The “bollocks” Oscar-winning movie Brian Cox called “a fucking lie, the whole thing”
Old men yelling at clouds isn’t always a welcome part of the cultural conversation, but few have proven themselves better at it than Brian Cox, one of the very few people who can give Harrison Ford a run for his money as cinema’s ultimate curmudgeon.
The veteran actor refuses to sugar-coat his opinions, and for the most part, it’s been hilarious. He’s even found himself drawn into conflict with the usually reclusive Daniel Day-Lewis, since the Succession star can’t seem to hold his tongue when it comes to shitting all over the concept of method acting.
Obviously, he’s not the only person who hates method acting, and he’s far from the only person in the industry who hates Steven Seagal, and based on what other co-stars and colleagues have called the portly martial artist over the years, Cox calling him “as ludicrous in real life as he appears on the screen” is quaint.
The prolific character man thinks Johnny Depp is “overrated,” walked out of Pulp Fiction, said that even though Once Upon a Time in Hollywood “wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, it still wasn’t good enough” to convert him to the church of Quentin Tarantino, and referred to Edward Norton as “a bit of a pain in the arse.”
Being a miserable git has become a staple part of Cox’s on and offscreen personality, especially now that he’s constantly being bombarded by requests from total strangers begging him to tell them to “fuck off” so that they can tell everyone they’ve been the recipients of the legendary phrase from Logan Roy himself.
The Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy winner may have branded Paul McGuigan’s The Reckoning as the only one of the 200+ roles that he’s played across theatre, film, television, and video games that he regrets, but that doesn’t exclude any of his other works from being placed under a savage microscope.
Doing his bit for his country, Cox was the only notable actor to appear in both Rob Roy and ‘Best Picture’ winner Braveheart, 1995’s two Scottish-themed historical epics, neither of which had a Scotsman in the lead role. He initially turned down the latter because he’d already committed to the former, but changed his mind after a heart-to-heart with its director, Mel Gibson.
“I said, ‘Well, there is a very good part at the beginning, a guy called Argyle, but I’m wrong for him because he should be cadaverous and thin,'” he explained. “And he said, ‘No, you can play it.'” He was in, and even though it was an awards season darling, the star wasn’t overly thrilled with the end result.
“The film is just bollocks,” he declared. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He’s right; even though the Scottish population is obliged to love Braveheart out of a sense of national duty, everyone knows that it isn’t exactly the most accurate historical epic that’s ever been made. Nobody would disagree with Cox calling it “tosh-like,” just like nobody would argue with him saying that “it is a fucking lie, the whole thing.”
