Jeremy Strong is opening up about the burden of playing one of television's most tortured characters, Kendall Roy.
In an interview with The Times of London, Strong shared that he struggled for the four seasons that HBO's "Succession" was on the air, saying that during his tenure as Kendall on the dark comedy about an American media family, he imagined terrible things happening to himself to prepare for the mentally anguished character.
"[It] f**ked me up,” Strong says.
However, since the end of the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning show in 2023, Strong shared that his mental health has improved, saying, “I’ve rediscovered play. I sometimes lost touch with joy.”
Strong has received endless praise for his portrayal of Kendall, winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his harrowing performance, so at least the pain of it all paid off in the end.
"That show was an incalculable gift," he says. "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.”
Now, Strong has taken on another meaty role, playing Roy Cohn in the Donald Trump origin story movie, “The Apprentice.”
“I went right into Roy Cohn, partly just to sort of shake [‘Succession’] off,” Strong said of his new role in an interview with The New York Times Magazine.
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