“I never liked you”: Brian Cox’s awkward first encounter with Meryl Streep
Not that she ever got into the business with the intention of being placed onto such a lofty pedestal, but it’s become an accepted part of Hollywood custom that Meryl Streep must only be discussed in reverential and borderline deified tones.
Multiple generations of actors worship the ground the 21-time Academy Award nominee and three-time winner walks on, with many of the finest talents in the industry celebrating her as the benchmark, the pinnacle, and the gold standard they all aspire to emulate.
Streep would never talk about herself in such self-aggrandising fashion, although she isn’t above poking fun at her exalted reputation when the situation calls for it. Brian Cox, on the other hand, comes across as a man who requires a great deal of effort to impress.
The gruff and grizzled Scotsman is currently at the apex of a long and storied career, based largely around the multitude of different ways he told his fictional family members to fuck off in Succession. He was a character actor – and a happy one – for decades beforehand, but the Dundonian grump is now ruing the loss of his anonymity.
He might possess a face that looks like it was carved out of granite and then left on a cliffside to become as craggy and weatherbeaten as the elements would allow, but at the end of the day, he can still channel his inner fanboy. However, in typical Cox fashion, he had an interesting way of going about it.
As well as surprisingly revealing himself to have “loved” The Devil Wears Prada, the veteran admitted he was envious of Emily Blunt because she had the chance to share the screen with “one of the greatest screen actresses of all time.” In fact, Cox confessed that “one of my ambitions before I snuff it is to work with Meryl.”
Still, when they finally came face-to-face for the first time, he had an interesting way of putting his point across. “I met her once, and I said, ‘I never liked you,'” he shared. “And she went, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I never liked you because I was jealous’. How can anybody be that good?”
There are a million ways of telling somebody that their work has been a constant source of inspiration, watched from afar and rapturously enjoyed. Down towards the bottom of the list in terms of how to convey that information to the subject is by waltzing right up to them and informing them without context, “I never liked you.”
Funnily enough, Streep was taken aback after being railroaded by one of her peers and dutifully told directly to her face that Cox never liked her. It would have been an even more awkward moment had he not gotten the chance to finish the rest of his sentence, but fortunately, the iconic actor wasn’t left wondering why the Succession favourite had decided their first-time meeting was the ideal time to unload his animosity.
