The actor talks about who’s in the running to take over from Logan Roy — and lets rip at everyone from Tony Blair to JK Rowling.
And now the end is near — and if anybody has done it their way it is Logan Roy. Brian Cox’s powerhouse is the clear star of Succession, swatting aside attention-seeking kids with his sheer presence and Anglo-Saxon oaths. Kendall, Roman and Shiv may have awards and millions of fans, but they orbit their father. They need him as much as the show does and, in the fourth and final series, starting tomorrow, the patriarch is more resolute than ever. Regrets? Well, actually, he has a few.
“The family has been exposed,” Cox says. “They’ve been found wanting in the succession struggle. That’s Logan’s regret. His children have not stepped up to the plate, so now we go in a different direction.” Which is intriguing — the series has always been about which child will take the reins. Is he OK with the show ending? “I really love it, but it’s like life — it comes to an end,” he says with a shrug. “A lot of people were tearful. Not me!” He bursts out laughing. “I’m happy.”
We meet in London for a coffee. Cox, 76, is in a casual jacket and shirt, like Logan in one of his many holiday homes from the Hamptons to Hungary. The black baseball cap worn by Logan is to one side, and that is not the only way art bleeds into life. The actor is calm, measured — until he is not. When the cussing fury so aligned with the role of his lifetime spills out, you realise that, while he has been sublime in this era-dominating show, sometimes he might barely have been acting at all.
As such Vladimir Putin is a “f***ing idiot . . . stupid f***ing Putin”. Tony Blair? “F***ing idiot . . . F***ing idiot.” The rival series Billions, also about the super-rich, is “past its sell-by date”. He even takes aim at the arc of Succession: “You beat the same tambourine, the tambourine of succession,” it can get “tedious”. Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is “immoral”. Liz Truss is “totally ridiculous”. Finally, he has special ire for Michael Gove as the Scottish face of a Johnson government that Cox gave a chance to before they “failed”. Gove? “A treacherous f***ing bastard.”
First, however, we talk about the end. The fourth series of Succession starts with the proposed buyout of Logan’s WayStar Royco company by the tech bro Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard). Logan’s kids have been cut out of the deal and are looking to disrupt it. Early exchanges feel fresh after a repetitive third season creatively sapped by being filmed in the pandemic. The first episode is the creator Jesse Armstrong at his best: tense, funny, operatic. It is time to go out not with a whimper but, perhaps, an acquisition. Or a succession.
Cox is electric at playing villains. Or antiheroes. Titus Andronicus in a hugely acclaimed stage take on the Shakespeare tragedy; Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter, before Anthony Hopkins took over; a key baddie in the Bourne franchise. And Logan. He thinks they all, as humans, deserve understanding. “We’re all messed up, nobody is exempt,” he says. He knows how early pain can have a lasting impact. His father died when he was eight and his mother had a breakdown and was hospitalised. He was brought up by his sisters.
“I don’t believe in God — it’s a nonsense,” he says. (Logan says something similar in the new series.) “When you die, you die. But humans are not interested in who we are any more. Where are we? Why are we making the same mistakes? It’s because of religion. We are locked into belief systems that say, ‘We can deal with it over there.’ But the only place you can deal with problems is here. We really need to find out who we are.”
Art, he believes — the theatre, television like Succession — can help with that, filling gaps between black and white. Are there limits to his empathy? “Yes, most of the Tory party. We’ve lived through the worst political time ever and the guy who didn’t help it all, because of his hubris, was Tony Blair . . .”
Time for a breather. Get Cox on to politics and he’ll erupt like a caller on a free-for-all late-night radio phone-in. Which is not to say he is wrong. Rather, like most people with a lot of opinions, some hit, some miss. All entertain.
He was born in 1946 in Dundee (like Logan), the youngest of five. He has four children of his own from three marriages and splits his time between New York and London. He was a beast on stage when he was younger, winning two Oliviers in the Eighties. Screen work came — he was in the landmark films Braveheart and Rushmore — but rarely lead roles. Succession changed all that and his career before that show was thrashed about openly in a recent memoir. Everybody from Quentin Tarantino to Johnny Depp felt his wrath. One actor he liked, though, was Morgan Freeman — described as “the Morgan Freeman you encounter in your dreams”.
He grins. When Cox likes you he likes you a lot. And what is the Brian Cox people encounter in their dreams? “No idea!” he scoffs. But, of course, he summons up an answer: “Cantankerous. Opinionated. Big mouth.”
In the week we meet I look up his views on various “woke” issues and the SNP leadership. He would have liked Angus Robertson, who is not running, to take over after Nicola Sturgeon and is against Kate Forbes because he’s suspicious of her Wee Free religious faith.
What does he say to those who argue that a man who lives in Primrose Hill should not pontificate about Scotland? “People don’t realise how much time I spend there,” he replies. “When you have roots, you’re rooted, but not bound by your roots. They make you free. You can’t rule out someone who left 40 years ago and made a success of it.” Which is marvellous grist for clickbait’s mill, but, I wonder, why does he voice so many opinions so deep into the putting-feet-up stage of a career?
“Because for a long time one has been afraid to speak,” he says, sombrely. “When I was younger I felt I didn’t know anything. But I’m 76 now and so, maybe, I have earned a right. Especially when so many opinions around me are wrong.” He is not joking. “I don’t feel trammelled in the way I did. I love the UK, but it is feudal. I suffered from that a lot in life and I didn’t think I was worthy enough, or educated. I was not in control, but as you get older you think, ‘I’m not afraid of my opinion.’”
This leadsearne to his comments — negative, clearly — about “ten years of this government” and then “Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld”. His voice starts to pant. Yet his greatest rage is reserved for Blair. He does a derisive whiny impression of the former prime minister and fixes me with a death stare as he calls him a “f***ing idiot” for invading Iraq. In brief? He was “bollock ignorant”.
Then we get on to JK Rowling. Cox is vehemently against the haranguing of the writer for her take on transgender issues and the self-ID debate. “Whatever you think of her,” he says, “she’s entitled to a view about her own body and womanhood because she’s a woman. You can disagree but can’t castigate her. Who are you?”
That said, he remains a huge admirer of the outgoing SNP leader Sturgeon, who pushed through the Gender Recognition Reform bill that Rowling calls “the biggest assault” on women’s rights. The bill was passed by Scotland’s parliament but later blocked by royal assent. Remarkably, on this topic Cox is at his most measured, most un-Logan. He calls Sturgeon a leader “of incredible passion who got hoisted by the transgender stuff, but at least Scotland said, ‘We have to do something about this.’”
Does he think, as the reform wanted, that 16-year-olds can make a legal decision about changing their gender? No. Does he think that is the end of the debate? No.
“Transgenderism has to be talked about,” he says. “It has to be understood. Because I’m hearing about kids aged 12 or 13 who are questioning their gender. And that’s fine. There’s a reality to that, but also a fantasy. You can’t damn them. But you’ve got to understand the climate they live in. They want an answer, but there aren’t easy answers. And gross simplification makes things slightly barbaric.
“We need a conversation of compassion. For both elements. A woman is entitled to views about her body and to feel critical of the transgender movement. She might not be right, but she is entitled and we forget that. We’re so ready to damn people. It’s a modern form of McCarthyism.”
Back to his day job. Cox thinks about his character Logan deeply, albeit not as deeply as Jeremy Strong does about Kendall. Strong is a devoted method actor who won’t talk to his co-stars for fear of contaminating his performance. “Needless,” Cox scoffs. “You burn yourself out. Look at Daniel Day-Lewis — he retired at 55. You stupid bugger! I’ve had the best roles of my life since my sixties.” How, then, does he play Logan? “I just do the scene.”
I am not so sure. Cox has a lot of backstory for a character he claims to just turn up and play. Or, perhaps, he simply mines his own life. He believes the mogul started as a “young hopeful liberal who became this right-wing misanthrope based on how the world did not live up to his expectations”. He also believes Logan was abused as a child. “He doesn’t believe in the human race,” he adds. “He believes we’re a bunch of tossers and I can partly agree. But I’m an optimist.”
He could talk for days. I could observe for days, seeing where Cox ends and Logan begins. We wrap up on whether Succession could have a spin-off show. At a push he eventually says Matthew Macfadyen’s sneaky Tom Wambsgans could work. But definitely not Logan. “He is a wonderful role,” Cox says with a smile of the man we will miss the most. “But it’s not the be-all and end-all. I’ll do something else now.’”
Logan Roy aka Brian Cox on who may succeed him
Kendall Roy, son
Played by Jeremy Strong; former frontrunner, has substance issues
”Logan has this endless struggle with his children. He wants one to be the successor, but they’ve not shown worth. But he knows there is a statute of limitations on his life. Still, Kendall is non-functional as a leader. He’s abused himself so much and also has the death of the boy from series one.”
Chances: 5/10
Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, daughter
Played by Sarah Snook; politico, back in the fold
”There has been no patriarchy in Logan’s life. We hear about his sister and mother, but no father, but Siobhan has proved to be such a big mouth — she can’t shut up for five minutes.”
Chances: 3/10
Roman Roy, son
Played by Kieran Culkin; joker, sex deviant, smart
”My hope is Roman sorts his potty mouth. He is the child who always comes up with positive ideas which are not self-serving. I suspect he loves his father the most. But, of course, he sent him the dick pic [in series three].”
Chances: 7/10
Or could it be . . .
Tom Wambsgans, son-in-law
Played by Matthew Macfadyen; slippery
”He is the one person who has shown physical care to old Logan, when he had the urinary infection [in series three] — unlike the children. Logan remembers that. And Logan’s no fool. He sees how badly Shiv treats her husband. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to Tom.”
Chances: 8/10
Succession season 4 is available to watch Mondays 8.30pm on SoHo and streaming on Neon.
Written by: Jonathan Dean
© The Times of London