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‘I’m all in’: Jeremy Strong explains his bizarre role in the Dunkin’ Super Bowl commercial
"I take my work really f****** seriously. I don’t take myself really f****** seriously. There’s a difference."
In total, Boston native Jeremy Strong’s screen time in the 2025 Dunkin’ Super Bowl commercial that aired during the Big Game totaled around ten seconds.
But true to form, the “Succession” star went very deep in preparation for the role, which is much longer and more central to the extended DunKings short film on YouTube.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Strong discussed why he rejected Ben Affleck’s initial commercial pitch, how his childhood growing up in Sudbury inspired the final ad, and how he hoped the commercial would help deflate his self-serious reputation.
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Ditching ‘Succession’
When Strong was first approached to appear in a Dunkin’ ad, he had already rejected pitches from other companies that wanted to him to pair him in ads with his “Succession” co-stars.
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Strong told Vanity Fair that he didn’t want his career to be solely defined by the Kendall Roy character, which made Affleck’s initial pitch a non-starter.
“It had me in a tracksuit coming out at the very end and doing a rap—like Kendall’s rap—to the other coffee brands,” Strong said. “I said, ‘I can’t do that.’”
Instead, Strong pitched Affleck on the idea of him playing an actor who is meant to be doing a silly rap, but becomes so obsessed with the details of the character he’s playing that he ruins the commercial.
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As inspiration, Strong looked to one of Hollywood’s most famously difficult productions, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” The shot of Strong rising out of the wet coffee grounds is a perfect match for Martin Sheen emerging from the mud in the Vietnam War epic.
“I would never want to do a commercial unless I could do it on my own terms, unless it could be genuinely funny and creative,” Strong told the magazine. “It was tantamount to hosting ‘Saturday Night Live,’ but for one sketch that I had time to really prepare for and do on my own terms.”
A Sudbury childhood memory
You wouldn’t know it if you only watched the 60-second ad that aired during the Super Bowl, but Strong’s role isn’t just as a difficult actor. In the seven-minute short film on YouTube, Strong plays Paul Revere — or rather, a difficult actor playing Paul Revere.
The film culminates with Strong delivering a proclamation as Revere, mixing Dunkin’ lingo with Revolutionary War-era jargon.
According to Strong, a childhood memory of growing up in Sudbury and going to Dunkin’ is what led him to the idea of playing Revere.
“When I was a kid, my dad used to send me into Dunkin’ Donuts in Sudbury where I was growing up,” Strong told Vanity Fair. “And he would say, ‘One cream, two sugars.’ I didn’t really know the nomenclature of coffee, but ‘one cream, two sugars,’ was something I really knew. And for some reason into my mind came Paul Revere saying, ‘one if by land, two if by sea.’ Then I was like, ‘I found it.'”
The Jeremy Strong method
Strong’s performance process for roles like Kendall Roy on “Succession” and Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice” has given him a reputation for being self-serious, even causing “Succession” co-star Brian Cox to call Strong’s devotion “f****** annoying.”
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While Strong disputed that characterization (“I’m not a very particularly intense person”), his preparation for the Dunkin’ Super Bowl commercial makes clear that his level of commitment is unwavering, regardless of the role.
Among the steps Strong took before shooting the ad:
- Ordered books about Colonial-era men
- Watched British town crier competitions on YouTube
- Watched the HBO docuseries “Ren Faire”
- Listened to “about a hundred tracks” of Revolutionary War era fife and drum music
According to Strong, his approach to work and life can be summed up in a pithy one-liner.
“I take my work really f****** seriously,” Strong said. “I don’t take myself really f****** seriously. There’s a difference.
“I thought this could be a way of playing a pretentious, unfunny person in a really funny way,” Strong continued. “Honestly, it had been a long time since I felt that measure of joy working on something.”
Watch the extended Dunkin’ Super Bowl 2025 commercial:
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