Jeremy Strong

Jeremy Strong (birthname: Jeremy Strong) is known as a fearsomely dedicated actor in the mold of Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman, and has achieved considerable fame for his pivotal role as Kendall Roy on HBO’s Succession, one of most acclaimed television series in history.

Despite the show providing Strong with his widest visibility, as well as a phase (2004-2012) of concentrated, serious theater work with such companies as Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Playwrights Horizons, his career has largely revolved around feature film roles.

That started with the lead role in the independent Darren Grodsky/Danny Jacobs film, Humboldt County (2008), with Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, Frances Conroy, Brad Dourif, and Chris Messina. Jeremy Strong quickly nabbed a supporting role in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (2008), with Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, and Betty Buckley, followed by a supporting role in writer-director Oren Moverman’s Military drama, The Messenger (2009), with Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, and Jena Malone.

Strong joined the exceptional German filmmaker Michael Glawogger for two back-to-back features: the postwar Austrian family saga, Kill Daddy Good Night (2009), with Ulrich Tukur, and Contact High (2009), an episodic comedy with Michael Ostrowski, Detlev Buck, and Georg Friedrich. Strong returned to indie U.S. cinema with the Sundance-premiering The Romantics (2010), with filmmaker Galt Niederhoffer adapting her own novel, with Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, and Anna Paquin, and then earned a role as Lincoln’s private secretary in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012), starring Strong’s personal hero, Daniel Day-Lewis (who won the Best Actor Oscar, one of the film’s twelve nominations), Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, and Tommy Lee Jones, and grossing $275 million worldwide.

Jeremy Strong continued to be cast in quality American indie films, such as Robot & Frank (2012), winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and starring Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, James Marsden, and Liv Tyler, as well as the South by Southwest-premiering film from writer-director, Nate Meyer, See Girl Run (2012), with Robin Tunney, Adam Scott, and William Sadler.

One of Strong’s first studio films (and another nominated for the Best Picture Oscar) was Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden manhunt drama for Columbia Pictures, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), with Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, and Joel Edgerton, and nominated for five Oscars while grossing three times its budget cost (between $40 and $52 million).

Another slice of recent American history for Jeremy Strong was one of his first eye-catching film roles as Lee Harvey Oswald in writer-director Peter Landesman’s JFK assassination drama, Parkland (2013), with James Badge Dale, Zac Efron, Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacki Weaver, and Paul Giamatti.

During this period, Strong began to be cast in more prominent roles in major films, such as writer-producer-director David Dobkin’s courtroom drama, The Judge (2014), with Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr., Vera Farmiga, Thornton, and Vincent D’Onofrio; a second film with writer-director Oren Moverman, Time Out of Mind (2014), with Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone, Kyra Sedgwick, and Steve Buscemi; director Ava DuVernay’s Civil Right drama, Selma (2014), starring David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Roth, and Oprah Winfrey (and yet another film with Strong nominated for the Best Picture Oscar); and Adam McKay’s comedy, The Big Short (2015), in which Strong played opposite Steve Carell and Marisa Tomei, with Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt.

Strong reunited with director Bigelow for her charged drama (with writer Mark Boal), Detroit (2017), starring John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, John Krasinski, and Anthony Mackie, well received by most critics if not audiences, which was not the case with Strong’s next, the Jessica Chastain-starring Molly’s Game (2017)—a critical and box-office success for writer-director Aaron Sorkin and co-starring Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Chris O’Dowd, and Bill Camp.

Although Jeremy Strong’s next film (with Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, and Djimon Hounsou), writer-director Steven Knight’s mystery thriller, Serenity (2019), failed with critics and at the box office, his next—also starring McConaughey—Guy Ritchie’s action comedy, The Gentlemen (2019), did not, earning $115 million globally.

Strong scored a bull’s eye and strong acclaim as Jerry Rubin in his second film with Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Eddie Redmayne, and Mark Rylance, earning over three times cost ($35 million) and receiving six Oscar nominations including Best Picture.

Jeremy Strong played a vital role in filmmaker James Gray’s autobiographical family drama, Armageddon Time (2022), with Anne Hathaway, Banks Repeta, and Anthony Hopkins, followed by Bradley Cooper’s anticipated biopic, Maestro (2023), with Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, Carey Mulligan, and Sarah Silverman.