Jeremy Strong says its ‘absolutely valid’ to criticise his gay role in Trump biopic

The actor plays LGBT+ attorney Roy Cohn in a new film about Donald Trump

Succession actor Jeremy Strong has said that criticism of him playing a gay man in the new Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice is “absolutely valid”.

Strong plays Roy Cohn in the film, the attorney who supported Donald Trump in his early days as a young real estate entrepreneur. Sebastian Stan takes on the formidable role of playing the ex-president, recently revealing that he ate ramen with “a bunch of soy sauce” to prepare for the part.

Cohn was a closeted gay man who died from AIDS in 1986, without ever publically admitting that he was homosexual nor did he ever disclose that he was HIV-positive. Al Pacino previously portrayed Cohn in the 2003 miniseries Angels in America with Will Brill also playing him in the recent political thriller, Fellow Travelers.

When speaking about playing Cohn to the Los Angeles Times, Strong was asked about the controversy surrounding straight actors being cast in LGBT+ roles, even though an LGBT+ actor has never won an Oscar for playing a gay role. In comparison the likes of Tom Hanks, Sean Penn and Jared Leto, to name a few, have all won Academy Awards for playing gay men.

In response, Strong said the backlash is “absolutely valid.” The 45-year-old went on to add: “I’m sort of old fashioned, maybe, in the belief that, fundamentally, it’s [about] a person’s artistry, and that great artists, historically, have been able to, as it were, change the stamp of their nature. That’s your job as an actor.”

Strong continues: “The task, in a way, is to render something that is not necessarily your native habitat. ... While I don’t think that it’s necessary [for gay roles to be played by gay performers], I think that it would be good if that were given more weight.”

“What I do feel, whoever plays any part ever, is that you have to take these things as seriously as you take your own life, and it is not a game, and that these people and their struggles and the experiences you’re trying to render are not a plaything,” Strong said.

“If I didn’t believe that I could understand on some deep level his anguish and turmoil and his need, and the sort of Gordian knot that every character has but Roy has particularly — if I didn’t believe that I could understand it or connect to it in a way that is faithful or voracious, I wouldn’t have done it. I certainly don’t do these things just for my own self-aggrandisement.”

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Mr Trump and Mr Cohn first met at Le Club, a members-only nightspot in Manhattan’s East 50s in the 1970s, according to the former president, and soon became friends and colleagues after Mr Trump sought out Mr Cohn’s legal expertise to represent him in various business dealings and legal matters.

Days after the film screened at Cannes, Trump’s campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter, warning producers not to pursue a distribution deal.

“We filed a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Trump campaign chief spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Independent.

Director Ali Abbasi’s film, which initially struggled to find a buyer is set to be released on 11 October.