Playing Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s mentor, in Ali AbassiIt is The apprentice it’s not the first time Jeremy Fort covered recent American history. Before the actor became synonymous with Kendall Roy in Successionhe played roles in The big short, Selma And Park. Although the actor feels slight discomfort discussing acting choices for a film whose main subject “presents such a clear and present danger to you and me,” Strong is nonetheless proud to his work. “I’m happy with the result and glad I gave it a try,” he says. “I almost didn’t.”

DEADLINE: What made you rush to this role and this film?

Jérémy FORT: You run towards him, because it is very dangerous. Because it has already been done brilliantly. This was directed by Al Pacino (in Angels in America) in a truly definitive way, it had such an impact on me. This was done in Citizen Cohn by James Woods, and Matt Tyrnauer released this brilliant documentary, Where is my Roy Cohn? It was almost as if after the Matt Tyrnauer documentary came out, there was no reason to do anything mimetic or narrative. Because the picture it presented seemed so final and complete, how could you improve it? But I want to find a precarious position to get out of. I feel like that’s where you grow as an artist. This one felt like it lit up all those pillars in me of something I wasn’t sure I could do. And it was terrifying in every sense of the word.

DEADLINE: What was the most insightful thing you discovered while researching Roy Cohn?

STRONG: I remember reading an interview with Dustin Hoffman years ago where he said, “The question you have to ask yourself is, ‘How does this character get into trouble?’ » » And Roy Cohn had so much pain under the… I wouldn’t do it. let’s even call it a facade because it was pretty well integrated into who he was. But somewhere deep inside him, there’s a crack in his mind, and that’s the part that interested me the most: how to try to embody him and how to make him as exactly as possible to who he was. in life. , without gilding anything or imposing an interpretation. I don’t want to make him more or less likeable than I found him. I suppose I found in him an anguish and a loneliness as well as a brutality and cruelty. And these polarities always provide the most fertile soil as an actor.

DEADLINE: What made you feel safe in Ali’s hands?

STRONG: In the end, it came down to this. It’s a choice, betting on a filmmaker. His film Border is so wild and visionary. There is this spooky but very controlled quality to the making of the film. I thought in Ali’s hands it would give an unknown variable, the punk rock sensibility that he has. And beyond that, I had the feeling, when I first met him, that he would give me the freedom to do my thing, which I needed in this case. He gave me a lot of latitude, freedom to improvise, freedom to feel like I was the author of what we were doing. I think my approach to these things isn’t just about learning the words on the page. My approach is to prepare the character’s entire life and then be ready to express that life. You really have to master your subject in a way that maybe even the filmmaker doesn’t, and I always feel like my job is to fight for the character. I felt like I could trust that Ali would collaborate in that way, which he was.

DEADLINE: In this film, Roy Cohn starts out strong and his health and strength decline over time. What were the challenges of physically embodying him?

STRONG: This is all a challenge. I think voice is a very important part of character. In some ways, maybe that’s the most important part, our voice is so fundamental to who we are. It’s like cracking a code. It’s a war of attrition that you have to fight for months and months until the voice becomes yours. That was probably the most important thing for me. The rest is almost only superficial. Wardrobe is such a tool for telling a character’s psychological story. I believe, however, that this thing must be unconscious, otherwise it is cheap. My intention is never to plan or prescribe anything, but if you spend enough time absorbing it, I trust that, through a process of osmosis, these things enter your subconscious and then exit from you at different times, without being prompted. This is where it can transcend caricature.

DEADLINE: What are your thoughts on gasoline versus precision?

STRONG: I feel a great responsibility to be precise. I don’t feel like it’s my interpretation and I can do whatever I want. So when Roger Stone said this was the Roy he knew – as dubious as that source is and as ambivalent as I feel about getting that from him – it was actually very gratifying because my goal, ultimately, is to be faithful to Roy, even more than to be faithful to the film. I don’t think I agree with anything Roy said or did. I’m very different from him, but I feel like my job, and I take it very seriously, is to be true to him and who he was.

DEADLINE: You and Sebastian Stan, as Donald Trump, play very distinctive real-life characters. Was it difficult to define the extent of it?

STRONG: It’s interesting because it’s broad. They are larger than life characters, and they are monolithic in terms of our understanding of them. But I think of two things. There’s something Stella Adler said: Sometimes you have to be as big as life. People have size and you shouldn’t be afraid. I wouldn’t pretend to be fearless because I have a lot of fear, but we have had to be courageous in our work on this topic. That’s something Sebastian was, and he demanded that I be. The other thing I think about is that Laurence Olivier, in his autobiography, wrote about this idea of ​​theatrical courage. My favorite film performances have always had that – a kind of theatricality and size, which takes a lot of courage to pull off on film, because film is an unforgiving medium if it detects dishonesty. So we have to find a way to make it both authentic and great. And that was a big challenge that I think Sebastian and I both took on and was very intimidated by.

DEADLINE: What has the outside pressure been like?

STRONG: This experience was really on fire every day because we were aware of what was at stake in getting it right and the feeling that this could erupt into the world at a time that could impact this election. Washington Post reporter Robert Kagan said fascism would not come to America with boots and salutes. He will come with a TV barker. This is what the film is about. And it’s so bad right now that I almost feel in conflict with the press. The themes of this film and what it explores are so dark and pose such a clear and present danger to you, me and everyone we know, that it is a strange thing (to talk about) aspects of filmmaking. ‘a film that is about you and your performance. But I’m happy with the result and glad I gave it a try. I almost didn’t do it.

DEADLINE: Did you almost refuse?

STRONG: Yeah. I just didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t have much time; I arrived late. And I knew how prepared I would have to be. I just didn’t know if I would make it to the place where it caught fire. But then I had dinner with a friend of mine, a great Danish writer-director named Tobias Lindholm, and he said to me, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” And then I said yes.

DEADLINE: I walked out of the theater thinking about how wasted it was to be here feeling sorry for Roy Cohn. It’s also brilliant storytelling. Has your perception of him changed as a result?

STRONG: Yeah. The magic thing about the film is that you think Roy Cohn is the devil, and then you see this transfer happen and you realize it’s a Frankenstein film: the monster he created has surpassed him, and Roy still has some vestiges of humanity in him. him. Roy truly believed that the things he did were for the good of humanity and for the good of America. And it’s scary, even as an actor, to switch to the other side of seeing things. But I also think that we live in a time where everyone is so inflexible in the way they see things, and it’s so easy to demonize anyone who doesn’t see things the way we do, that that’s part of what I do and which I find really enlightening. And I could see through Roy’s eyes, dark as they were.

DEADLINE: It’s interesting how much discussion there is about whether or not we should humanize monstrous people. Should we be so reductive?

STRONG: As an actor, you can’t afford to be reductive. And it’s not one or the other, it’s both/and. He can have both tenderness and gentleness with his llama Lollipop who lived with him in Greenwich, Connecticut, and with his various lovers, and in his life in Provincetown – which was a secret life he had, in which he was more open and more accepting of himself. And at the same time, he might be the most vile, hateful, hateful person imaginable. And I guess as an actor, that’s the level of difficulty you prepare for your whole life, to be able to attempt something like that.

DEADLINE: You’re Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager, in the next Deliver me from nowhere. Was that a relief?

STRONG: I will say that I have been immersed in Springsteen World over the last few months. And my goodness, the gospel of Bruce is a gospel of hope, redemption and love. It’s been his whole thing since the early ’70s. And being a part of that, and spending time communing with his music and with these guys, it’s a great tonic for Roy’s gospel of belligerence and hatred Cohn.