I meet Jeremy Strong on the winter solstice outside Sparsholt's hottest pub, which is also Sparsholt's only pub.
The population of this English village: roughly 900. The sheep population: more than that. Everything feels in tune with nature. The air is clean and damp and vegetal. The afternoon sun hangs low in the sky, illuminating fields so bucolic they make the Shire look like Times Square. And Jeremy Strong is dressed, as ever, entirely in brown.
Sweater, jacket, and corduroy pants, in shades that vary, by degrees barely perceptible to the human eye, from taupe to cappuccino to acorn. On his head: a brown bucket hat. On top of that hat: a second hat, a brown cashmere beanie.
"My wife told me that somebody said something like, 'The three things you're going to be certain of are death, taxes, and that Jeremy Strong will be wearing brown.
I don't know, it's inexplicable," he says about his uniform style, before providing multiple explanations.
Number one: "In a way, it's a metaphor for the rest of my life. I gravitate towards an extremely narrow band. That's all that I want and I don't want anything else."
Number two: "This is maybe half bullshit, but maybe not total bullshit: I spend so much of my life wearing costumes, I feel almost denuded in my style. It's so consistent and neutral that almost anytime I put on any wardrobe, I feel profoundly different from my baseline self."
Number three: "It's monastic. Monastic chic." Strong holds up a map. "I have a slight mission for us."
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