3 Highlights From Jeremy Strong’s NY Times “Succession” Interview

Picking the best parts from the New York Times interview with Succession’s Jeremy Strong (Kendall Roy).

As we’ve spoke about on our podcast over the last few months, Succession is undoubtedly the best television show of the year so far. And on Sunday, August 5th, the Roy family concluded their first season with an excellent finale, titled “Nobody is Ever Missing”. Our next About What Matters episode will reveal a bunch of spoilers so here, I’ll leave the finale alone.

Instead, I want to talk about the interview that Jeremy Strong — known as Kendall Roy in the HBO series — did with the New York Times — released on August 5th. Coming live from Denmark, Strong was very open with writer David Renard and revealed some cool behind-the-scenes stuff. It’s a pretty decent-sized read, so I’ll pick out the best parts and bullet-points.

Full interview can be found here.

Kendall kept those fancy sneakers from the business meeting:

“I spent a long time trying to pick out the right sneakers, and Michelle Matland, the wardrobe designer, is really incredible. It was very important for me to really wear the clothes and for the world they were in to have the weight of reality. But yes, I kept the Lanvins, along with a bunch of other stuff that I’m rocking in Copenhagen as we speak.”

Brian Cox was legit terrifying to act with:

“Part of the way that I like to work is to allow for the dynamic in the material to exist as much as possible in the environment, and so that meant, for me, keeping distance and allowing for there to be real tension, because I think it’s important. And so I didn’t have all that much interaction with Brian apart from meeting each other in the ring, in a sense. But God almighty, when you are in the ring with him you get everything you need, because he completely embodies that character and he can be very terrifying.”

The cast used the Corleone family as a template for the Roy’s:

“Kendall has it in his DNA to become a man like his father. He either is going to escape his family’s legacy and the poison of that, or he’s going to internalize it and become his father. You know — and I’ll be struck down by lightning — but in “Godfather,” which of course we all looked at, and always sort of referenced, Michael [Corleone] in the beginning is a sort of guileless student and then he becomes a man of blood. And that journey, that gradual erosion of his morality and the ways in which he’s forced to cross his own moral lines, I do see some parallels in terms of this character and I think that anything is possible, really, going forward.”

Succession was already renewed for a second season, but if you haven’t seen the first…do it ASAP.