Succession star Jeremy Strong is earning Oscar buzz in the new film The Apprentice, and I’m co-signing that assessment after seeing his riveting performance. Here’s why you need to see the film, which I sincerely can’t stop thinking about, and why it's a worthy follow-up to Strong’s Emmy-winning turn in the hit HBO drama Succession.
I Can't Stop Thinking About This Controversial New Flick—and My Favorite 'Succession' Star's Performance Has Me Screaming 'Oscar'
He plays the son Logan Roy always wanted
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Published Oct 25, 2024
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As a whole thing, The Apprentice works its movie magic by immediately pulling you into the drama of what it positions as a tale of underdog Americana—Donald Trump as the second son of a domineering father, a young businessman who yearns to prove himself in a cutthroat, bankrupt city by means of a wily older attorney, Roy Cohn. The movie plunges you right into the emotional logic of Trump’s need—he’s got to save his family business and earn his father's respect—and Cohn’s participation—as a powerful political player, he’s enlivened by the younger man’s ambition.
Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump embodies the future president’s full-lipped and baby-faced blond attractiveness, and resists what must be a considerable temptation to mime too many of Trump’s mannerisms. (I only once found myself mimicking the actor’s hand motions as familiar Trumpisms.) And his scenes with Fred Jr., his doomed alcoholic big brother, are especially heartbreaking. But the movie belongs to Strong, who as Cohn disappears into the infamous lawyer’s stiff walk, bullying manner, stilted speech and frankly creepy stare. The sheer dark charisma of his presence make it hard to watch anyone else when he’s on screen. (I kept thinking that Roy Cohn’s merciless execution of backroom deals made him the son that Succession’s media mogul Logan Roy wanted in Kendall Roy.)
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“The movie makes you have empathy for the people in it,” I told my movie buff pal about the film. “That’s what everyone is saying,” my friend replied. "But I don’t want to have empathy for those people.” Fair enough. (For example, publicly gay-bashing Cohn was a closeted homosexual who died of AIDS in 1986 but denied having the disease.) But what is brilliant about the film is that no matter what politics you bring to the movie, whatever opinions you have about the morality of the choices made in the film, the actors convince you of their characters’ desperate motivations, and you understand them even while you are shocked at the choices they make. Sympathy for the devil, I kept repeating as I walked out of the film, which carries a disclaimer about its dramatization of real-life events and people (Cohn and Trump are shown above at the opening of Trump Tower in 1983.)
I’m selling the movie as a must-see to everyone I know. Go see it because it’s a transfixing display of one of today’s most compelling actors disappearing into an Oscar-worthy performance. Watch it for the surprising feels. See it as a conversation starter worthy of a whole season of holiday gatherings. And perhaps absorb it as a history lesson that may prove useful in the near future. For example, I won’t soon forget the three lessons for success Cohn teaches Trump: Attack, deny and never admit defeat.
