Aaron Sorkin is the master of the courtroom drama, and for his latest Netflix film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, the writer/director got to work with an eclectic ensemble who all brought their different acting approaches to the table. However, none of them were as hardcore as Succession actor Jeremy Strong.
In a political drama that’s growing more and more poignant by the day, The Trial of the Chicago 7 focuses on a group of anti-Vietnam protestors who were brutally assaulted by the police and the National Guard during the 1968 Democratic Convention. While filming the clash between law enforcement and the anti-war radicals, Sorkin used former police officers to add to the realism, and Strong was maybe a little too on-board with using the former cops to their full potential. Via Vanity Fair:
The most die-hard Method actor was Jeremy Strong, who once worked as Daniel Day-Lewis’s assistant and seems to have inherited his role model’s relish for total immersion. Filming the riot scenes on location in Grant Park, he insisted, before the cameras rolled, that a former Chicago cop playing one of the storm troopers hurl him to the ground before every take. “Jeremy begged me to spray him with real tear gas,” adds Sorkin. He obliged. Whatever works.
This isn’t the first time Strong’s penchant for Method acting has been brought up. During a lengthy interview with IndieWire, Succession star Brian Cox commented on what it’s like working with Strong, who goes deep into taking on the persona of his haunted and broken character Kendall Roy.
“I find it quite good, because I think it puts you on your metal,” Cox said. “Because you’re dealing with someone who really inhabits the fragility almost in a way that is… you worry about him sometimes. He is so committed as an actor. Jeremy’s commitment is undeniable, and his results are equally undeniable.”
The Trial of the Chicago 7 arrives on Netflix on October 16, 2020.
(Via Vanity Fair)