SAG-AFTRA, respectfully, what the hell have you done?
On Wednesday morning, the actors guild released its nominations for the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which included a predictably (correctly) long list of Succession stars. Absent from the menagerie, however, was perhaps the most obvious name of them all. How on Earth did Jeremy “almost jumped into the Hudson River for the art” Strong not make the cut? Do they not realize that he’s the eldest boy?!
Succession has never won an individual acting award, although its cast did win in the ensemble category in 2022—a nomination they’ve received once again this year. Sarah Snook, who gleefully accepted her first Golden Globe on Sunday night for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series, Drama, has received a SAG-AFTRA nod in the same category. Globe winners Kieran Culkin and Matthew MacFadyen also received SAG Award nominations, alongside Logan Roy himself, actor Brian Cox. But alas, Jeremy Strong is not in the mix this time.
Yes, I obviously understand that the race for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series cannot entirely consist of actors from the same series—The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal and The Morning Show’s Billy Crudup scored the other two nominations—but still, I can’t help but wonder... was there really no way to squeeze Little Lord Fuckleroy in there?
Some fans wonder why Cox—who was absent from most of the season—made the cut over Strong, who turned in one of his strongest performances to date. Personally, I’d prefer if the awards had done the impossible and simply added a bonus slot, but that’s mostly because I don’t have an awards show to run and therefore do not need to consider practicality.
Strong’s biggest fans, who love to spend their time meme-ing the actor as a babygirl, often tout his dedication to his craft—even if, historically, it seems to have bugged some of his co-stars.
A widely-read 2021 New Yorker profile by Michael Schulman laid most of it out: Strong’s process, though not exactly Method in the formal sense, involves a lot of solitude and character immersion. Strong reportedly refused to be in the makeup trailer at the same time as his co-stars and occasionally declined to rehearse certain scenes with them. As Strong put it, “I want every scene to feel like I’m encountering a bear in the woods.” With regard to his colleagues, he added, “I don’t know how popular the way I work is amongst our troupe.”
While speaking with Schulman, Culkin recalled, “The way Jeremy put it to me is that, like, you get in the ring, you do the scene, and at the end each actor goes to their corner. I’m, like, This isn’t a battle. This is a dance.” Regarding his co-star’s self-isolation, Culkin added, “That might be something that helps him. I can tell you that it doesn’t help me.”
Strong’s intensity has nevertheless won over a dedicated fanbase, and based solely on the results, it’s hard to imagine how he couldn’t score a nomination. Succession’s final season was arguably the most turbulent for Strong’s character, Kendall Roy, who spent most of it in a slow-moving, nihilistic freefall. From his raucous birthday bash (featuring an architectural interpretation of his mother’s vaginal canal) to his furious insistence that the Roy patriarch wanted him to take over the family empire, the self-proclaimed “eldest boy” ran through almost every possible emotion, putting Strong through the wringer in the process. Although his co-stars are equally worthy, his absence feels like a major oversight.
Then again, no awards cycle is complete without at least a couple snubs; we’ve got more content than ever before, and each show has only so many nominations slots to dole out. The SAG Awards have also left off such big names as Leonardo DiCaprio, Past Lives star Greta Lee, and the cast of May December, so at least Strong is not alone. Here’s hoping the rest of Succession’s cast, at least, brings home a few gold statuettes when the show streams live on Netflix Feb. 24.
