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My next guest is award winning actor Brian Cox, who plays the patriarch and media titan Logan Roy in HBO's hit drama Succession.
Please welcome Brian Cox. That mister Brian Cox.
Hello, trouble Wow, Wow, this is this is these are These are tough interviews for me because I I you know, whenever you speak to somebody who you've admired for so long, you have to try and gather all your thoughts.
I have to breathe a little bit. You you're you're easily one of my favorite actors in all of like my favorite movies. You like the best bad guy, and in real life you're such a good guy, which makes me go, like you even a better act than you say.
I'm rambling now.
I'm just welcome to Welcome to the show. No good to have you come to the show.
Very nice to be No. I. I you know, I was just watching that clip and it was very depressing because that's not me, and I keep that's why I never watched the show.
Oh really, Oh no, I.
Never watch it because I can't bear this. I can't bear that guy. Well, actually that's not true. I quite like him, but but there's an aspect of him that I go, why, you know, why can't you just be a little nicer time?
You know, I think that's why the show is watched the way. I remember when Succession started, the thing that everybody says you. All my friends said was, have you watched Succession? I said no, I haven't. The said you watch it. I said, okay, I'm gonna watch it, and then they said, you're gonna hate everybody, but you won't be able to stop watching. And then when you watch the show, you start to realize why, Like, your character is one of the most gripping characters, is an asshole.
But at the same time, we want you to win sometimes, but you shouldn't want to win. And you are the complete opposite of this character. And I think that's why it works. You bring up something like an empathy maybe in the character.
I mean, I have a lot of sympathy with him. I mean both he and I are disappointed in the human experiment. Oh wow, we you know, we think that humans have really screwed the whole thing up, and it's getting worse on a daily basis.
It is you can plow it as much as you like.
It is getting bad, but it is. And we've never been in such a bad time as we are at the moment, what with the Ukraine and the fact that we've had this ridiculous pink Pinocchio that's been the president here and then we've brought this clown from Eaton who's now finally trying to I don't know what he's doing, that lying Pratt from London, and it's just really bad. So both Logan and I we have a chat occasionally, and we've decided that the human experiment is in a pretty bad place.
But you have different ways of responding to it, you know where you know, you've always been somebody who is fighting for the working class.
You're the complete opposite.
Of your character.
I'm an optimist. I mean, that's the other thing. I mean Logan isn't.
He's a pessimist.
And I do believe that human beings can get better, but they've got to do a lot of work. You've got to work for.
You were you always an optimist even as a child, because I I've read about your childhood and.
You really lived a rough childhood.
You really did well, you know, it was rough, but a lot of the time, I didn't notice because I was just getting on with it. Interesting, you just have to get on with.
It, you know.
You dealt with a hand of cards, and you go, oh, this is the hand I've got. I see how what am I going to do with this hand? And you do it as best you can and there's no good moaning about it. And you know, the things that happened to me, you know, were pretty not nice, but at the same time, it's also made me who I am, so in a way, you have to be grateful for that, which is ungrateful.
Yes, that makes sense.
Yes, the reason you were exactly. And I feel blessed, you know. I feel blessed really with my career and with the work I've been I've been able to do over the years. So I don't have any regrets at all. I mean, my parents were wonderful people. They died far too early in my life, but I remember them very fondly and I still carry them with me, and I believe that. I believe that's the most important thing in life, is to honor your mother and your father, because they're
the only proof you've got. There's nothing else. It's all made up all around you. But the reality is there was mum, there was dad, they did the business and you came out. That's beautiful.
I love that.
It's interesting, how you know, I've noticed this about you, and there are a few other actors, you know, out of the UK where you were approach what you do very much in like a working way.
You know.
It's really interesting. You know, for many American actors oftentimes it can be like the celebrity and this and that. But with you, you have like a very much like I go to work, I do the thing, and then I go home and you know.
Yeah, and it's also to do with our training. You know, we have really great training back home, and it's classical training, so and it goes a long way back right to Shakespeare and beyond, you know. You know, so in a way that training helps you. It helps you enormously in dealing with the realities of life, because it is work. Is just doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it, you know, and you
don't think. I mean sometimes a lot of American actors they kind of treat it like a religious experience.
You know.
It's so hard what I'm doing, you know, I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to remove these teeth. I'm gonna play this role. I got to have these teeth taken out, and it's going to be so difficult, and you go pretend.
Just pertain.
I feel like, I feel like all of that is the culmination of of who you are as a human being. You know, it's it's it's it's a young boy who grew up in a world where you know, he lost his parents and then and then got into an industry that that really turned into a fantastic career and you become you know, such a such a reputable figure in it. And then on top of that, you've now used that platform to talk about the issues that are still close
to you. For instance, you've got this documentary that you know that you've been making about income, inequality.
Money, money and money. You know, you know, religion, all religions are kind of like culed a Sacks way. Money isn't because money is what really separates people, and those who have it have it and those who don't really don't.
And that's what I've been doing over the last two or three months, four months, actually trying to understand because because I'm playing this guy you know, this fella, and because he is so impervious to the whole state of poverty that it's important to understand the wealth gap that is increasing more and more and more and more, and in the you know, in the United Kingdom and also
in the United States. I spent some time in Miami and that was an experience in a half because there are so yeah, it really was an experience in a half because there is a lot of rich people in Miami, but equally there are a lot of poor people. Poor people, emigrant people, yes, you know, who clean up the rich people's toilets, who do everything, you know, all the menial tasks,
and they are treated quite cruelly. You know, a lot of them have you know, like they're building these whole high rises in certain parts of Miami, and you know, people are literally being put out of their homes. You know,
they're given six weeks to leave their homes. And these are people who've got kids in school, who has been very hard for them to get their children to school, to do certain things, and suddenly because they're building these high rises, fifty percent of them are empty, you know. But it's it's it's just greed, that's sheer greed and nothing else. And my my most moving thing was I was back at my hometown of Dundee in Scotland, and on that I met this man who he came in.
I was working with what they called the Larder Kitchen, where people are poor but they want to give the dignity of still being able to pay for what they get. So I was interviewed and I said, so this is for your family and he said, oh no, no, no, this is not for a family. He said, I come here on behalf of these people, older people who live in high rises who can't get out. I said, so what is this you're wearing here? He said, oh, I'm blind.
That's amazing.
I said, what do you mean? He said, no, i'm blind. I mean I can see that much. He said, but I'm really I'm officially blind. But there's nobody else doing it, so I felt I should do it. And you go, this man's a hero. And that's the thing that's great about human beings. That's when the human experiment goes, oh wait a minute, hang on. There are a few good people out there who really do these selfless things. And it's very moving and it's very very humbling.
It's humbling, it's amazing, and I'm so excited to watch it because I think you're one of the best storytellers because you're so engaged and you believe in it. Thank you so much for.
Joining the swank having you up so thank you so much.
Thank you.
My guest tonight is a wonderful actor who plays Connor Roy on the Emmy Award winning the HBO series Succession.
Please welcome, Alan Rock, Hello, Senator.
Hello, somehow you got it bigger welcome than Lindsey Graham last night.
I don't know how that happened. I love the show.
My wife and I watch it every Sunday night, and we're looking forward to Sunday for the premiere. Now, this is the saga of the Roy family. Yeah, and Connor is the oldest son and you are maybe the least accomplished.
It's sick to say that.
Yeah, okay, and I know this is going to be the last season, right, So how does it end?
I can't do it, not even for you.
I'm sorry, I can't do okay.
Well, you're seeing that that clip you're running for president? Yes, I am, okay, So you can't tell us whether or not you win.
No, but I'm working that one percent, man. I mean that's leverage.
Okay, it might have been a tip off that maybe you don't, but you never know.
Things get weird, right.
It's a crazy show. It's surprising.
Yeah, you can't out guess Jesse Armstrong. So yeah, he is the he's a creator and head writer.
Yes, yeah.
And I heard him interviewed and he said that that your father in the series.
Logan Roy has said.
That that he loves all his children. Brian Cox has said that. Really, I mean, that's amazing to me.
I think as much as Logan is capable of loving anything, he does love children. He's just bitterly disappointed in all of them. I think so especially you don't you think, well, yeah, they just they make me stand to the back of the picture whenever there's any.
The oldest son and yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a sad little history. You know.
He probably divorced my mother when I was about eight, and I lived with her for ten years and she was.
In and out of mental institutions and I was in.
And out of boarding schools, and I didn't see my father for three or four years.
So it wasn't it was like Dickens.
I think you know.
Sorry, Yeah, so okay, still got it?
Man.
So in the campaign, and so do you So in the campaign you're running for president. There is a something interesting about your.
Marriage, specifically something you want to.
Talk about, not if you don't, what's for sure?
Yes, my Willa was at one point a professional escort, and then I convinced with that.
No, I mean, you know, you got.
To make a living, and I convinced her to have me be her exclusive client. And maybe against her better judgment, she's actually developed some affection for me. I wouldn't say she's in love, but she's become protective of me over these and her.
You produced a play.
For her that she wrote, Sands.
It was called Sands, about a woman who's trapped in the desert by an evil king.
That sounds like it could be really good.
Yeah, evidently not.
It didn't get good reviews.
I no, no, I remember the scene where she throws the iPad off.
The off the yacht.
Yeah, yeah, she was, she was having a day.
Yeah. So okay, So.
The show it's it's it's going off the air.
Yeah, that must, you must.
It looks like you guys love each other that you guys love working with each other. I've never seen it looks it looks like a tremendous amount of fun. It's a brutal, brutal, emotional show. But it's also quite funny.
Yeah it is. It's wickedly funny.
And I think something that helps it along is that all the actors are wonderfully They're just wonderful, intelligent, kind hearted people that are playing all these bastards, you know, so it adds something to it that you can't help but like them, even though they're miserable human beings. And I am going to miss everybody terribly, but I think Jesse's smart to ended on this high note.
Yeah, well, sometimes things run their course. But I just I'm going to miss saying it. But I can't wait to see It's Sunday is when it starts. So it starts this Sunday coming up. Does somebody end up getting the leadership of the company, because a lot of this has been all about one of the six things succession?
Nice Jeff Anny, of course, of course. Yeah, I can just say that someone does.
Okay, that's good to know.
Now having gone through this, do you have any have you developed any kind of sympathy for like Rupert Murdoch's family.
I guess I would be the Prudence. I guess that's his oldest. His eldest is Prudence.
Isn't that right? I think so?
Yes, don't ask me. But I don't really feel sorry for these people at the very top of the food chain. But they do have to do things that we don't like. If you fall in love with somebody, you just get to marry them or be with them. You know, these people need to be vetted by the family, and if you pick the wrong.
Person, they just say no, no, you can't have her.
So your wife, the call girl was vetted.
Sort of.
Yeah, they were brutally, they were vicious toward her. But since I am dismissive, so is she. You know, they didn't care about that too much. If it was Kendall or Roman or Chavn had married a questionable person, then they would have something.
Because you didn't count enough. I don't count not enough. How many more shows, Well, there will be ten, ten, ten shows.
I just can't wait to see it. And it's just been a masterful show. My congratulations to everyone, Frank Rich the executive producer, and just everybody.
Yeah, a bunch of people.
Well, congratulate.
This has been the.
Best bunch I've ever worked with, truly, so and I've been doing this a long time out.
Yeah, and I know some of the other people you've worked with, and they're going to be really sorry to hear you know, some of us go on a publicity tour and then blow it.
There's a lot of their old friends.
But but they're old friends.
Yeah, yeah, they're not the new They're not the new crop.
Which is that's who counts everybody? New friends who can do you some good?
Isn't that right?
Welcome to show business. Yeah.
If we have any advice for anyone, not just here in the audience tonight, but anyone watching on television, new friends who can help you.
Out, count it out.
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