Jeremy Strong Says He Wouldn’t Want Another Season of Succession: ‘That Is Happily Put to Rest’ (Exclusive)
“In terms of the role that I played, he came to his terminal point,” the actor tells PEOPLE of character Kendall Roy
The chances of Jeremy Strong reprising his popular Succession character Kendall Roy appear dead in the water.
In an exclusive conversation with PEOPLE at the recent 2024 Tony Awards Meet the Nominees junket, the star — who earned a Tony Award nomination for best actor in a play for his role as Dr. Thomas Stockmann in An Enemy of the People — addressed the possibility of HBO reviving the acclaimed show, which had its series finale in May 2023.
“I’m sure there’s a desire for more [Succession],” Strong, 45, tells PEOPLE. “I would really pass that buck to [creator] Jesse Armstrong.”
“But I think in terms of the role that I played, he came to his terminal point,” he adds. “So for me, that’s something that is very happily put to rest.”
For his Succession role as power-hungry Kendall — the son of patriarch Logan Roy, who competed with his siblings to take control over the family’s media conglomerate — Strong won an Emmy Award for outstanding actor in a drama series in 2020.
During his acceptance speech, Strong reflected on playing Kendall.
“I read a poem by [American poet] Stephen Dunn that said, ‘All I ever wanted was a book so good I’ll be finishing it for the rest of my life,’ ” he said at the time. “This job was that, for me.”
In the show’s series finale, Kendall found out that he would not become the new CEO of Waystar Royco.
“I feel like if I don’t get to do this, I might — I might — die,” Kendall exclaimed before learning who would take over the role. “I’m the eldest boy! I’m the eldest boy!”
Following Succession’s end, Strong has starred in the Broadway production of An Enemy of the People, an adaptation of the 1882 play of the same name.
Strong says this version, written by Amy Herzog and directed by Sam Gold, isn’t a “stuffy period play from the 19th century” because they’ve “repurposed it for a modern audience” starring himself, Michael Imperioli and Victoria Pedretti.
“It hit me like a thunderbolt when I first read it,” Strong tells PEOPLE. “It’s a play from 1882, but it speaks urgently and presciently to now, about so many things that we’re facing about truth and alternative facts, and what is truth without power, and more frighteningly what is power without truth.”
In the play, Dr. Stockmann lives in a small Norwegian spa town and discovers that the spa’s water is poisoned. He becomes a whistleblower after the mayor doesn’t want the town to find out about the situation.
“It’s about a man who’s trying to wake up his community to an imminent ecological catastrophe,” Strong explains. “But in general, about someone who’s trying to wake people up to facing what’s happening and all the ways that people avoid that and deny the truth.”
“So it’s a play that it’s a privilege to get to give it to audiences,” Strong adds. “And it’s been very meaningful to me.”
The 2024 Tony Awards will take place on Sunday, June 16, at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater in New York City. Viewers can watch the show on CBS and Paramount+ beginning at 8 p.m. EST. Select awards will also be handed out on a preshow that will stream on Pluto TV.
