater class toThe New Yorker.
Instead, he continued acting on the side, joining Yale Dramat, a student group.
But even there, he didn’t fit in.
Unlike the other amateur student actors, Strong was single-mindedly focused on his future acting career.
“I’d never met anyone else at Yale with that careerist drive.”
In the meantime, he waited tables and worked at a hotel.
“The first year in New York was really hard,” he toldThe New Yorker.
“I don’t think I had any auditions.
It was this feeling of being cut off from your oxygen supply.”
Eventually, he moved to Los Angeles, where it was even tougher.
“I was broke.
I considered it,” he toldThe Times.
“But that’s my story of LA.
It was just never going to happen for me here.
It didn’t feel like what I had to offer was valued.”
As time went on, his friends began to progress in their careers.
Despite the pressure from family and friends to find a plan B, he never did.
He was thrilled and rearranged his wedding plans to get to star in the movie.
While the rest of the wedding party celebrated, he worked.
“It was a devastating experience.”
According to Bigelow, she felt the character simply didn’t work in the story.
Even though she found him a small part in the film, Strong was crushed.
He went straight from set to get married in Denmark.
“That’s something that Kendall, in a way, is experiencing.”
His children also changed his perspective on his life and his work.
“And now, of course, I would do anything for them,” he told the outlet.
Who else could embody his intense obsession with his father’s company or his facade of male bravado?
Apparently, Strong had been given the script by executive producer Adam McKay.
Strong immediately felt a connection to Roman.
“I thought, ‘Oh, wow, Roman is such a cool part.
He’s, like, this bon-vivant prick.
I could do something that I hadn’t done before,'” Strong recalled toThe New Yorker.
However,Kieran Culkinwas cast in the role.
Nevertheless, Strong didn’t give up.
He convinced the team to let him audition to play Kendall instead.
I was missing the patois of bro-speak.”
The rest, of course, is history.
His character quickly became a sort of internet darling, with fans obsessing over his every move.
Suddenly, acting offers started pouring in.
Finally, everything seemed to be falling into place.
And because he had never once wavered, he was ready.
As he put it toThe Times, “I’ve spent my life preparing for this moment.”
The interview quickly went viral, with fans weighing in on social media.
The author of the profile, Michael Schulman,tweetedthe article and it racked up over 14,000 likes.
“It was a wild ride.
Don’t believe everything you read folks.”
Even Strong responded to the controversy.
“I hadn’t felt judged like that in a very long time,” he said.
Denmark seems to offer Strong some respite from his work.
“I love Denmark.
I find it a very sane and gentle place,” he toldThe Guardian.
“I have a house near the ocean,” he said.
“The script landed on me like a tidal wave,” he recalled toW Magazine.
During the pandemic, Strong began to reconsider the types of roles he was drawn to.
After all, he had always treated his character as a real, living, breathing person.
After the finale aired, this turned out to be true.
Strong spoke toVanity Fairabout moving on from the character.
“This, to me, was a life and death thing.
And I took it as seriously as I take my own life.”
His whole world, he said, revolved around Kendall.
“But then when it’s over, it’s, it’s like vapor,” he explained.
