“One of the great actors of all time”: the only star truly safe from Brian Cox’s shit-list
A compliment from Brian Cox is truly a rare thing.
While the veteran has been a respected actor for decades, drawing praise for his amazing performance in Michael Mann’s Manhunter in particular, he unlocked the greatest role of his career as Logan Roy on the HBO drama Succession. In what would become one of the greatest shows of all-time, Cox delivered a thunderous depiction of an angry, spiteful billionaire who routinely insults everyone who gets in his way.
Amusingly, Cox has begun to resemble the character of Logan more with each press tour he goes on. While not necessarily as nasty, he has not censored himself in calling out actors, films, and aspects of Hollywood culture that he is not a fan of, rallying against Deadpool & Wolverine, which he said was dangerous for the future of cinema, even though the film co-starred Matthew McFadyen, with whom he had acted alongside in Succession.
When he received backlash for his put-downs, Cox argued that people were just being far too sensitive, and while it might be easy to just dismiss him as being a cantankerous, grumpy old man, it’s evident that he has a tremendous amount of respect for truly great acting. As a veteran of the stage who has been playing Shakespearean roles for decades, he has no shortage of experience, and in his recent autobiography, he named some of the directors he most admired, including Spike Jonze, Ridley Scott, and Spike Lee.
Cox has been very open about the actors who inspired him in the first place, and even named-dropped some of the stars that had resonated with him when he was first getting introduced to the magic of cinema.
“My mother loved Spencer Tracy because he was a Catholic!” Cox said, “So I used to see a lot of his movies when I was a wee boy. All those comedies with Katharine Hepburn. Tracy is still one of my gods, one of the great actors of all time, also Brando and James Dean.”
Tracy was a major star in Hollywood ever since the 1930s, and someone who treated his profession as a lifelong gig, so it’s not hard to see why Cox has so much admiration for him. Moreover, he became the first actor in history to receive two consecutive ‘Best Actor’ awards at the Academy Awards for Captain Courageous and Boys Town, respectively, and continued his acting streak until the end of his life, turning in amazing performances in his final years with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, containing one of his most famous roles.
The film was left unreleased until months after his death, and earned him a posthumous Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’, and given that Cox has shown no signs of slowing down, it’s possible that he is still looking to Tracy as a source of inspiration.
What’s interesting is that of the other actors Cox references, Marlon Brando is the one to whom he might actually be most similar, and the latter also began his career on the stage, even revolutionising acting when he was able to translate his stage performance in A Streetcar Named Desire to the big screen. Like Cox, Brando earned a reputation for being frank, calling out other actors, and pulling pranks on set, but it didn’t harm his reputation, and it’s not likely to affect Cox, either.
