Logan Roy, the morally bankrupt media tycoon at the center of HBO’s Succession, is just one of the many complex characters Brian Cox has played throughout his career. In this segment from Hell & High Water, Brian Cox talks about playing iconic historical figures like Winston Churchill and Lyndon B. Johnson, and the importance of understanding the historical and cultural context in which they lived. He also explains how actors have to suspend judgment of the characters they play, especially in order to understand the motivations of infamously evil people like the Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring.
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.
