Brian Cox: It's not easy being a cultural icon
Succession's Brian Cox talks to Emily Blunt about being the "f**k off man" and being jealous of Meryl Streep
Maybe now that Succession is over, fewer people will be asking Brian Cox to tell them to fuck off. Unfortunately for him—since he’s famously weary of this request—the beloved show seems to have cemented him as everyone’s favorite angry dad. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and Cox is well aware of the burden of this particular peak of fame, as he tells Emily Blunt in Variety’s latest Actors on Actors interview.
“I’ve been doing this for 60 years. … But now I am the ‘fuck off’ man. It has its charm. I’m not knocking it, believe you me, I’m not knocking it. But at the same time, it’s not easy… to be an icon. And a cultural icon at that. As they say in Scotland, it’s an awfully big job for one wee boy,” Cox shares.
This dynamic even bleeds into his relationship with his actual kids, whom he is not sure are proud of him: “It’s very hard, because my eldest son is an actor, he’s a very fine actor, actually. And I think it’s difficult. Especially now, this whole icon thing… It’s not an easy thing to carry around. I mean, people are always nice, don’t get me wrong, people always come up and they’re very gracious. But when they come in swarms, that becomes really tricky. …But it’s OK.”
A veteran actor of Cox’s stature probably does not expect to be swarmed like he’s Harry Styles. At least Cox can put on a brave face as our current cultural icon, which he cannot do to watch his own show (not because he’s self-critical, just because he’s “bored.”) Cox also could not put on a brave face meeting Meryl Streep (with whom he hopes to work “before I snuff it”) and instead defaulted to brutal honesty. “I met her once, and I said, ‘I never liked you.’ And she went, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I never liked you because I was jealous.’ How can anybody be that good?”
Cox admits that his fiery performances come naturally “because anger is always very close to me.” However, he also says, “Unfortunately, I’ve played a lot of very not pleasant people. I don’t know why. I think I’m perfectly pleasant.” Or he would be, anyway, if people stopped telling him to tell them to fuck off.