Jeremy Strong says it’s “absolutely valid” to criticize him for going gay-for-pay in Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’

Yes, it’s absolutely valid [that gay actors be given more weight when casting gay roles]. 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.

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.

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 [Cohn]  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-aggrandizement.

Jeremy Strong speaking to the LA Times about playing controversial, closeted gay lawyer Roy Cohn in the new Donald Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice.’