“I’ll be 80 this year. F— it!” says the “Succession” star in a new interview.
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As he’s made apparent many times before, Brian Cox is not afraid to share his opinion of his fellow thespians.
A scathing new profile for the U.K.’s The Times published on Friday runs through a long list of the actor’s targets, including former costars and Oscar nominees alike.
The story notes that Cox turned down the role of the governor in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise because he did not want to work alongside Johnny Depp, whom he has called “so overblown, so overrated” in the past. (That part eventually went to Jonathan Pryce.)
He also once deemed his 25th Hour costar Edward Norton “a pain in the arse” and called out Ian McKellen‘s acting, saying it was “not to my taste.”
In the Times interview, he even bashed a film he hasn’t even seen â Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights â for its casting.
“‘Keith Cliff! It’s me, Cathy!'” Cox said in what the outlet called “a cod Australian accent,” mocking its star Margot Robbie, who was once in the Australian soap Neighbours. “‘How ya doing, Keith? Awright?’ ‘Yeah, I’m awright!'”
The Times described Cox laughing before he added, “Margot Robbie is far too beautiful for that role. I mean, I think there should be something more of the Gypsy about her, but it’s wrong of me to judge. It may be a brilliant film.”
Addressing his no-holds-barred policy while discussing his craft â and his peers in the industry â Cox admitted that he’s too old to care about what people think of him.
“Well, I don’t know yet if it’s caused me problems,” he told The Times. “I mean, my wife [Nicole Ansari-Cox] keeps saying, ‘Brian, be careful. Brian, be careful.’ I think, ‘F— it. I don’t want to be careful anymore! I’ll be 80 this year. F— it! I’m gonna say what I want to say.'”
The Emmy winner also said that after Daniel Day-Lewis asked him to reach out to discuss method acting â in light of Cox’s 2023 comments about his Succession costar Jeremy Strong‘s “f—ing annoying” approach â he declined to make contact.
“No, I haven’t reached out because it’s got nothing to do with Dan Day-Lewis,” Cox told The Times. “Dan Day-Lewis, he’s discreet. He never upsets it [the filming process]. He’s never, sort of⊠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. He’s a good actor, Jeremy. He’s a wonderful actor. It’s just all the bollocks that goes with it. You watch children â they don’t say, ‘What’s my motivation?’ They just do it!”
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The profile also notes that Cox called director Michael Caton-Jones “a complete arsehole,” writer-director David Hare a “see you next Tuesday,” and Quentin Tarantino “meretricious.”
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When discussing his feature directorial debut, Glenrothan, Cox said he’s “more egalitarian than a lot of directors, the kind who call themselves visionaries.”
“I like to honor the actor’s performance,” he explained. “With a Quentin Tarantino film, what you see is all Quentin Tarantino. That’s not me. I don’t want to do that.”


