Jeremy Strong Seemingly Claps Back at Succession Costars Brian Cox and Kieran Culkin After Their Digs About His Acting

Succession stars Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong still have different approaches to acting – and continue to express those differences.

In a Jan. 7 interview with Deadline, Strong shed some light on his method acting process and how he was able to prepare for his role as Roy Cohn in the new film about President-elect Donald Trump, Trainee.

The 46-year-old actor — who played Kendall Roy, the son of Waystar Royce founder Logan Roy (Cox) on Succession — revealed that his process for portraying real people consisted of “absorbing and learning everything and studying endlessly,” he said. “When I look at the kind of transformational work based on historical figures that I feel inspired by, from Ben Kingsley in Gandhior Phil Hoffman in Hood or what I witnessed Daniel Day-Lewis do Lincolnit’s about getting past the pretense and finding the essence in a deep, serious way.”

But as he continued, he seemingly retaliated with his own Succession costars, who recently criticized his approach to acting.

“Lately, people feel the need to shoot me or say disparaging things, which I don’t really think there’s a need for,” Strong said. “The way I approach things, my process. I feel like we’re storytellers. I think about those performances I just mentioned. It’s actors telling a story through a character, which for me is the highest bar. That’s the holy grail for me, creating a character, which is kind of creating an instrument that’s never existed before… That’s the kind of acting that I love. And it requires a kind of, I don’t know, caring attitude about what someone might think of what you’re doing.”

The Emmy winner continued, “I just brought it up because it was on my mind, and I guess I feel like it’s related to the movie in a certain way,” he said. “Because we now live in Roy Cohn’s world, which he set the stage for, planting this malignant seed that has now borne terrible fruit. I think there’s this kind of Trumpism in our culture now, and the media is partly responsible for that, to be honest, where evil travels.”

For Strong, “it’s anti-art and not worthy of the dignity of what we’re all trying to do,” he added. “I think about Roy, how delighted he would be with the looting and stone-throwing going on in our country right now.”

From left: Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong and Brian Cox.

Getty

Weeks earlier, Culkin and Cox mentioned Strong’s approach to acting and explained why they disagreed with him.

Culkin, 42, said during the Dec. 17 Diversity “Actors about actors” interview with Colman Domingo that he “objected to”.[s] when actors call themselves ‘storytellers’.”

“I don’t really like that,” Culkin said before directly referencing his on-screen brother. “Sorry, Jeremy.”

Brian Cox has a suggestion for how Jeremy Strong can break free from the ‘boring’ method of ‘inheritance’

Strong repeated Deadline as his approach to acting seems to be intrinsic to his identity. At a recent screening of the film Traineehosted by Robert Downey Jr., Strong saw Al Pacino, who “used a quote from Browning that he wrote about in his book. ‘A man’s reach should exceed his reach, or what heaven is for.’ criteria to do anything, it should be beyond your reach,” Strong said.

Cox also spoke to The Guardian for a December 7 article, saying that he disagreed with Strong’s method of empathizing with the characters he plays.

Although Cox, 78, said Strong “was wonderful to act with,” he noted, “He would be an even better actor if he just got rid of that, so there would be a lot more inclusivity in what he was doing. It’s not good for ensemble. That creates hostility.”

Cox noted that he never spoke directly to his co-star about his perspective, something Strong has often discussed publicly in various talk show appearances and various news outlets.

From left: Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin and Brian Cox in ‘Succession’.

Graeme Hunter/HBO

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The screenplay prompted Strong to recall the moment in 1993 when he was 12 years old when he went to Los Angeles with his dad to audition for a pilot.

“While we were there, the Oscars were going on and I begged my dad to take me down and watch from the stands. I just thought it was the most exciting thing in the world,” he said, noting that it was the year Pacino was nominated for The smell of a woman and Downey Jr. was nominated for it Chaplin.

“I spent the night in the stands with my dad and it was terribly cold. I don’t think I fell asleep at all because it was indescribably exciting to be there. I remember watching these larger-than-life people walking across the carpet,” he continued. “My poor dad was shivering because he gave me his jacket to keep me warm.”

“I feel like it’s just crazy that I have to do this with my life and I don’t take any of it for granted. It’s also one of the reasons why I want to give so much,” he added. “I don’t know any other way to do it. I want to do my best.”

Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin on March 20, 2023 in New York.

WireImage

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The recent comments aren’t the first time Strong’s co-stars have criticized his approach to acting.

Cox previously spoke about Strong’s approach to acting, saying City and country in February 2023, “That’s fucking embarrassing. Don’t make me do it.” At the time, he claimed that Strong often blurs the line between knowing a character and becoming him, calling his co-star “that guy [after a take]” who would “lose” if he “feels he has gone elsewhere.”

Cox then added, “Strong’s talented. He’s freaking gifted. When you get a gift, celebrate the gift. Go back to your trailer and smoke some marijuana, you know?”

In 2021 A New Yorker profile, Cox also expressed concern about Strong’s commitment to Kendall Roy. “The score Jeremy gets is always pretty amazing,” he said. “I just worry about what he’s doing to himself. I worry about the crises he’s going through to prepare.”

In the same feature, Strong said, “To me, the stakes are life and death… I take it [Kendall] as seriously as I take my own life.”

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Source: HIS Education