Brian Cox really hated Napoleon

If Brian Cox were the one launching cannonballs at the pyramids with Ridley Scott, it wouldn’t have gone down like it did. This revelation comes from Brian Cox himself, who launched into a veritable tirade against the director’s Napoleon at a history event panel in London this week, with some extra, seemingly unprompted vitriol towards the film’s leading man. “Terrible. It’s terrible. A truly terrible performance by Joaquin Phoenix. It really is appalling,” he said (via British outlet The Standard). “I don’t know what he was thinking. I think it’s totally his fault and I don’t think Ridley Scott helps him.”

In all fairness to Cox, Phoenix’s portrayal of the notorious general was pretty out there. Some people loved it. In his B+ review of the film for The A.V. Club, Brent Simon wrote that “there’s an ingenious simplicity to his performance here, grounded as it is in compartmentalization.” On the other hand, Uproxx’s Mike Ryan wrote that “it’s like watching Tim Robinson play Napoleon,” which, in this writer’s experience, is also pretty damn accurate.

But Cox wasn’t just speaking as a critic. “I would have played it a lot better than Joaquin Phoenix, I tell you that,” he went on. “I think he’s well named. Joaquin…wackeen… wacky. It’s a sort of wacky performance.”

This is obviously a wild statement even for a certified hater like Brian Cox, but apart from the fact that he’s probably too scary to play a figure as often pathetic as Bonaparte (at least in Scott’s vision), he’s also far too old. Cox is currently 77, while Napoleon died at just 51—not to mention the fact that the film spans multiple decades. This isn’t to age-shame Cox; he seems to care far more about historical accuracy than Scott ever did. “You can say it’s good drama. No—it’s lies,” he said of the film, later critiquing Braveheart (“a load of nonsense”) for committing the exact same sin. It seems like Cox may really just be jealous that Phoenix got to yell at someone for thinking they’re so great because they have boats, while his Succession character (spoiler alert!) never actually made it onto the yacht for his son’s wedding during his final outing on the show.