Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin are, in many ways, strikingly similar to their Succession characters. While Strong has an immersive dedication to his career to the point where it’s isolating and destructive, Culkin spurts out levity and jester-like witticisms, even when it’s deemed inappropriate to do so. Essentially, Kendall and Roman IRL.
Strong is devastatingly serious about his craft to the extent that he’s received significant criticism about his artistic methods, while Culkin’s entire brand is to not take anything too seriously.
Strong believes in following an extremist method when it comes to his acting pursuits, in which he fully immerses himself into his role. While playing Kendall Roy, Strong refused to break character long after the director called “cut.” The actor wore outfits from Kendall’s wardrobe on his days off, ordered salads at restaurants that Kendall would prefer as opposed to Strong, and even tied his shoes exactly like he presumed the eldest boy would. Essentially, the 46-year-old actor took on the method acting approach, in which he fully stepped into the skin of Kendall Roy and refused to leave.
Many Succession Cast Members Were Annoyed With Jeremy Strong’s Acting Methods
Jeremy Strong’s extremist acting method was much to the detriment of his fellow ensemble cast members. Many of his Succession co-stars have expressed annoyance over Strong’s immersive approach, to the point where they got visibly frustrated in interviews when the subject of Strong’s acting techniques came up.
“It’s f*cking annoying,” Brian Cox, who plays media mogul Logan Roy, once said of his fictional son’s method-acting approach while on set. He later stated in a separate interview with Variety that Jeremey Strong’s immersive performance ultimately created a negative experience for the rest of the cast and crew. “it’s not good for the ensemble,” Cox said. “It creates hostility.”
In some ways, it makes sense cast and crew members on the Succession set would get frustrated with Strong for staying in character all the time. After all, he’s playing an entitled nepo billionaire who’s eternally haunted by the ghosts of his traumatic past. Yet at the same time, the result of this reportedly exhausting on-set behavior leads to one of the best performances in television history.
Strong cares so profoundly about his job as an actor, and it shows. He’s not just there to get a paycheck. He’s there to become Kendall Roy, mind, body and soul, to the point where Kendall’s traumas are his own. “I don’t think he leaves me,” Strong said of Kendall during an interview with The Guardian. “I don’t really feel like an actor much anymore; I feel as if I’m me for half the year and I’m Kendall for half the year. I think when you live with a role for long enough… then it’s in you.”
Inside Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong’s Reported Beef
It’s long been rumored that Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong have some sort of ongoing feud behind the scenes of Succession. After all, it makes sense that fans of the show would make this assumption, since Kendall and Roman are so hostile and polarizing throughout the majority of the series. Furthermore, the A Real Pain star has criticized his on-screen brother’s acting ideologies in several interviews.
But just because Culkin and Strong don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to their artistic approach doesn’t mean there’s any sort of “beef” going on between them. In fact, Culkin seems to have an incredibly protective relationship with his fictional on-screen brother, to the point where it’s heart-warming.
At the recent Golden Globes Award Ceremony, Culkin can be seen giving Strong a tender and affectionate hug that can only be given by two people who care deeply about each other.
Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin hug it out during a Globes commercial break pic.twitter.com/zCS5YdtNIV
— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) January 6, 2025
Needless to say, just because they don’t pursue their craft in the same fashion doesn’t mean there’s an unspoken rift between the two stars.
