Brian Cox explains why Ben Kingsley should fuck off: “It’s a joke”
Despite debuting on stage and screen in the late 1960s, after which he spent the next half a century cementing his position as one of the most consistent, reliable, and dependable character actors in the business, the legacy of Brian Cox has unexpectedly boiled down to two words.
Even though he’s won a Primetime Emmy for playing Hermann Göring, brought Hannibal Lecter to the screen before Anthony Hopkins in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, taken home a pair of Olivier Awards for his work treading the boards, lent support in ‘Best Picture’ winner Braveheart, and worked with some of the most storied actors and directors around, he’s now forever intertwined with telling people to fuck off.
The part of Succession patriarch Logan Roy has become the most notable of Cox’s extensive career, winning him a Golden Globe and using his uniquely formidable gravitas to turn the character into a 21st-century television icon. It’s a great role and one that he was thrilled to play, but it does come with its own downsides.
For one thing, Cox has openly lamented the loss of the anonymity he enjoyed for the bulk of his professional life, with Succession creating an additional caveat. Whenever he’s spotted out and about in public, people will approach the grizzled Scotsman and inquire if he’d be interested in telling them to fuck off. Most of the time, he will, not out of obligation but because he really does want them to fuck off.
Long before Succession was even a twinkle in the eye of creator Jesse Armstrong, Cox was happy to tell his peers the exact same thing. The classically-trained thespian was appointed a CBE in 2003, but he’s yet to ascend the ranks any further towards the knighthoods that tend to be doled out to the most distinguished veterans of British entertainment.
Ben Kingsley was knighted the year before, and ever since, it’s become part of his folklore that the Oscar winner prefers to be addressed as a knight of the realm both in his personal life and on set. In his typically outspoken way, Cox can’t wrap his head around such nonsense.
“I mean, Ben Kingsley going around saying, ‘I’m Sir Ben’. Ben? Fuck off,” he told The Guardian. “What does that mean, Sir Ben? It’s a joke. People take it seriously, but it’s a joke. We know about the difficulty you’ve had in your background. That’s fine, but really, you don’t help yourself by buying into that awful mythology.”
Aware that his scathing words could be construed as hypocritical given his own addendum, Cox acknowledged that he’s a CBE but did make a point of suggesting he “could be another c-word of the British Empire.” If he ever gets a knighthood of his own, then it’s probably best just to keep calling him plain old Brian.
