While Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong (“The Apprentice”) could be back at the Oscars for the second year in a row for his subtle, moving performance as manager Jon Landau in “Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” he’s neither rooting for himself nor for another character actor he admires, Sean Penn in “One Battle After Another.” As a member of this year’s Cannes jury, Strong is an unabashed fan of Norway’s Cannes prize-winning Oscar entry, “Sentimental Value.” “Give Stellan Skarsgård the Oscar, please,” he said as we sat down at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles.
I can’t help but notice his rusty, close-cropped haircut. He’s in prep to play Mark Zuckerberg in writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to 2010’s “The Social Network,” “The Social Reckoning” (October 9, 2026), set 17 years later and without Jesse Eisenberg. It covers a stretch between 2018 and 2021, when Facebook moved from “move fast and break things,” said Strong, to “move fast with stable infrastructure. This also tells the story of the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the Facebook Files.” (He reunites with Jeremy Allen White, who plays Springsteen in “Deliver Me from Nowhere.”)
As soon as Strong got wind of a follow-up to “The Social Network,” he told Sorkin that he had always wanted to play Zuckerberg. Strong played Jerry Rubin in Best Picture nominee “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which Sorkin wrote and directed, and starred in Sorkin’s directorial debut “Molly’s Game.” “The Social Reckoning” screenplay is “one of the best scripts I’ve ever read,” said Strong. “It touches the third rail, the axis of much of the issues and maladies of our time.”
Per usual, Strong is hoovering up everything he can about Zuckerberg. His prep, influenced by early mentor Daniel Day-Lewis, involves a “deep dive on everything,” he said, “trying to understand and defend a point of view of a character, what it is they believe in, what they’re fighting for, maybe understand what might be blind spots. But the most important thing for me is an empathic connection to a person. We live in an age when there’s a lot of judgment, a lot of maligning of people. We would all do well to walk a day in anybody’s shoes before casting aspersions and judgment.”
Zuckerberg, who at 41 is still running Facebook, is “a real person with a family,” said Strong, who is 46 and has three kids. “He is someone who has shaped the world we live in. I feel an enormous responsibility for accuracy and understanding.”
Zuckerberg is just one of a gallery of real people that Strong has taken on, including powerbroker Roy Cohn, one of the most maligned figures in New York, who Strong not only made believable but empathetic in “The Apprentice.” “I find Roy’s journey a tragic journey,” he said. “I find Kendall Roy’s journey [in the Emmy-winning ‘Succession’], even though he’s a composite character, a tragic journey.”
Day-Lewis gave Strong “a kind of permission,” he said, “by witnessing a level of commitment and a level of preparation and courage and a willingness to just go way the fuck out on the limb,” he said. Strong also admires Anthony Hopkins, his co-star on James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” who has played Richard Nixon, Adolf Hitler, Pablo Picasso, C.S. Lewis, and John Quincy Adams. Strong is drawn to historic characters, he said: “Those are the best stories with the most complex stories and the highest stakes.”
In “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” Strong plays a real person, Jon Landau, an influential music critic who proclaimed Springsteen as the future of rock in the pages of Rolling Stone and quietly and firmly, behind the scenes, helped his friend to manage his career and recover from debilitating depression. The film is set during the 1982 recording of “Nebraska,” a bare-bones acoustic album of dark songs that Springsteen needed to get off his chest before he could publish such rock anthems as “Born to Run,” which he had already written, that would make him a rock legend.
Having gotten to work closely with Springsteen on “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” Strong is a fan: “I’ve just come out of this press conference with Bruce, who gives 10,000 percent. I admire him perhaps more than I admire anyone on this earth: his humility, his devotion, his commitment. It’s about how much he gives, his sincerity, his generosity of spirit.”
Movingly, “Deliver Me from Nowhere” shows how Landau cares for Springsteen and stands up for him at a time when he needs support. “At this moment in time, 1982, it is not a given that Bruce would go on to be the Bruce Springsteen we know him to be today,” said Strong, “simply because of his struggles with mental health and depression, as William Styron said, ‘a darkness visible,’ and that darkness was pressing down on him, and he did not have the equipment internally to handle it. It’s not something anyone can handle on their own.”
A few years older than Springsteen, Landau “was a father figure to Bruce at this time,” said Strong, “had been in therapy, had had a broader education, was steeped in literature and the history of art and the history of music, and he was able to help Bruce take this step to getting professional help. He was almost like a therapist himself, and he understood that the only way out is through. This movie that Scott Cooper has made is the story of Bruce shaking hands with his own past, his trauma, the wounds that we all carry and that often remain untreated or buried. And so this is about the album ‘Nebraska,’ the unearthing of that trauma and the repairing of trauma through art.”
“Nebraska” also marked a moment in time before Springsteen was about to hit big. “James Baldwin once used the phrase ‘trying to find an honest place to stand,’” said Strong. “Bruce was looking to find that honest place to stand. He was lost in the vortex of this world that we’re in, the pressures and expectations of success, fame. And Bruce needed to locate. Bruce said once that all of his songs are about a person trying to find and save some part of himself. And Bruce, at this time in 1982, needed to find and save some part of himself. And Jon Landau had the compassion, love, devotion, depth of understanding, and insight to support and enable that.”
Landau also had to be savvy enough to manage CBS Records. It’s surprising the executives went along with “Nebraska” at all. Landau had to coax them into it. “‘The River’ was a massive album,” said Strong, “but he wasn’t yet in the stratosphere that he then went on to be. When Jon Landau goes into Columbia Records and sits down with Al Teller, people listen to Jon Landau. He had an authority, but he also was a bodyguard for what is sacred. Jon was perceiving what was essential in that record and why it was essential for fertilizing the growth of Bruce Springsteen, the artist. He was not perceiving in a calculated way why this would or wouldn’t be a savvy career move — not that he didn’t give a shit about career, because he did.”
Strong and Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen bonded effectively to create this close relationship. “Easily and almost without words,” said Strong. “I’ve admired Jeremy for a long time. Part of what you do is you create a dynamic that mirrors a dynamic, and it was easy for me to feel a devotion and a love for Jeremy, also given what was at stake, similar to Sebastian [Stan] having to play Donald Trump, a character that is an iconic, monolithic character. You are vulnerable. You are up there like Philippe Petit, walking on that high wire. So it was easy for me to feel a solicitude, a protectiveness, and an empathy and care for him. You look after him a bit without words, let him know that you’re there for him, which is what Jon does. They don’t talk a lot.”
One key scene between the two men involves a piece of music, instigated by Strong. “In the early ’70s, they used to come over to each other’s house and listen to records,” said Strong. “They would play each other music all night. And it was the night before we were shooting this scene, where Jon goes over to Bruce’s house in Colts Neck, a beautifully scripted scene where they say the things that they’re feeling to each other. Jon expresses his deep concern for Bruce, his wish for what the road trip will be. I felt a sense that the Jon that I had come to understand might not have worded all those things as overtly, and I had an instinct that maybe I should play him a song in the scene. I sent Bruce and Jon some texts. I asked them: ‘I’m thinking of playing a record for you in the scene tomorrow. If you were going to play a song, if you were trying to save your friend’s life, what song would you play?’”
The three men exchanged texts for three hours. Strong listened to each song suggestion. Springsteen went to bed. About 45 minutes later, he texted Landau: Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers’ “Last Mile of the Way.” “I listened to it,” said Strong, “and was floored. It’s emotionally huge, and it’s the story of the movie. It’s about passing through a dark valley before you get to arrive somewhere.”
The next day, Scott Cooper shot the scene as scripted. Strong had secretly asked the sound mixer and prop department to prepare a cassette with the song on it and have the boom box in the room. And after they shot the scene, he said, “Scott, can I try something?” And Cooper said, “Can you tell me what it is?” And I said, “No, I’d rather not.”
Strong also asked White if he wanted to know what he was going to do. He said, “No.” “That’s what’s in the movie,” said Strong. “It’s a big-budget Disney studio movie, but it has a Cassavetes soul. There’s a spiritual dimension to that song and that sequence in the movie. It captured something about them and their essence and their journey.”
Next up: Strong plays the lead in the remake of “The Boys from Brazil,” a limited series written by Peter Morgan (“The Crown). “It’s a five-hour film that Bob Elswit is shooting, an allegory of the rise of fascism in the world.” Also in the works is a Paramount six-hour limited series created by Tobias Lindholm about September 11 first responders. “There’s an embarrassment of riches right now,” said Strong, “and I don’t take it for granted.”