Jeremy Strong’s New Movie Couldn’t Be More Perfect 1 Year After Succession Ended

A year after Succession ended, Jeremy Strong has found the perfect follow-up in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice. Strong and Sebastian Stan lead The Apprentice cast as Roy Cohn and Donald Trump, portraying the well-known real-life figures in the 1970s and ’80s, examining a historically defining mentorship. Cohn, a prosecutor known for flushing out communists in the United States government and having them served with the death penalty, passes on his “winner’s mentality” to a young Donald Trump, teaching him how to be ruthless in the world of business and politics.

Despite numerous outstanding roles, Jeremy Strong is best known for playing Kendall Roy in four seasons of Succession, an HBO series that’s quickly become regarded as one of the best TV shows of all time. Kendall is the son of news conglomerate CEO Logan Roy, a less-than-stellar father who’s instilled competition, greed, and many other issues into his children, who bite and claw at one another over a chance to lead his company in preparation for his eventual death. While one is historical and the other is based on entirely fictional characters, The Apprentice and Succession have a lot in common.

Succession’s Jeremy Strong Continues Exploring The American Elite With The Apprentice

The Apprentice Highlights The Cyclical Creation Of The Corrupt

Jeremy Strong has found himself a niche with projects that explore similar ideas. The Apprentice sees Strong as real-life historical figure Roy Cohn, who the actor described on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert as “one of the worst humans of the 20th century.” By the time events pick up in the film, Cohn has made quite the name for himself, accumulating wealth by being the dirty lawyer to the likes of Joseph R. McCarthy, Tony Salerno, and Rupert Murdoch.

Roy Cohn isn’t a magnate or a politician himself, but he’s the type of figure who’s learned to play ball in the park of the wealthy elite. The movie is about Donald Trump succumbing to the teachings of Roy Cohn in a Faustian-like deal with the devil, where Trump goes from a spoiled young millionaire to essentially a monster with no consideration for humanity. There’s so much similarity in the dynamics explored in the film to those explored by characters like Logan Roy, Jeryd Mencken, and many more in Succession.

How The Apprentice & Succession Tackle The Corruption Of The American Elite Similarly

Both Titles Explore The Human Causes Of Corruption

At their core, The Apprentice and Succession are shows rooted in humanity. Both importantly explore aspects of American societal issues, examining politics, capitalism, the news, etc., but their core elements are human characters. Among the controversies surrounding The Apprentice are accusations that the film “humanizes” the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Cohn. While this can be seen as more threatening in The Apprentice because they are real-life figures, and due to the upcoming election, Succession arguably humanizes similar character archetypes to an even more extreme degree.

The Apprentice’s
ending is very clear in its depiction of Donald Trump as a man transforming into a monster, while
Succession
is apparent in examining Kendall Roy as someone willing to rig an election to win power.

Neither project tries to suggest that the corrupt elite depicted in their stories aren’t bad. The Apprentice’s ending is very clear in its depiction of Donald Trump as a man transforming into a monster, while Succession is apparent in examining Kendall Roy as someone willing to rig an election to win power. However, the point of both narratives is to investigate how a person like that comes to be and how society and the family life of such a figure would push them down that road, resulting in their ultimate loss of humanity.

The Apprentice Is Jeremy Strong’s Latest Project To Tackle The Tragedy Of Capitalism

Jeremy Strong Continues A Career Trend In Film, Television, & Theater

In an interview with The New York Times to discuss The Apprentice, Jeremy Strong noted an important similarity to Succession, saying, “I 100 percent see it as a human tragedy, the way that I saw “Succession” as a tragedy of late-stage capitalism.“ Throughout his career, Strong has constantly taken on roles that explore similar premises, critiquing corporate America, capitalism, and various pertinent social issues. Before he was Kendall Roy, Jeremy Strong first collaborated with Adam McKay on The Big Short, a film about the 2008 housing crisis that warns about a repeated crisis due to corporate greed.

In 2020, Strong played a supporting role in The Trial of the Chicago 7, another period drama about a critical 1969 court trial that followed the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests. In 2024, the actor accepted his first Tony Award for his leading role in the play An Enemy of the People, where he starred as a doctor who refuses to keep silent when discovering water contamination that threatens his town despite being oppressed by politicians. There’s a consistent thematic throughline in Jeremy Strong’s career that’s led to The Apprentice, and here’s to hoping he keeps up his meaningful work.