Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today, we're really
getting into it, focusing on Jeremy Strong, the
actor most people know now as Kendall Roy from
Succession. Yeah, but we're trying to go past
just the headlines, you know, the ones about
how intense he is. We've got sources detailing
his life, his actual career path, and this, well,
this philosophy he has about acting. It's pretty
demanding stuff. Right, and that's our mission
here. To unpack what this extremity, as it's
called, really means in his work. And you got
to ask, how does one person use such an intense
approach to play characters that are so wildly
different? Exactly. You've got Roy Cohn, this
ruthless political fixer. Right. And then Dr.
Stockman on Broadway, who's all principle and
conscious. Totally different. And then Kendall
Roy, who's just this bundle of ambition and fragility.
How does one method produce all that? And importantly,
what do the sources say about like. The cost
of doing it that way. Yeah, what's the price?
It's definitely intense. But, you know, looking
back at his early life, it doesn't seem like
something he just picked up recently. It feels
more ingrained. Yeah. Maybe coming from some
early feelings of tension wanting to escape.
Let's start right there then. Born Christmas
Day 1978 in Boston. describes his family as working
class. His mom was a nurse. His dad worked in
juvenile jails. He mentioned growing up in Jamaica
Plain, calling it a rough neighborhood, somewhere
he really felt he needed to, quote, get out of.
But then the setting changes, right? And this
is where you see that tension starting to build.
The family moves to Sudbury, a suburb. Oh, okay.
And he calls it a... Country club town where
we didn't belong. That feeling, being the outsider
looking in, it seems really significant. It kind
of makes sense, though. If you feel like you
don't belong anywhere specific, maybe the only
place you can truly belong is inside a character
you built from scratch. It's almost like an early
version of this identity diffusion idea we'll
get to. There's this one detail. It really paints
a picture. They couldn't afford real trips, apparently,
so his parents put a canoe on cinder blocks in
the backyard. Oh, wow. Yeah, and he and his brothers
would just sit in it, pretending to go places.
That image, wanting to get out. And that desire,
that need to go elsewhere, it seems like it channeled
directly into idolizing actors known for total
immersion. You know, the big ones. Daniel Day
-Lewis, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman. He wasn't
just a fan, though. It sounds like he studied
their careers almost like... Like road maps.
Exactly. So when he gets this scholarship to
Yale, and it was a DreamWorks scholarship, which
he got after working sound on Amistad, you'd
think, okay, drama major, right? Makes sense.
But no. He immediately switched to English. The
reason, he said the professor's way of talking
about Stanislavski, all academic and formal,
didn't connect to them. It felt alienating. So
he rejected the theory class, but not the actual
doing of it. Precisely. He just kept acting in
student plays run by the Yale drama. And get
this, the roles he picked, all Pacino roles.
He was basically creating his own very specific
practical curriculum. And the dedication was,
well, intense even then. He somehow arranged
for Al Pacino himself to visit Yale. No way.
Yeah, but he budgeted it so laddishly that it
apparently nearly bankrupted the student drama
group. Wait, seriously, he bankrupted the drama.
Just to hang out with Pacino for an evening.
Seems like it. OK, that's commitment. And maybe,
you know, an early sign of someone who puts the
artistic vision way above practical stuff. The
stakes were clearly super high for him even back
then. And that kind of sets the tone for what
happened after Yale. He moved to New York in
2001, spent a year staying at headshots nobody
asked for, living in what he called gilded squalor.
Basically, a tiny place above a restaurant where
he also waited tables. Just relentless. He even
tried leveraging an old connection, Chris Evans,
who he knew from high school and who was starting
to get famous. Oh, right. Captain America. Yeah.
Tried to get Evans' agent to take him on. And
the agent just passed. Said no. So the front
door was pretty firmly shut. So what does he
do? He goes around to the back, tries to learn
directly from the people he admires most. He
made it his mission to just get near them. Which
leads to the Daniel Day -Lewis connection. Yeah.
In 2003, he ends up working as Day -Lewis' personal
assistant on the set of The Ballad of Jack and
Rose. And it wasn't a glamorous gig, apparently.
Not at all. He was reportedly so focused on just
doing whatever DDL needed, even really menial
tasks, that the crew started calling him Cletus.
Like from The Simpsons? Yeah, that Cletus. But,
you know, the dedication paid off in a way. At
the end of the shoot... Day -Lewis gave him this
private note. Supposedly, it contained his deepest,
quote, precepts and beliefs about this work.
Wow. And Strong still has it, keeps it totally
secret. Out of respect, he says. That really
highlights how seriously he takes this, almost
like it's a sacred calling, not just a job. It's
about initiation. And you see that same obsessive
focus later when he worked for the playwright
Wendy Wasserstein, just as a typist. Oh, yeah.
That story's great. Wasserstein almost wrote
a play about him. Because of how he prepared
for a tiny role. He was playing an Irish doorman
off Broadway. Okay. And he apparently spent ages
just watching the real doorman at the building
way more time than you think the part needed.
The prep always seems bigger than the role itself.
And that became his signature, right? That deep
dive preparation for his early stage work. Like
for Defiance in 2005, he actually went through
marine weapons training at Camp Lejeune. For
a play. For a play. Then a couple of years later,
for New Jerusalem, playing Spinoza, he immersed
himself in 17th century Dutch philosophy. He
was building this method, this intensity, long
before Hollywood really noticed. And eventually
that groundwork led to getting noticed. Small
parts, but in big films. He played Lincoln's
secretary, John Nicolay, opposite Day -Lewis
and Lincoln. Working with a mentor again. Yeah.
And a CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty. Good,
solid roles. But the real game changer was meeting
Adam McKay, right? First for the big short. Exactly.
And that led straight to the offer for Succession.
Interestingly, he first had his eye on playing
Roman Roy. Really? Huh. Yeah. But he auditioned
for Kendall, got the part, and, well, the rest
is history. Emmy, Golden Globe, huge acclaim.
And his prep for that audition, it perfectly
sums up his whole approach, doesn't it? Totally.
Reading a Rupert Murdoch biography. He finds
this detail about Murdoch's son, James, apparently
lacing his shoes really tightly. Okay. So Strong
does the exact same thing for his Kendall audition.
Just laced his own shoes super tight. He felt
it conveyed Kendall's... inner tensile strength.
It's finding that small physical thing to unlock
something huge and internal. It's kind of brilliant,
actually. And that focus, maybe that's what lets
him have the range we're seeing now. I think
so. I mean, look at just the last couple of years.
2024, he wins the Tony for Best Actor in An Enemy
of the People, playing Dr. Stockman, you know,
the moral center, the guy trying to do the right
thing against the system. The classic hero, basically.
Right. And then, like, a complete 180. He plays
Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. Ruthless, ambitious
mentor to Trump. Talk about range. And he got
nominated for everything, for that Oscar, BAFTA,
SAG, Golden Globe. Critics really pointed out
how he found, quote, notes of pathos in Cohen's
decline. So. Complexity even in the villains.
And she's not stopping. He's got big roles lined
up playing John Landau, Springsteen's producer,
in that biopic. Deliver Me From Nowhere. Right.
And Mark Zuckerberg in the Social Network sequel,
The Social Reckoning. The range is just undeniable.
But the constant seems to be that intense personal
commitment he brings. Which leads us to the philosophy
itself. He's very specific about not calling
it method acting. He uses the term identity diffusion.
Yeah, and that distinction seems really important
to him. He pushes back against the traditional
idea of method acting, which often involves using
your own life, your own memories or traumas.
Right, dredging up the past. Strong says he specifically
does not do that. He doesn't pull from his own
experience. Okay, so diffusion. What does that
actually mean in practice then? If it's not Stanislavski,
not traditional method, how is it different from
just, you know, really intense preparation? The
key seems to be the source of the character.
He says his goal is, and this is a direct quote,
to clear away anything, anything that is not
the character and the circumstances of the scene.
He wants to become a complete vessel for the
work at hand. So it's less about putting himself
into the role and more about erasing himself
so the role can fill the space. It's about surrender,
essentially. He actually used a quote from Keith
Jarrett, the jazz pianist, to explain it. Something
about connecting to a great power and making
music. Yeah, and if I do not surrender to it,
nothing happens. It makes the performance sound
almost involuntary, like something that happens
to him requiring sacrifice. And that sacrifice,
that surrender, often seems to involve actual
physical pain. He talks about the ordeal. Right.
He believes, quote, you have to go through whatever
the ordeal is that the character has to go through.
And we have concrete examples where this caused
real injuries. Like the succession episode where
Kendall runs to the board meeting. Whose side
are you on? Exactly. Limo gets stuck. Kendall
has to run. Strong insisted on actually running
full tilt in fancy Tom Ford dress shoes just
so he'd be genuinely sweating and out of breath
on camera. And he broke his foot doing it. Fractured
his foot. And then a couple seasons later, for
the Too Much Birthday episode, he jumped off
a five -foot platform in Gucci shoes. Just jumped.
Apparently trying to get a specific physical
reaction, he ended up injuring his tibia and
femur, needed a leg braid. And the take wasn't
even used. Nope, that take didn't even make the
final cut. Wow. That almost sounds counterproductive.
Is that normal? Do other actors feel that level
of physical risk is necessary? Or is this uniquely
a strong thing? Well, that definitely gets into
the friction his approach can cause on set. People
respect the results for sure. But the process
itself, it generates some different perspectives
from coworkers. Yeah, let's talk about that because
that's the real tension here, isn't it? The result
might be amazing, but what's it like actually
working with that level of commitment day to
day? Kieran Culkin, Roman Roy, he describes Strong
as being in a bubble a lot of the time before
scenes. Just totally zoned in. Matthew McFadian,
who played Tom. was maybe a bit more direct.
He called the techniques not the main event and
said that's just not useful, basically implying
it was maybe distracting or just not necessary
for his process. And Brian Cox, Logan Roy himself.
Cox expressed what sounds like genuine concern.
He worried that the intensity could lead to strong
burning out early. Like protective almost. Yeah.
But importantly, Cox always added that the performance
itself is always extraordinary and excellent.
So it's like... Acknowledging the brilliance,
but worrying about the method. It's respect mixed
with concern for the human cost. Seems that way.
But what also seems consistent is Strong's own
stated purpose behind it all. He tends to pick
projects based on real events, stories about
social justice. He said he never wanted anything
more than to be part of telling stories that
feel meaningful. So the extremity isn't just
for show or for himself. It's maybe driven by
a feeling that the subject matter demands that
level of sacrifice. That seems to be the idea
he puts forward, that the weight of the story
requires total commitment. So, OK, we've traced
this arc. Incredible success, undeniably powerful
performances, all fueled by this philosophy of
extremity, a word he uses because he actually
said he doesn't even believe in. Right. He rejects
balance in the work. And yet you have to contrast
that with his personal life. He's married to
Emma Wall, a Danish psychiatrist he met back
in 2012. They have three daughters. And they
split their time between New York and Copenhagen,
right? Yeah. And his wife actually provides a
really interesting counterpoint. She's quoted
saying he does a really good job of maintaining
what he's doing, but also creating a space for
the family in a normal life. So she sees balance,
even if his work philosophy seems to reject it.
That's the puzzle, isn't it? His whole artistic
approach, this identity diffusion, seems to demand
erasing the self to become this vessel. But his
family life requires him to be present, to be
himself. His wife sees him managing both. Which
leaves us with a pretty provocative thought,
really. If he truly commits to the ordeal, if
he's constantly diffusing his own identity to
become these incredibly complex, often dark characters
like Kendall or Roy Cohn. What happens to the
vessel itself when the role is over? How much
of the self remains when you've spent so long
clearing it away? It makes you think about that
term identity diffusion versus method acting,
maybe in a new way when you watch him. The dedication
is obvious. The sacrifice seems real. But what
that sacrifice ultimately entails? Well, maybe
that story is still unfolding.