“One of my gods”: The actor Brian Cox called one of his all-time favourites
Character actors often tend to have a longer shelf life than superstars, with the performers happy to remain in the background constantly keeping themselves busy for years as A-listers come and go, a status Brian Cox is genuinely concerned he’s in danger of losing.
Despite his career on stage and screen kicking off in the early 1960s, it wasn’t until the part of Logan Roy in Succession came his way that Cox discovered what it was like to be truly famous. People have always recognised him from a number of movies and TV shows, but playing the patriarch of television’s most notorious dysfunctional families placed him under a harsher glare than ever before.
Given his famously unbothered personality that’s seen him shred many of his colleagues and contemporaries to pieces without a care in the world, it’s easy to see why the gruff Scotsman is so put off by the prospect of being recognised everywhere that he goes.
For the most part, though, character actors don’t dream of being character actors. There’s a certain amount of ego that’s required to even pursue it as a career in the first place, and any aspiring star who says they haven’t dreamed of seeing their name up in lights or splashed all over trailers and posters is almost definitely lying.
As a result, even the folks who make their living playing second fiddle are inspired by the biggest names in the business, and Cox is no different. Even though he grew up in the drab surroundings of Dundee, the veteran viewed some of Hollywood’s brightest stars as his favourites, with one above all enduring as one of his picks for all-time great status.
“I never really responded to English cinema,” he admitted to Tony Earnshaw, ever the patriot, not that it was permanent. “As I’ve got older I’ve responded to the Ealing comedies. I always responded more to Jerry Lewis, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, that kind of comedy. I’m ashamed to say I love Jerry Lewis. Me and the French, When I was a kid there was something very appealing about Jerry Lewis to me. I was sad when he split from Dean Martin.”
Like plenty of other budding cinephiles who grew up in the 1950s, Cox also “loved those John Ford westerns with John Wayne,” with his mother’s love for Spencer Tracy filtering down to the youngster, who continues to hold him in the highest esteem. “Tracy is still one of my gods,” he said. “One of the great actors of all time, also Brando and James Dean.”
Marlon Brando is almost an inevitability whenever an actor speaks out on their inspirations, but not even the revolutionary method man has been able to displace Tracy from the top of Cox’s personal pile.
