Jeremy Strong, who portrays the notorious political fixer Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, reflected on the complexity of playing such a controversial figure in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment. Despite Cohn’s reprehensible actions, Strong acknowledged his humanity, admitting that he felt a mix of emotions while taking on the role.
“Roy Cohn was an awful person who did unconscionably bad things. He was also a human being,” Strong shared. This nuanced perspective came as he grappled with the weight of portraying someone so deeply entrenched in politically charged, morally questionable events.
The Apprentice tracks the relationship between Cohn and a young Donald Trump (played by Sebastian Stan), showing how Cohn’s influence helped shape Trump’s rise to power. Cohn was infamous for his role in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade and his involvement in the Lavender Scare, a period of government persecution against LGBTQ+ individuals in the 1950s.
When Strong first took on the role, he wasn’t initially concerned about the film’s controversy, but rather whether he could pull off the portrayal. “That’s sort of outside the bounds of your work,” he said. “If anything, my trepidation had to do with … could I do it? Could I play him?”
Strong was particularly cautious about how other actors, like Al Pacino and Will Brill, have depicted Cohn in past portrayals, including the 2003 Angels in America miniseries. He worried that these past performances might influence his own approach. Both Strong and Stan knew that the stakes were high, as the portrayal of Cohn and Trump’s relationship required them to tread carefully. “It could work, or you could really crash and burn,” Strong said.
The film, written by Gabriel Sherman, focuses on the pivotal relationship between Cohn and Trump, which director Ali Abbasi sees as central to understanding Trump’s transformation from businessman to political figure. “If you want to understand how he became the … political person he is, and his relationship to power, ambition, branding and media, this is the most influential relationship in his life,” Abbasi explained.
Stan, who plays Trump, views the character’s evolution as a tragic loss of empathy, a sentiment Strong shares in regard to Cohn. “I see his life tragically,” he said. “I can also understand why people perceive his life monstrously. I think those things can coexist.” Strong believes that understanding people in shades of gray, rather than in binary terms, is key to truly grasping their complexity.
One aspect of Cohn’s life that stood out to Strong was the infamous 60 Minutes interview, in which Cohn denied having AIDS shortly before his death. “I can’t watch that interview without feeling some pity for him,” Strong confessed. “Roy Cohn was an awful person who did unconscionably bad things. He was also a human being.
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