Best-known for his role as Kendall Roy in HBO's Succession, Jeremy Strong now stars as lawyer and political hitman Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. The movie, he says, "explores essentially how Trump was made and his philosophical moral framework." Strong talks with Terry Gross about playing Cohn and about some of Kendall's most memorable scenes. Subscribe to Fresh Air's weekly newsletter and get highlights from the show, gems from the archive, and staff recommendations. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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I'm Terry Gross.
Like many fans of HBO's succession, I became a big fan of actor Jeremy Strong, though his portrayal of the character Kendall Roy, one of the siblings hoping to take control of their fathers media empire while the father was nearing death.
Strong won an Emmy for his performance on succession and a Tony for his recent starring role on Broadway in Ibsen's anemone of the people.
Now he's starring in the film the Apprentice.
The Apprentice refers to the young Donald Trump as he's trying to establish himself in his father's business as a real estate developer.
The person who is mentoring him and how to become successful is Trumps lawyer, the infamous Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong.
Cohn was known for prosecuting and winning the federal governments case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on charges of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviets.
In a controversial decision, they were sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in 1953.
In 1954, during the communist witch hunt period, Cohn was the chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy's Senate investigations into the communist influence in the US.
Cohn and McCarthy were also leaders in the anti gay movement that led to an executive order banning gay people from serving in government.
But Cohn was a closeted gay man who died of Aids.
He never came out and he insisted that his disease wasn't AIDS, it was liver cancer.
He was disbarred weeks before his death in 1986.
Strongs performance personifies what was written about Cohn on his patch on the AIDS memorial quilt.