Jeremy Strong On Delusion, Dreams and Doing What It Takes [Extended Version]

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Best-known for his role as Kendall Roy in HBO's Succession, Jeremy Strong now stars as lawyer and political hitman Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. The movie, he says, "explores essentially how Trump was made and his philosophical moral framework." Strong talks with Terry Gross about playing Cohn and about some of Kendall's most memorable scenes.

Subscribe to Fresh Air's weekly newsletter and get highlights from the show, gems from the archive, and staff recommendations.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross.
0:02.8	Like many fans of HBO's succession, I became a big fan of actor Jeremy Strong,
0:08.0	though his portrayal of the character, Kendall Roy, one of the siblings hoping to take control of their father's media empire while the father was nearing death.
0:16.0	Strong won an Emmy for his performance on succession and a Tony for his recent starring role on Broadway in Ipsons An Enemy of the People.
0:25.0	Now he's starring in the film The Apprentice.
0:28.0	The Apprentice refers to the young Donald Trump as he's trying to establish himself
0:32.0	and his father's business as a real estate developer.
0:35.8	The person who is mentoring him and how to become successful is Trump's lawyer, the infamous
0:41.0	Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong.
0:44.0	Cohn was known for prosecuting and winning the federal government's case against Julius and Ethel
0:48.8	Rosenberg on charges of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviets.
0:53.2	In a controversial decision, they were sentenced to death
0:56.5	and executed in the electric chair in 1953.
1:00.2	In 1954, during the Communist witch hunt period,
1:03.2	Cohn was the chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy's Senate investigations
1:07.6	into the communist influence in the US.
1:10.6	Cohn and McCarthy were also leaders in the anti-gay movement that led to an executive order
1:16.0	banning gay people from serving in government.
1:19.0	But Cohn was a closeted gay man who died of AIDS.
1:22.0	He never came out, and he insisted was a closeted gay man who died of AIDS.
1:22.9	He never came out and he insisted that his disease wasn't AIDS.
1:26.6	It was liver cancer.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.