Jeremy Strong: The Apprentice is more of a horror movie since Donald Trump's US election win
'The Apprentice' actor Jeremy Strong believes the flick has become "more of a horror movie" since Donald Trump won the US presidential election last year.
Jeremy Strong thinks that 'The Apprentice' has become "more of a horror movie" since Donald Trump returned as US president.
The 'Succession' actor played attorney Roy Cohn in the flick that examined Trump's (Sebastian Stan) business exploits in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s and admits that the film has become more haunting since Trump was re-elected to the White House last year.
Jeremy told Deadline: "I do think that the movie in the context of recent events has become more and more of a horror movie to me. And it's like Roy Cohn said, and I think I said in the film, he said, 'This is a nation of men, not laws'. And we're really testing out that thesis right now in America. It is being proven out by Trump.
"He's the ultimate Machiavellian in the sense that Machiavelli said that, 'The ends justify the means'."
He added: "So in the film, we see Roy Cohn willing to do anything in the name of democracy, which is a kind of Orwellian usage of the word 'democracy' in the way we hear the Orwellian use of the words 'freedom' and 'democracy' and 'justice', these sort of inverted meanings.
"It's really amazing to look at the germinal seeds of that ideology in the relationship between these two men in the time that the film covers."
Strong explained that he set out to "lose" himself in the role of Cohn – for which he has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
The 46-year-old star said: "I actually have no desire to preserve myself. I think, for better or worse, my real desire is to lose myself entirely in it and disappear into it. So depending on the material, you go into these lives for a little while and submerge yourself.
"And I guess I find that to be the joy of it, to get utterly lost in exploring a psyche and a persona that is not your own until the point that it takes over and sort of possesses you. And at the same time, it's a game. But it's like you commit utterly to the game.
"And I love that Roy also was a pretty gleeful guy. He's dark. You look at him, and you see something monstrous and you see the heart of darkness. But from inside of him, he actually had a tremendous elan and life force.
"He loved being Roy Cohn with his Rolls Royce and lunch at Le Cirque. He loved it. So it wasn't as heavy as one might think."
