The classic 1994 movie Brian Cox walked out of halfway through: “I can’t be doing this”
These days, it’s more of a surprise to hear Brian Cox say that he doesn’t hate something, with the veteran actor thriving in his current and ongoing role as the grumpiest bastard in film and television.
In a shameless plug, one thing he definitely doesn’t hate is talking to Far Out, but everything else is fair game. Every time he opens his mouth, the prolific character actor adds another name or another production to his shit-list, and there are no signs yet that it’s reaching maximum capacity.
On one hand, it’s refreshing to hear someone so outspoken cutting through the usual Hollywood bullshit and telling it like it is. On the other hand, shitting all over someone is an easy way to make a lot of enemies, not that Cox cares, when he’s already well over 200 credits into his career, and set in his ways.
Most of his ire tends to be focused on individuals, with everyone from Steven Seagal and Johnny Depp to Donald Trump and his Succession co-star Jeremy Strong placed in the firing line at one stage or another, but on the odd occasion, he’s made it patently clear that there are certain films he fucking hates.
In front of the camera, Spencer Tracy is safe from Cox’s scorn as his ultimate acting idol, but in front of it, there’s one classic that got right under his skin. It’s one of the best, most iconic, and influential pictures of 1994, but when asked if there were any movies he’d walked out of, the star didn’t hesitate.
“Pulp Fiction,” he answered. “I found it distressing. There was this incident where there’s a young man sitting in the back of the car, and he gets his head blown off, and there’s blood all over. I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get out, I can’t be doing this’. I’m not very good with violence.”
That would, of course, be the scene where Marvin accidentally gets shot in the face, which unfolds around 75 minutes into the Academy Award-winning masterpiece’s 154-minute running time, so Cox didn’t even make it to the film’s true halfway point before he decided that he’d seen enough, got up, and fucked off.
It’s well known that he’s no fan of Quentin Tarantino, and his distaste for Pulp Fiction likely has a lot to do with it. That one scene was enough to convince the thespian that he didn’t need to see any more, and it wouldn’t have made him first in line to see any of the auteur’s subsequent efforts, either.
He’s definitely in the minority, though, for as controversial as the labyrinthine crime thriller was for its depictions of violence and drug use, it’s still one of the most iconic movies of its era, and if it wasn’t for Forrest Gump, it may well have scooped several more major prizes at the Academy Awards, too.
