Jeremy Strong Calls New Yorker Profile a ‘Profound Betrayal’: ‘I Felt Foolish’
variety.comEJ Panaligan editor Jeremy Strong had thoughts to share about a late 2021 New Yorker profile that revealed insights into his method acting, telling Vanity Fair at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday that the story felt like a “pretty profound betrayal of trust.” “The noise and the fog after it: I think it’s something that, I guess, what I care about ultimately is trying to feel as free as possible as an actor.
Part of that is trying to insulate yourself from all of that, and what people might say about you or think about you. You have to free yourself from that,” Strong said about the social media discourse that followed after the profile published in December 2021. “It was painful.
I felt foolish. As an actor, one of the most vital secret weapons that you can have is the ability to tolerate feeling foolish.” Strong continued, “Acting is something that’s hard to talk about without sounding self-serious, but it is something that I feel very seriously about and care about and have devoted my life to.” Many in the acting community came to Strong’s defense amid the discourse surrounding the profile, including actress and longtime friend Michelle Williams. “I think that unfortunately the word ‘method’ has become a buzzy one because of what happened to Jeremy Strong when he tried to describe his process,” Williams told Variety in May. “He takes his work as seriously as he takes his play.” The “Succession” leading man is in the midst of shooting the show’s fourth season, but is at Telluride this year to promote “Armageddon Time,” director James Gray’s semi-autobiographical effort where Strong plays an emotionally-intricate version of the filmmaker’s father.
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