- Jeremy Strong says playing Kendall Roy felt like a "life and death" battle for them both.
- He told Vanity Fair it's hard to watch the finale because Roy had become "very real" to him.
Spoilers ahead for the final episode of "Succession."
It wasn't just the audience who found it hard to watch the end of Kendall Roy's story arc in "Succession." Jeremy Strong, the 44-year-old actor who's played Roy for four seasons, told Vanity Fair it was "excruciating" to watch the chips fall where they did.
"It was hard for me to watch last night, what he goes through, because he's become very real to me, and in a way, is indistinguishable from myself," Strong told Vanity Fair.
"This, to me, was a life and death thing. And I took it as seriously as I take my own life," he added. "When you're doing it, the whole world turns on it, and it matters more than anything in the world to me."
At one point, Vanity Fair asked Strong: "Are you okay?"
To which he responded: "I am okay. This is just a character."
Strong added that he felt "very detached" watching his character fall and lose in the final episode of the show. He commented as well that Roy's tragedy lies in that he's failed and lost "so many times," yet nothing is changed.
"Life is not linear that way. It's cyclical. And that to me is sort of more tragic than anything," he said.
His comments to Vanity Fair also echo an earlier interview he did with The New Yorker in 2021. Strong said, even then, that the "stakes are life and death" for him when playing Kendall Roy.
Strong's method-acting techniques have been well-documented. Actor Bowen Yang said Strong once wandered onto the set of "Nora From Queens" — which was filming in the studio next to where "Succession" was being shot — and asked where the bathroom was.
Yang said a production assistant later informed them that Strong was probably prepping for a scene where he had to ask someone where the bathroom was.
"I think that is method to such a ridiculous degree that he must be in on the joke," Yang said on the "Las Culturistas" podcast.
The series final of "Succession" aired on May 28.