by Gill Pringle
When we speak with Brian Cox, it’s still several months before the world will say goodbye to his unforgettable creation of Logan Roy on award-winning drama series, Succession.
With 200 credits to his name, the Shakespearean-trained veteran of stage and screen still finds himself delighted by his unlikely rise to fame after almost 60 years in the business.
Portraying the ruthless Rupert Murdoch-esque media baron and patriarch across four seasons has brought him endless amusement – especially when young fans approach him with phones demanding that he repeat his signature Logan Roy line of “fuck off”. Surely it would be rude not to oblige?
“And of course, it’s the easiest thing to tell people to fuck off. And now they’re telling me to say ‘fuck off’. Isn’t that great? Human beings are so silly!” he laughs.
“But seriously, it’s been great. After 60 years in this business, it’s a nice feeling to finally have people know who I am! It never bothered me before. I just got on with the job, but now I’ve become all kinds of things, which I’d never have thought – like, I’m even a fashion icon now apparently.”
Today, we are here to discuss a role which is equally close to Brian Cox’s heart, portraying Max, a dying convict granted compassionate release in Catherine Hardwicke’s independent drama, Prisoner’s Daughter.
Once on the outside, he tries to reconnect with his daughter and the grandson he’s never known – but his violent past comes back to haunt them all.
If the father-daughter reunion is uneasy then, in real life, Kate Beckinsale – who plays his daughter Maxine – couldn’t have been happier at their reunion, having co-starred three decades earlier in Royal Deceit, a drama loosely modeled on Hamlet.
“Yes, apparently I played Kate’s father before. I’d actually forgotten – because I forget everything. I’m at that age now,” he muses.
But some memories last forever and it wasn’t hard for him to summon up the visceral sense of violence he experienced growing up in Dundee, Scotland, in order to play Max, a hardened career criminal.
“I grew up in a reasonably rough environment, so I kind of knew a lot of would-be Maxes and some of those kids ended up in jail. Dundee was a tough town, so I could see where that kind of criminality sprang from,” he says.
“Going back to my childhood, some of the boys I grew up with thought nothing of beating you up on the playground. I remember when I was a kid, I was encouraged to fight a chap who, on reflection, was probably autistic, and he was regarded as a bit of a joke. Now I didn’t regard him as a joke but the other kids did, and kids can be really cruel. And they wanted me to fight him – and the only way I could deal with it was by beating myself up. I literally threw myself on the ground in the playground and started hitting myself. Everybody got rather nervous and then they all quietly slipped away. So, I’ve learned about violence – and also how to avoid it – from a very early age,” he says.
Beyond that, he understands that all screen violence is stage craft and learning how to fake it. “So, you’ve got to be fit, but you’ve also got to be realistic.”
In playing a prisoner who’s at the top of the food chain, he quickly learnt about the systems in place. “What was interesting is the camaraderie, the sense of honour between thieves. And also, Mark’s script which, I think is very accurate. I mean, there’s very strong biographical elements – not his biography – but biographical of people he knows, which is very evident,” he says of writer Mark Bacci.
“So, all that makes my job so much easier, because it’s true. The toughness and the fact that there is an honour between them and how they behave honourably to one another, which is how Max was able to get the money to do the house, stuff that should have been done years ago. And the fact that his daughter is in dire straits, so all of that, I thought really added to it.
“And Max’s own history, of course, is something else because he’s very bad in a way. He’s got that violent streak in him that comes out when it’s really been pushed, but he’s constantly resisting it and constantly saying: ‘I’m never going to go down that road’. And suddenly, finally, he’s forced down that road.”
In reality, Cox doesn’t mind admitting that he’s a bit of a softie. “I’m marshmallow soft,” he laughs.
Also, it wasn’t too hard for him to imagine being a doting dad to Beckinsale. “Kate is an absolute joy to work with and a consummate actress. She’s got a greater range than people imagine. She’s very gifted and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in a long time,” he says.
The feeling was mutual, Beckinsale confessing that Cox has been the screensaver on her phone for quite some time. “I love that man. I’m such a fan anyway, from such a young age, and then we just got on so well on this, and I think we approached the work quite similarly. And we just loved each other. He’s just my kind of person. We laughed a lot, which might be surprising because a lot of our scenes are quite emotionally tough, but we just had a really good bond. We keep threatening to do a comedy and work together again. He’s one of my favourite people in the world,” she says.
At 77 years old, Cox has become accustomed to portraying characters who are facing their mortality and his role in Prisoner’s Daughter is no different. “But I think it’s with us every day. I’ve lost some of my closest and most influential people in my life and I’m heading that way too.
“Touch wood, I’m fine at the moment, but you live with that sense of mortality every day, and it helps feed the work,” he says.
When he’s not busy acting or writing, Cox enjoys passing on his wisdom to young actors.
“When I’m teaching, I always say to my students: ‘Please always carry a photograph of yourself as a child – because that’s who you are. This is what age does’,” he says, wryly indicating himself. “But that child is still there, that essence. And I think we all feel the same. We walk past a mirror and go, ‘Oh, Christ, is that… oh, it’s me. Oh, God, I’ve got old’, but I haven’t changed on the inside. I remember once I was in the toilet, and there was a mirror and I looked and said, ‘Who’s that old guy behind me?’ – and it was me. I just thought, wow, it’s me. Of course. What an idiot. I’ve got old.”
Prisoner’s Daughter is streaming now on Prime Video
