Jeremy Strong is nominated for a Golden Globe for his role 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 playing Kendall Roy on HBO's Succession.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Today, we're kicking off our end-of-the-year series featuring some of the 2024 interviews we particularly enjoyed, starting with a great actor.
Like many fans of HBO's Succession, I became a big fan of actor Jeremy Strong through his portrayal of the character Kendall Roy, one of the siblings hoping to take control of their father's media empire while the father is growing old and possibly nearing death. Strong won an Emmy for that performance and a Tony for his recent starring role on Broadway in Ibsen's An Enemy of the People.
Now Strong is starring in the film The Apprentice, which came out in October and is now available to rent for streaming. The Apprentice refers to the young Donald Trump as he's trying to establish himself and his father's business as a real estate developer. The person who is mentoring him in how to become successful is Trump's lawyer, the infamous Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong.
Strong is nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. Roy Cohn was known for prosecuting and winning the federal government's case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. on charges of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviets. In a controversial decision, they were sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in 1953.
In 1954, during the communist witch hunt period, Cohen was the chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy's Senate investigations into the communist influence in the U.S. Cohen and McCarthy were also leaders in the anti-gay movement that led to an executive order banning gay people from serving in government. But Cohn was a closeted gay man who died of AIDS.
He never came out and insisted that his disease wasn't AIDS, it was liver cancer. He was disbarred weeks before his death in 1986. Strong's performance personifies what was written about Cohn on his patch on the AIDS memorial quilt. It read, "'Bully. Coward. Victim.'" Let's start with a scene from early in the film, when Trump and Cohn first meet.
Trump has just gotten accepted to a private dining club in Manhattan. Cohn is seated at a table with several mobsters, including fat Tony Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family. When Cohn notices Trump, who he's never met, he asks his friend to bring Trump to the table. Cohn is interested in finding out who Trump is. Trump is played by Sebastian Stan. Jeremy Strong as Cohn speaks first.
What is your business, Donald? Real estate. I'm vice president of a Trump organization. Oh, you're Fred Trump's kid? That's right. He's Fred Trump's kid. It sounds like your father's a little tangled up. It looks like he could use a good motor.
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