Jessica Chastain defends 'Succession' star Jeremy Strong against 'incredibly one-sided' New Yorker profile: 'He's a lovely person'

• Jessica Chastain said The New Yorker's profile of Jeremy Strong was "incredibly one-sided."
• The viral profile reported on Strong's unique acting techniques.

Jessica Chastain has defended "Succession" star Jeremy Strong after an extensive profile of the actor — which she described as "incredibly one-sided" — was published in The New Yorker magazine.

The article titled "On Succession, Jeremy Strong doesn't get the joke" was published on December 6 and provides a deep survey of Jeremy Strong's career and his committed approach to acting. The article also features quotes from Strong's "Succession" cast members, including Brian Cox who at one point described Strong as "intense."

"The result that Jeremy gets is always pretty tremendous," Cox said in the interview. "I just worry about what he does to himself. I worry about the crises he puts himself through in order to prepare."

In response, Jessica Chastain — who worked with Strong on 2012's "Zero Dark Thirty" and 2017's "Molly's Game" — criticized the depiction of Strong in The New Yorker and described the article as "snark."

"I've known Jeremy Strong for 20yrs & worked with him on 2 films," she said in a tweet. "He's a lovely person. Very inspiring & passionate about his work. The profile that came out on him was incredibly one-sided. Don't believe everything you read folks. Snark sells but maybe it's time we move beyond it."

—Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 8, 2021

Sections of the The New Yorker's profile of Strong went viral almost immediately after the article was published, particularly the parts of the article that report on Strong's experience working on HBO's award-winning show "Succession."

One section of the profile that has garnered particular attention is Strong's conflicting ideas about what genre the show should be described as.

Kieran Culkin, who stars as Strong's brother on the show, recalled discussing the show's genre with Strong to The New Yorker. He said: "After the first season, he said something to me like, 'I'm worried that people might think that the show is a comedy.' And I said, 'I think the show is a comedy.' He thought I was kidding."

Strong is also wearing a leg brace at the time of The New Yorker interview, he says, because he jumped off a five-foot stage during a scene for season three, impacting his femur and his tibia. The scene wasn't used and it's unclear whether Strong's jump was scripted.

As Insider's Claudia Willen previously reported, Strong has often discussed his unique approach to acting. In 2020, he told Rolling Stone magazine that he doesn't method act, but instead goes into "airplane mode" to separate his social self from his creative self.

During his interview with The New Yorker, Strong described his acting process as "identity diffusion."

"If I have any method at all, it is simply this: to clear away anything — anything — that is not the character and the circumstances of the scene," he said. "And usually that means clearing away almost everything around and inside you, so that you can be a more complete vessel for the work at hand."