'' in 2010 Strong appeared in two
Prime Suspect serials for
ITV as Inspector (later Detective Chief Superintendent) Larry Hall, in
Prime Suspect 3 (1993) and
Prime Suspect 6 (2003). He also had starring roles in two
BBC Two drama serials,
Our Friends in the North (1996) and
The Long Firm (2004), earning a
BAFTA nomination for the latter. He also played the villainous Colonel Brand in ''
Sharpe's Mission'' (1996). He portrayed the romantic lead,
Mr. Knightley, in the 1996 ITV adaptation of
Jane Austen's novel
Emma. He then played the role of Steve in
the 1997 film adaptation of
Nick Hornby's
Fever Pitch. He dubbed
Daniel Craig's voice in the 1997 German-language film
Obsession. At the beginning of the 2000s, Strong appeared in
Heartlands and in
Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night at the
Donmar Warehouse, for which he was nominated for the
2003 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. He was later featured in
Roman Polanski's
Oliver Twist (2005), played Mussawi in the film
Syriana (2005), and played an assassin named Sorter in
Revolver (2005). He portrayed the traitorous Wictred in
Tristan & Isolde, showing his talent with swordplay, and from 2006 until 2012 he provided the narration in the
BBC's genealogy series
Who Do You Think You Are?. '' at the 2010
San Diego Comic-Con Despite the persistence of rumours, Strong maintains that he was never offered the part of
Anton Chigurh in the 2007 film
No Country for Old Men. That year he played Pinbacker, the insane captain of
Icarus I in
Sunshine. Also in 2007, he portrayed Prince Septimus, the youngest of the seven Stormhold princes, in
Stardust. In 2008, he played Nick Calderelli in
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Mannie Miesel in
Flashbacks of a Fool, Finn in
Babylon A.D., Archy in
RocknRolla, and
Philipp Bouhler in
Good. Also in 2008, he portrayed Hani Salaam, the
Jordanian intelligence chief and director of the feared
GID in
Body of Lies, marking his first collaboration with English director
Ridley Scott. Strong's performance as Hani Salaam earned him a nomination for the
London Critics Circle Film Award for Best British Supporting Actor, and his performance was mentioned by several critics, with Scott calling it "a marvel of exotic suavity and cool insinuation" while Ebert "particularly admired" his aura of suave control. In 2009, Strong played a lead part in the
Channel 4 film
Endgame, and he played Lord Blackwood, the main villain, in
Sherlock Holmes, who has somehow returned after his execution with a plot to take over the British Empire using an arsenal of dark arts and new technologies. It was his third project with director
Guy Ritchie. He went on to work with Ridley Scott a second time in the 2010 epic adventure film
Robin Hood, portraying antagonist Sir Godfrey. That year, he also played Frank D'Amico, the head of a criminal organisation, in
Kick-Ass. Strong says he is drawn to playing antagonists, trying to "understand the purpose of the character" and building a believable individual. In 2011, Strong played
Thaal Sinestro, a
Green Lantern and
Hal Jordan's mentor, in the superhero film
Green Lantern. Strong said the film "closely follows the early comics" and elaborated, "Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan's mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him." Strong went on to state that the character "is a military guy but isn't immediately bad". He also revealed that the outfit and other aspects of the character closely follow his early comic history. Also in 2011, he voiced Pod in
The Secret World of Arrietty and Captain Titus of the Ultramarines Chapter in the video game
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The same year, Strong played
Jim Prideaux in the
film adaptation of
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which was earlier played by
Ian Bannen in the 1979 series. The film premiered in competition at the
68th Venice International Film Festival on 5 September 2011. Strong played Clive Cornell in
The Guard (2011), which is the most successful independent Irish film of all time in terms of Irish box-office receipts, overtaking
The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006). He next portrayed the role of Jacob Sternwood in the British thriller
Welcome to the Punch. He played Matai Shang, the leader of the Therns in
John Carter (2012), and starred in the action thriller film
Zero Dark Thirty (2012). The film had its premiere in Los Angeles on 19 December 2012 and had its wide release on 11 January 2013. The film received wide critical acclaim and was nominated for five
Academy Awards, including
Best Picture. In November 2012, Strong was cast in
Mindscape, a film in which a man with the ability to enter people's memories begins working on the case of a brilliant but problematic teenager to determine whether she is a sociopath or the victim of trauma. The film came to American cinemas in June 2014.
Jaguar Cars produced an advertisement in 2014, initially shown during
Super Bowl XLVIII and later online and on television, featuring Strong alongside fellow English actors
Ben Kingsley and
Tom Hiddleston. It was themed around their recent film roles as villains, and used the tagline "it's good to be bad". That same year, Strong co-starred in the historical drama film
The Imitation Game as MI6 chief
Stewart Menzies. In 2015, Strong won the
Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role in
A View from the Bridge, which he starred in as Eddie Carbone at the Young Vic. When Strong went over to perform the play on Broadway in New York, he received similar levels of acclaim, and was nominated for the
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play and the
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance. In 2016, he co-starred with
Sacha Baron Cohen in the action-comedy film
Grimsby, playing a top
MI6 secret agent with Cohen as his idiotic football hooligan brother. Later that year, he starred in a production of
The Red Barn, by David Hare, which premiered in October 2016 at the National Theatre, (Lyttelton Stage), and co-starred in the
political thriller Miss Sloane, directed by
John Madden. The film premiered at the
AFI Film Festival in November 2016. Since 2017, Strong has narrated the pre-show etiquette clips presented before films at
Vue Cinemas. In 2018, he starred in the hostage thriller
Stockholm, and had the leading role in Fox network's
Deep State, an espionage thriller in which he portrays an ex-spy named Max Easton, who after the death of his son, is brought out of retirement unwillingly, to avenge his death. In 2019, he portrayed the villain
Doctor Thaddeus Sivana in the superhero film
Shazam!. In the same year, Strong appeared briefly as the British Captain Smith in
Sam Mendes’ World War I film
1917. In March 2020, Strong narrated
public information films for the
UK government which outlined how the British public should approach daily life during the
COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2021, Strong was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's
Desert Island Discs. Later that same year, he co-starred in the Disney comedy-drama film
Cruella. ==In the media==