Brian Cox attends the HBO Max premiere of Succession in 2023. Photo / Getty Images
Brian Cox attends the HBO Max premiere of Succession in 2023. Photo / Getty Images
The veteran actor on Hollywood perks and the joy of ironing.
Actor Brian Cox, 77, was born in Dundee. A classically trained Shakespearean actor, he has won two Laurence Olivier awards. He is best known for starring as Logan Roy in the HBO series Succession, for which he won aGolden Globe and was nominated for three Emmys. He lives between London and New York with his wife. He has three sons and a daughter.
I’m a workaholic. Everybody says, how do you do so much? The answer is because I enjoy it. Acting is a great life. I wouldn’t knock it for all the tea in China. But it’s a life full of disappointment. You have to know how to manage rejection.
There are some good Hollywood perks. When you go to an awards show there are people giving away gifts, so I’ve just landed myself a huge coffee machine.
I left school when I was 15. I was a fish out of water. I was at a technical school, and I was hopeless at woodwork. It just wasn’t who I was. I always wanted to be an actor since the age of three. Fortunately, I had two great teachers who looked out for me. One of them was an amateur opera singer and a great theatre lover.
As Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter (1986). Photo / Supplied
My father left £10 ($20) in the bank when he died. Sadly, he passed at a ridiculously young age. He was only 51. He was a grocer and he did well but he made bad investments. It was a poor area, so when he died there were a lot of credit people in the neighbourhood never paid. It meant we moved into poverty from being lower middle class. We skipped working class.
After my mother’s massive nervous breakdown, she was given electric shock treatment. A lot of her long-term memory was eviscerated so my sisters helped bring me up. My eldest sister was very good to me. She had two kids with her husband, and they lived in two rooms. It was very modest. She’d take me in and I’d sleep with the kids in one bed. We shared one toilet between five families.
I’ve been blessed with a good voice. Radio is first and foremost about the voice. I love radio because you don’t have to wear a costume. You don’t have to learn your lines. You don’t have to wear make-up. So it’s very gratifying.
With Succession cast members Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Nicholas Braun. Photo / Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet, The New York Times
I got my first job at the local repertory theatre in Dundee. I started out as the assistant to the artistic director. She’d give me the earnings in cash to take to the bank. Imagine trusting a 15-year-old boy with that! I could have scarpered. I’d also wash the stage. After several months, I moved up the ranks and became the worst stage manager ever. On one occasion I forgot to take up the safety curtain.
Logan Roy is a much tougher personality than I am. I’m equivocal while he’s an absolutist. I realised he’s a man who lost something along the way. He’d lost a sense of purpose — or at least his purpose became very different. It was all tied up with greed.
The Succession set was very convivial. One of the best things was watching the chaos that was Kieran Culkin emerge as an extraordinary actor. I love Kieran. I think he’s divine. He makes me laugh considerably. I’m so happy that he got the Emmy because he deserved it. Watching the different dynamics at play is funny. You’ve got somebody like Matthew Macfadyen, who is no-nonsense — he just comes in and does his lines. And then you have Jeremy Strong, who is so intense.
The secret to a good marriage? Separate bedrooms. You visit one another. Your partner must feel free. My first marriage broke down because I was in my most ambitious period and I was ignoring a lot of stuff that was going on. My wife was very smart financially, and she did really well — she kept me afloat. But it was a strain on the pair of us and it broke us up.
My ideal weekend is to do nothing. I like to absolutely vegetate. To me, that is the luxury of luxuries.
Parenting is hard. My kids say I’m not bad. But I don’t consider myself any good. When you lose your father at the age of eight and your mother becomes crazy for a while, it’s very hard to know what parenting is about.
I love my ironing board. I don’t know why, but ironing is a meditation for me.
