Brian Cox once beat himself up to avoid fighting another kid in school

It doesn’t matter if he’s in the boardrooms of Waystar Royco or the great halls of Rohan. Brian Cox is gonna Brian Cox. The Succession star is traveling from Manhattan to Middle Earth to lend his voice to New Line Cinema’s upcoming Lord Of The Rings prequel—an anime-inspired adventure called The War Of The Rohirrim—and he took some time to discuss the film during a panel at New York Comic Con today. What the assembled crowd learned—despite host Stephen Colbert’s best attempts to actually keep the thing Tolkien-focused—is that his character, fearsome King of Rohan Helm Hammerhand, is still a Brian Cox creation at the end of the day. And that’s pretty much the only tease we got. “Yeah, he’s called Hammerhand,” Cox replied when Colbert asked him to speak a bit about his character and his motivations. Period. 

Fans did get a bit of Brian Cox lore after Colbert asked the three voice actors in attendance (Cox, Gaia Wise, and Luke Pasqualino) to do their best vocal impression of getting punched in the face. While the other two went full out, Cox gave a demure “uh” before launching into his own epic tale. “I’ll tell you a story,” he began. “When I was a kid, there was a guy who was challenged in school. I was in primary school and I was a bit of an idiot. Kids can be incredibly cruel, and these cruel kids wanted me to fight him.” Cox didn’t want to fight him but he also couldn’t get the bullies off his back, so he made up a solution that feels like it could have come straight out of the Connor Roy playbook. “What I did was beat myself up,” he said, finally giving Colbert all the punch noises he wanted so badly, “and they all left me alone. Good tip for children.”

When Colbert later followed up to ask why Cox didn’t commit to the bit earlier, he answered simply, “You asked me how Helm would punch.” Now that’s a good, kingly response. 

Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim premieres December 13.