Why did Brian Cox turn down ‘Game of Thrones’ role?
With well over 250 credits to his name covering film, television, stage performances, video games, audiobooks, voiceovers, and adverts dating back almost 60 years, it’s fair to say Brian Cox has never been one for turning down too many roles that get offered his way.
He was one of the industry’s most dependable characters for more than half a century, only for one instantly iconic character to finally grant him the one thing most performers crave but he’d never wanted: fame. Succession‘s Logan Roy transformed him from ‘that guy from that thing’ into a known quantity, and he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about his anonymity being shattered in an instant.
On the plus side, playing the patriarch of the small screen’s most dysfunctional family – as well as the Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy wins that came with it – has given Cox the freedom to pick and choose his parts to a greater extent than he’d previously enjoyed when he was still a recognisable character actor who could always be relied on to bring his grizzled gravitas to the floor without being viewed as a marketable commodity in his own right.
Very few thespians have ever gone through their entire career without looking back on at least one role that slipped through their fingers with a tinge of regret, and for Cox, it was one of the biggest shows of the modern era. A ratings sensation and cultural phenomenon packed to the brim with people cut from an almost identical cloth – namely, weatherbeaten British veterans – he would have fit in perfectly.
“I’m often asked if I was offered a role in Game of Thrones, the reason being that every other bugger was, and the answer is yes,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I was supposed to be a king called Robert Baratheon, who apparently died when he was gored by a boar in the first season.”
Somewhat ironically, even though Cox appeared in no less than seven features the year Game of Thrones premiered, after rejecting the fantasy epic, 2011 remains the only year since 2009 when he didn’t appear in at least one episode of a TV show. Why did he turn it down? Because it didn’t pay enough.
“Well, Game of Thrones went on to be a huge success, and everybody involved earned an absolute fortune,” he continued. “But when it was originally offered, the money was not all that great, shall we say.” Considering it aired around the world and continues to do so almost a decade and a half later, Cox missed out on some juicy residuals despite the character he was meant to play meeting an early demise.
Mark Addy got the nod instead and ended up being mauled to within an inch of his life by a wild animal, leaving Game of Thrones‘ first choice to rue the lack of financial incentives he was presented with.
