Brian Cox

Brian Cox (born June 1, 1946, Dundee, Scotland) is a Scottish actor best known for playing the tyrannical media mogul Logan Roy in the comedy-drama television series Succession (2018–23). He is also known for portraying Nazi Party leader Hermann Göring in the historical drama miniseries Nuremberg (2000). Cox has had a long career in theatre, film, and television with a knack for playing villainous characters.

Early life

Cox is the youngest child of Mary Ann Guillerline (née McCann) Cox, who worked in the textile industry, and Charles McArdle Campbell Cox, who was a grocery shopkeeper. His father often helped people in need, giving food to his customers on credit. He died of pancreatic cancer when Brian Cox was just eight years old, and there was virtually no money left for the family, which became destitute. Cox would often have to ask shopkeepers if they could spare any leftover food, such as pan scraps from the local fish and chips shop, and bring it home for dinner. His mother suffered several nervous breakdowns, and his elder sisters raised him. Cox quit school just before his 15th birthday, and he performed errands and chores at the Dundee Repertory Theatre, occasionally sleeping there. When he was 17 he received a full scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1965. He has said that acting provided an escape from the hardships of his tough and lonely childhood.

Career

Cox made his London theatre debut in a 1967 production of William Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It as the sensitive romantic lead, Orlando. He went on to portray Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in the historical drama film Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). In the 1980s he started landing regular roles in television and film, including a turn as Father Jan Góra in the biographical television movie Pope John Paul II (1984). He played Dr. Hannibal Lecktor in the thriller film Manhunter in 1986, five years before actor Anthony Hopkins played the character (now spelled Hannibal Lecter) in the suspense film The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Cox continued to work in the theatre, making his Broadway debut in a 1985 production of Eugene O’Neill’s experimental play Strange Interlude. He won an Olivier Award in 1988 for his performance in Shakespeare’s tragedy Titus Andronicus, and he garnered critical acclaim for playing the title role in the Royal National Theatre company’s production of King Lear (1990).

Cox returned to film in the mid-1990s, portraying Argyle Wallace, uncle of protagonist William Wallace, in the historical drama Braveheart (1995). He went on to appear in the science fiction thriller Chain Reaction (1996), the police action-comedy The Glimmer Man (1996), the thriller The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), the sports drama The Boxer (1997), and the comedy Rushmore (1998). He won an Emmy Award for outstanding performance in a miniseries or a movie in 2001 for his portrayal of Hermann Göring in the historical miniseries Nuremberg.

He continued to appear in feature films in the 2000s, such as the comedy Super Troopers (2001), the drama L.I.E. (2001), the spy thrillers The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and the supernatural horror film The Ring (2002). He portrayed the father of middle-aged aspiring Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Morris (played by Dennis Quaid) in the sports drama The Rookie (2002). Cox played the villainous colonel William Stryker in the superhero film X2: X-Men United in 2003, and he portrayed the wealthy father-in-law of a former professional tennis player in director Woody Allen’s psychological thriller Match Point (2005). Cox’s career continued to gain momentum over the next 10 years, as he landed roles in the comedy-drama film Running with Scissors (2006), the Western television series Deadwood (2006), the science fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), and the miniseries drama The Slap (2015).

In Succession, Cox plays Logan Roy, the Roy family patriarch and founder of the media corporation Waystar Royco, a character who resembles media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch. Roy’s entitled children battle over who will succeed him when he dies. Cox has stated that he relates to the hard-hearted Roy in a way, saying that he also harbours a lot of anger, in part because of his tough upbringing. In 2020 he won a Golden Globe Award for best performance by an actor in a television series drama for his work on Succession. Cox and the rest of the cast won a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series in 2022.

Cox has publicly disagreed with fellow Succession cast member Jeremy Strong’s approach to acting, telling NPR that he found it annoying when Strong, who plays Roy’s son Kendall, stayed in character between takes, a technique that Cox dislikes. He believes that actors should to be able to walk away from their characters, or else they risk losing their sense of perspective.

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When Cox finished writing his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (2022), he reportedly became depressed, because it made him wonder if the book represented the complete summation of his life. He serves as a narrator and interviewer in the television documentary, Brian Cox: How the Other Half Live (2022), which highlights the growing wealth gap between rich and poor people around the world. He said in 2020 that—because of his support for Scottish independence—he regretted becoming a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2003 and that he would never accept a knighthood.