While Brian Cox is best known for playing the billionaire media mogul Logan Roy on the hit HBO show Succession, he has had a long and distinguished career on stage, film, and television. In this segment from Hell & High Water with John Heilemann, Brian Cox discusses his background in theater, how Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus “saved him,” and what it was like to play Hannibal Lecter. He also shares his experience working on the post-9/11 film 25th Hour with Spike Lee, who Cox describes as one of the best directors he has ever collaborated with.
Click Here to watch John Heilemann and Brian Cox dissect Succession and how the struggles of Logan and his scheming, hapless progeny reveal the corrosive effects of money, power, and privilege; Cox’s delightful and at times dishy new memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, and some of his most famous roles on stage and screen; and his withering disdain for method acting and mischievous pride in being a “good old-fashioned shit-stirrer”—as demonstrated by the well-publicized shade-throwing in his book at Johnny Depp, Edward Norton, and Quentin Tarantino. Cox also discusses his performances as big historical figures such as Churchill, Goering, and LBJ, and whether he’d ever be keen to play Donald Trump (spoiler alert: nope).
