- Jeremy Strong says playing Kendall Roy felt like a “life and death” battle for both of them.
- He told Vanity Fair that it’s hard to see the ending because Roy had become “so real” to him.
- Strong’s method acting throughout the four seasons of “Succession” has been well documented.
Spoilers ahead for the final episode of “Succession”.
It wasn’t just the audience who found it difficult to see the end of Kendall Roy’s story arc in “Succession.” Jeremy Strong, the 44-year-old actor who played Roy for four seasons, said vanity fair it was “unbearable” to see the chips fall where they did.
“It was hard for me to see what he goes through last night, because he’s become so real to me and in a way, he’s indistinguishable from me,” Strong told Vanity Fair.
“This, for me, was a matter of life and death. And I took it as seriously as I take my own life,” he added. “When you’re doing it, the whole world turns on him, and I care more than anything in the world.”
At one point, Vanity Fair asked Strong, “Are you okay?”
To which he replied, “I’m fine. This is just a character.”
Strong added that he felt “very detached” watching his character fall and lose in the show’s final episode. He also commented that Roy’s tragedy is that he has failed and lost “so many times”, but nothing has changed.
“Life is not linear like that. It’s cyclical. And that to me is more tragic than anything else,” he said.
His comments to Vanity Fair also echo an earlier interview he did with the new yorker in 2021. Strong said, even then, that “it’s life or death at stake” for him when playing Kendall Roy.
strong method actuation techniques have been well documented. Actor Bowen Yang said Loud once walked on the set of “Nora From Queens” — who was filming in the studio next to where “Succession” was filmed — and asked where the bathroom was.
Yang said a production assistant later informed them that Strong was probably preparing for a scene where he had to ask someone where the bathroom was.
“I think that’s a method to such a ridiculous degree that he must be in on the joke,” Yang said in the interview. “The Bodybuilders” podcast.
The series finale of “Succession” aired on May 28.
