Jeremy Strong has defended his intense approach to his work, saying he does not feel the need to apologise if his method acting “changes the molecules in the room in a way that makes something uncomfortable”.

The Apprentice star was asked by The New Yorker Radio Hour host David Remnick if his “approach” was “appreciated by the people around” him.

“I think I can’t really speak to that. Of course, some people seem to have been…,” he laughed, tapering off at the end. “It is never my intention to interfere with anyone else’s experience or anyone else’s way of working. First, do no harm, right? But commit to your f******, to what you’re doing, and utterly.”

Remnick asked Strong to clarify if he meant that it “frustrated” him when his colleagues were less invested in their roles. He rejected the suggestion, adding that he meant he was “just there to commit utterly to serving the material”.

“And so if some people feel I’m taking it too seriously or it changes the molecules in the room in a way that makes something uncomfortable, I guess that’s something that I don’t feel that I need to apologise for. Because I believe, and I think the directors that I work with all believe, that it is in service of the material,” Strong said.

“I personally think that a lot of the reactions to it are of a personal nature.”

In a 2021 profile of Strong in The New Yorker, Succession co-star Brian Cox said he worried about “what he does to himself”.

“I worry about the crises he puts himself through in order to prepare,” he said, adding that Strong’s inability to separate himself from his role was “a particularly American disease”.

Two years later, Cox had stronger words for his onscreen son, telling Town & Country that Strong’s method acting was “f****** annoying”.

“He’s a very good actor. And the rest of the ensemble is all okay with this. But knowing a character and what the character does is only part of the skill set,” Cox said.

Kieran Culkin, who played Strong’s younger brother Roman Roy on Succession, said his co-star’s approach “might be something that helps him” but “it doesn’t help me”.

However, Strong was defended by other co-stars, including Sarah Snook, who played his sister on Succession and described him as a “very singular, unique person and actor”, adding that he had a “different process” from the rest of the cast.

Sebastian Stan, who played Donald Trump opposite Strong’s Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, told GQ in February 2025 that the two “spoke the same language artistically”, and that Strong’s commitment was liberating because it allowed him to “go there too”.

Strong responded after his profile was published and told The Hollywood Reporter that he was hurt by his co-stars’ comments, but understood a “lot of that is just things that are presented out of context or with a certain agenda”.

While there had been “friction” between the cast, he said there was “deep respect and even love”.

Strong will next be seen in Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, in which he plays Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The sequel to Sorkin’s 2010 film The Social Network will focus on Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White, as they investigate the company’s internal practices after Haugen leaked thousands of pages of internal documents to the newspaper.

Sorkin talked about Strong’s method acting on set, telling The New York Times in September that the actor “did not speak in his own voice on the set or walk the way Jeremy walks”.

“He’s probably not going to speak to you at all. He is going to treat you the way he imagines Mark treats the people around him,” Sorkin said.

The Social Reckoning is set to be released in cinemas on 9 October.