Brian Cox is at it again.
The “Succession” actor, who is undeniably talented and has had a formidable career, has a knack for slamming fellow actors—including Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Strong—and has now essentially doubled down on several more in a wide-ranging interview with The Times UK.
Firstly, he calls Quentin Tarantino “meretricious,” which is basically his fancy way of saying all style, no substance. Clearly irked by Tarantino’s ego, he says his films are all about him — has Cox ever heard of auteur theory?
I’m more egalitarian than a lot of directors, the kind who call themselves visionaries. I like to honor the actor’s performance. With a Quentin Tarantino film, what you see is all Quentin Tarantino. That’s not me. I don’t want to do that.
Cox really shouldn’t talk. I had the misfortune of seeing his directorial debut at TIFF last year; it’s called “Glenrothan,” and it was one of the absolute worst films of the fest — I did the rarest of things and walked out of this bland, clichéd mess at the one-hour mark. Currently, it sits at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Later in the interview, Cox goes on to throw shade at Johnny Depp, revealing he turned down the role of the governor in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and hasn’t lost sleep over it because Depp is “so overblown, so overrated.”
Cox goes on to slam the U.S. and the “patriarchy” that turned it into a “mess” because Hilary Clinton was not elected President.
The patriarchy is so invasive and so insidious, it’s hard to throw it off. I think the patriarchy is a fucking mess, and it’s the patriarchy that got us into the position that we’re in at the moment, and we don’t learn the lessons. I say, give it over to the women.
Cox also calls his co-star Gary Oldman’s Oscar-winning performance in ‘Darkest Hour’ nonsense, “a crowd-pleasing farrago.” He bashes Ian McKellen’s acting (“not to my taste”), claims Edward Norton is “a pain in the arse,” and goes on a whole spiel about how Margot Robbie was miscast in “Wuthering Heights.”
Cox does, finally, have praise his former onscreen son Jeremy Strong, calling him “a wonderful actor” after saying that his co-star’s on-set method acting was “f*cking annoying” during a 2023 interview.
“I don’t want to go on about Jeremy, because I’ve got into a lot of problems and he’s begged me to stop talking about him,” Cox explained. “He’s a good actor, Jeremy. He’s a wonderful actor. It’s just all the bollocks that goes with it. You watch children — they don’t say, ‘What’s my motivation?’ They just do it!”
Meanwhile, Cox admits he just filmed a series of ads for McDonald’s Happy Meals, set to air soon.