Jeremy Strong (born December 25, 1978) is an American actor best known for his role as Kendall Roy in the HBO television series Succession and his work as a supporting actor in various films by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow, Ava DuVernay, and Aaron Sorkin.
Selected Filmography:
- Humboldt County (2008)
- The Happening (2008)
- The Messenger (2009)
- The Good Wife (2011-2013)
- See Girl Run (2012)
- Robot and Frank (2012)
- Lincoln (2012)
- Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
- Parkland (2013)
- Mob City (2013)
- Time Out of Mind (2014)
- The Judge (2014)
- Selma (2014)
- Black Mass (2015)
- The Big Short (2015)
- Masters of Sex (2016)
- Detroit (2017)
- Molly's Game (2017)
- Succession (2018-2023)note
- Serenity (2019)
- The Gentlemen (2019)
- The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)
- Armageddon Time (2022)
Tropes associated with Strong and his roles:
- Author Appeal: A lot of the films he's starred in have social justice themes in them. He's mentioned this was intentional as those are the stories that attracts him the most.
- Blank Stare: Would give his idol Al Pacino a run for his money regarding this.
- Dull Surprise: His acting tends to be more subtle than expressive. It makes some of his performances all the more powerful, though.
- Method Acting: He denies being one but he's has become infamous for this, bringing to every one of his roles an intensity and commitment that would make Daniel Day-Lewis proud (and, given that Strong worked with Day-Lewis as a crew member on The Crucible, probably has).
- This has frequently led to him getting injured or nearly injured on set: during a scene in season one of Succession where Kendall has to run through the streets of New York to get to an important board meeting on time, Strong insisted on running as far and fast as he could in dress shoes, leading to him fracturing his foot, and was doused in actual buckets of ice water to simulate Kendall coming out of an icy-cold lake in the season one finale.
- In the Series Finale, Strong also insisted in drinking a revolting concoction made from random elements from a fridge (which included tabasco sauce, chilli powder, raw eggs and Sarah Snook's spit) for real and during the shooting of the final scene where Kendall looks onto the Husdon River clearly contemplating suicide while Logan's former bodyguard Colin (Scott Nicholson) watches from afar, Strong actually tried to jump in the river forcing Nicholson to stop him after the scene cut.
- While filming a protest scene in The Trial of the Chicago 7, he asked to be sprayed with actual tear gas, only for Aaron Sorkin to refuse because he didn't want to harm anyone, least of all the dozens of extras that Strong would be surrounded with in that scene.
- Rags to Riches: His career went from struggling to get roles that weren't from Off-Broadway, to the point he became homeless for 3 years, to becoming a character actor in ensemble films, to leading one of the most critically acclaimed shows ever made, winning several awards for his performance, most notably the Emmy.
- Star-Making Role: While Strong had been in a few projects of note beforehand, Succession greatly boosted his profile, as he not only won an Emmy for his work, but would go on to be cast in several big projects after it debuted.
- Typecasting: He tries to avoid it but Succession's Kendall cemented his type as playing sadboys (abused or not, his first play was playing a guy who didn’t know if he’d been sexually abused in childhood) who cry a lot, that already being most of his movies.
