Jeremy Strong: ‘I try to bring as much empathy as I can’
November 25, 2019 § Leave a comment
NEW YORK — As Kendall Roy, an heir to a Murdoch-like family media empire competing with his siblings for primacy, power and paternal approval on HBO’s “Succession,” Jeremy Strong has gone through the wringer.
In two seasons, the actor, 40, has embodied Kendall as he has been undermined by his father, tormented by his own shortcomings and misdeeds, and hollowed out by addiction. All the while, Strong has made us care about this wealthy, jet-setting mess of a man.
Sitting in a modest conference room in New York’s Hudson Yards, sporting a scraggly beard (he’s portraying Jerry Rubin in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7”), earth-toned clothing suitable for a Yale English-lit grad (which he is) and a silver necklace bearing his 18-month-old daughter’s footprint (his second child is due as we speak), and peppering his conversation with references to writers and artists (Balzac, Rilke, Twombly, Ferlinghetti, among many others), Strong muses on why audiences are invested in Kendall and the Roys.
“You can be human and also reprehensible,” Strong observes. “These people are wounded, damaged by their legacy. I try to bring as much empathy as I can.” …
4 new shows that connect
November 19, 2019 § Leave a comment
The best TV shows introduce us to new worlds and reveal something about our own. That’s definitely true of “Euphoria,” “Modern Love,” “The Morning Show” and “Watchmen,” four of this year’s most interesting new shows. On the surface, the series — about troubled teens, people in love, workers in the age of #MeToo and masked heroes, respectively — could not be more different, but on a deeper level, they all seek to help us better understand and empathize with one another, overcome collective and personal trauma and find connections ….
‘Watchmen,’ ‘Euphoria’ among new shows that cry out for awards season attention (Los Angeles Times)
Elisabeth Moss is no riot-grrrl (but she plays one in ‘Her Smell’)
November 7, 2019 § Leave a comment
New York — In “Her Smell,” Elisabeth Moss’ third collaboration with director-writer Alex Ross Perry, which hit theaters in April 2019, the actress plays Becky Something, the raw, reckless, strung-out yet brilliant lead singer of an iconic ’90s riot-grrrl trio called Something She, who, when we first meet her, is spinning out of control and in danger of taking down everyone around her. Moss has been nominated for a Gotham Award for the role.
Think Courtney Love, because everybody does, although Moss — probably best known for her TV roles in “Mad Men” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” — says she and Perry, with whom she also co-produced the film, found inspiration in other performers, including Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain.
Seated on a tweedy armchair, demurely sipping a Moscow Mule beside a crackling fireplace on a crisp October evening in a clubby cocktail lounge on New York’s Upper East Side and looking nothing like a dissolute rocker, Moss muses, “Becky was everyone and no one.” …
Amy Reiter 