So much for his methods.
“Succession” star Jeremy Strong, 45, who infamously got criticized by his own onscreen dad for his method acting, is opening up about how playing Kendall Roy left a brutal impact.
In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Strong said that after “Succession,” he has “rediscovered play,” because while he was doing the Emmy-winning role, “I sometimes lost touch with joy.”
“[It] f–ked me up,” the Tony-winning actor added. “I went on a silent meditation retreat last week. I really needed it.”
Warner Bros. Discovery
“Succession” aired on HBO for four seasons from 2018 to 2023. It followed the Roy family, who owned a global media and entertainment conglomerate, including patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox), and his dysfunctional adult children, Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), daughter Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Shiv’s husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). It won a slew of Golden Globes and Emmys, including Golden Globes for Culkin, Cox, Strong, Snook and Macfadyen and Emmys for Strong, Macfadyen, Culkin, and Snook.
“Listen,” Strong told the Times. “That show was an incalculable gift. The material a banquet. So I miss that. But Kendall’s struggle was difficult to carry for seven years. And there’s just so much more I want to do.”
When asked about whether he’d be game for a spinoff show about Kendall, Strong, who shares three kids with his psychiatrist wife, Emma Wall, said, “It’s not something I have any wish to do any longer. I’m aware it is one of the main chapters of my life, but I don’t miss it.”
Strong currently plays Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice” Donald Trump biopic, starring Sebastian Stan in the lead role.
Previously, Strong made headlines in 2021 when the New Yorker revealed the full-immersion acting methods that he used to play Kendall.
In that same interview, Cox told the outlet about his onscreen son, “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.”
“The result that Jeremy gets is always pretty tremendous,” Cox, 78, continued. “I just worry about what he does to himself. I worry about the crises he puts himself through in order to prepare.”
Cox also later said in a Feb. 2023 interview with Town & Country, “He’s a very good actor. And the rest of the ensemble is all okay with this. But knowing a character and what the character does is only part of the skill set. It’s f–king annoying. Don’t get me going on it.”
In a March 2023 interview with GQ, Strong said he wasn’t angry at his TV dad for speaking out.
“Everyone’s entitled to have their feelings. I also think Brian Cox, for example, he’s earned the right to say whatever the f—k he wants,” Strong said. “There was no need to address that or do damage control.”
He added, “I feel a lot of love for my siblings and my father on the show. And it is like a family in the sense that, and I’m sure they would say this, too, you don’t always like the people that you love. I do always respect them.”