When he was a recent graduate of the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Art in the mid-1990s, Danny Strong’s goals were modest. The future polymath only wanted to be able to pay his rent out of his earnings as an actor.
It took about 18 months, but he got there. And it wasn’t because he was lucky in a streak that rocked a tight-knit web.
“It was shoddy business,” Strong remembers. “It was this ad, this guest star role, that little part in a movie, that big part in a little movie. They were radio ads, all of the above. And endless animation job testing that I never booked.” Over time, Strong realized that during guest shots on “Seinfeld”, “Third Rock from the Sun” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, which later blossomed into a recurring role, paying his bills, his career in general wasn’t progressing. The frustration and “mild depression” this caused him pushed him into the work that would have brought him the most satisfaction and his greatest success: writing.
Strong’s most recent project, Hulu’s “Dopesick,” is the Emmy’s favorite contestant thanks to a superb performance by star Michael Keaton. Exploring the roots of America’s opioid crisis from eight episodes, from 20th Fox TV, aligns with a series of timely and provocative themes he tackled as writer, producer and director.
The limited series of dueling views of the wealthy family behind Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin and influence unfolds in small towns ravaged by the company’s aggressive marketing tactics and hard sell with doctors. The series, loosely adapted from the book of the same name by journalist Beth Macy, was hailed for its clear insight into business decisions by the Sackler clan that helped fuel a three-digit rise in opioid overdoses beginning in the late 1990s. .
Michael Keaton won awards for his role as a doctor in the movie Dopesick.
Courtesy of Hulu
For Strong, having members of Congress hear their voices discuss Dubcek as part of hearings about the tragic consequences of opioid addiction was astonishing. The reaction from all sides was nothing short of a move, even during production in Virginia in 2020.
“A lot of our crew was from Virginia, North Carolina and places this devastated. I felt like we were on this collective mission, because it seemed at the time that there would never be any accountability for Sackler,” Strong says.
The strong “Dopesick” awards have continued so far—the show has already won a Peabody, Golden Globe and SAG Awards for Keaton—adding more fuel to Strong’s fire as producer and writer.
Strong scored massive success on the series in 2015 with “Empire,” a sudsy Fox drama that he co-created and executive produced with Lee Daniels for six seasons. In 2017, he made his directorial debut in JD Salinger’s biopic Rebel in the Rye. Strong made his mark as screenwriter in 2014 “Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1” and 2015 “Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.”
But it didn’t happen overnight, he wrote script after script, but it took him seven years to make his first sale. The project? “The Recount,” the critically acclaimed 2008 HBO thriller about the legal drama Bush v. Gore that followed the 2000 presidential election. Four years later, Strong reunited with “Recount” director Jay Roach for another HBO campaign story, 2012’s “Changing the Game.” “. This title has received two solid Emmy Award wins, for writing and for dedicated films/TV series.
Roach was impressed by Strong’s work ethic and dedication to the search for “re-screening”. Strong took the journalistic approach of interviewing everyone associated with the George W. Bush and Al Gore campaigns to paint the most accurate and impartial picture of the narrative of the legal battle that decided the 2000 election in Bush’s favour.
“For a screenwriter, I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Roach says. “The work that Danny has done has made him feel more authentic and made us more confident about our images. I feel very lucky to enter Danny’s world.”
For Strong, it was writing that allowed him to control his own destiny.
“The writing was the thing that took my mind off my career issues,” he says. “Acting gives you confidence, but when I get rejected, it was a double whammy. There was a lot of rejection that went on for a really long time and on multiple fronts. It’s amazing that I kept [writing] Absolutely.”
“Dopesick” was born when producer John Goldwyn reached out to Strong after “Rebel in the Rye” with the suggestion that he make a movie about opioid abuse. Strong’s research convinced him that the story was too sprawling to fit into a feature film.
As a series, “Dopesick” was rejected across town until FX offered a development deal. Several drafts later, FX passed, much to Strong’s astonishment. But the project had an important protagonist in Dana Walden, Disney’s head of general entertainment content who oversees 20th Television and Hulu.
“I literally see Dana Walden as the patron saint of ‘Dubsick,'” Strong says. ‘I was made because of her.’
Like many of Strong’s collaborators, Walden says multhyphenate’s commitment to the projects he does becomes infectious.
“Danny is a passionate advocate for social justice, and he uses his platform as a creator and entertainer to tell important stories that give a voice to the voiceless,” Walden says. diverse. His work is filled with powerful messages that move people, while also entertaining them. ‘Dopesick’ is a great example of Danny’s ability to thread that needle. Not only has his vision earned a loyal audience of Hulu who stayed engaged until the last episode, but it also received enthusiastic reviews and award recognition, Including Peabody”.
Strong knew that “Dopesick” would be a quality project once Keaton signed it up. Production during 2020 has been challenging.
“It was a raging epidemic, and there were no vaccines in sight,” Strong says.
Keaton’s schedule required that his scenes be filmed within six weeks. It was a blessing in disguise, especially because of the depth of emotion that Keaton, in his role as country doctor Samuel Phoenix, brought to his scenes with Kaitlyn Dever. She played a young woman with an addiction that began with a prescription he wrote for her for pain relief after a back injury.
‘No matter what happened, I knew I had the gold for the rest of the shoot. Sometimes when you’re shooting, you start to wonder, ‘Will this be fun? Is this going to work?’ Make it easier.”
As “Dopesick” drums during the Emmy season, Strong is pleased to be seen as an example of using storytelling to bring true tragedy home. The transformation of POVs from the splendor of the Sacklers’ world to the devastating toll drug addiction is taking on Dever’s character evokes an undeniable level of emotion.
“To show them coming up with these dishonest marketing campaigns, and then cutting the way for a normal person getting the drug from their doctor and suffering because of the lies we see — it’s powerful,” Strong says. “It really is a terrible way to document what happened.”
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