Succession actor Jeremy Strong has compared the forthcoming Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere with his recent role in The Apprentice.
The star is set to play The Boss’ manager Jon Landau alongside Jeremy Allen White.
The film finds Springsteen at a difficult point in life while recording his sixth album, 1982’s ‘Nebraska‘. Landau is credited by many with influencing the music legend artistically and personally.
Much like his role as mentor to Donald Trump in The Apprentice – as ruthless New York lawyer Roy Cohn – Strong said he plays a similar in role Deliver Me From Nowhere but in a much more positive way.
Speaking in a new interview with Variety, when asked what it was like to portray Landau, he said: “Utterly life affirming. It’s a mentor story, like The Apprentice. But if Roy is Mephistopheles, Jon is a force of light.
“Spending time with Bruce and Jon and communing with Bruce’s music, which is a gospel of hope and faith and love, as opposed to a gospel of hatred and mendacity and nihilism, which is what Roy was, it was a tonic. It lifted me out of the darkness.”
In a previous interview with Deadline, Strong said while the characters are both mentors Cohn bears no comparison with Landau. The actor said: “He stands alone. He’s been called one of the worst human beings of the 20th century. It’s hard to put my thumb on a kind of single descriptive term because he’s such a paradox. That made it such a rich dramatic character to play, that he’s not just one thing.”
He also spoke about spending time with Springsteen and Landau during filming on Deliver Me From Nowhere.
“Bruce and Jon really opened the kimono to Jeremy and me” he explained. “The more I’ve learned about them and witnessed them together, it really is a love story in a sense between these two men. Jon has been so instrumental in helping to guide Bruce, coming into his life at a moment where Bruce was really at a crossroads”.
Strong earned a Golden Globe nomination for his work in The Apprentice, and he was recently nominated in the Academy Award category for Best Supporting Actor ahead of the ceremony in LA on March 2. Deliver Me From Nowhere is scheduled for release sometime in 2025.
Recently, Springsteen was pictured visiting White on the set of the film.
