‘The Apprentice’: Jeremy Strong On How He Approached Roy Cohn “Without Gilding Anything” In A Role He Almost Turned Down

deadline.com:

Playing Donald Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice is not the first time Jeremy Strong has tackled recent American history.

Before the actor became synonymous with Kendall Roy in Succession, he played parts in The Big Short, Selma and Parkland. While the actor feels a slight discomfort discussing acting choices for a film whose main subject “poses such a clear and present danger to you and I,” Strong is no less proud of the work. “I am happy with how it turned out and happy that I went for it,” he says. “I almost didn’t.” DEADLINE: What made you run toward this role and this film? JEREMY STRONG: You run toward it, because it’s so dangerous.

Because it’s been done before brilliantly. It was done by Al Pacino [in Angels in America] in a really definitive way, that had such an impact on me.

It was done in Citizen Cohn by James Woods, and Matt Tyrnauer released that brilliant documentary, Where’s My Roy Cohn? It almost felt like after the Matt Tyrnauer documentary came out, there was no reason to do something mimetic or narrative.