Over the course of his career, Brian Cox has played a wide range of characters, from a loving father in 25th Hour to a screenwriting expert in Adaptation. He’s played heroes and villains with equal verve, and his role as abusive patriarch Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession has raised his profile even higher. Now, actors with a certain level of experience often have plenty of stories to tell, and Cox has gone the route of many before him with a new memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat. But what seems to separate this from many a memoir of stage and screen is Cox’s candid approach to telling his life story.
A new article at The Big Issue has a few choice quotes from it, including Cox’s feelings on the likes of Steven Seagal (“as ludicrous in real life as he appears on screen”), David Bowie (“[a] skinny kid, and not a particularly good actor”) and Johnny Depp (“he is, is so overblown, so overrated”).
The article also contains a choice anecdote about Jonathan Pryce unnerving Christopher Walken on the set of The Affair of the Necklace. Cox’s candor about his onetime co-stars suggests that he may have opted to — like a certain character he plays — go “full beast.” Or, as Vulture succinctly phrased it, “Is Brian Cox Allowed to Be Saying All This?”
For those with an interest in the life and times of a revered actor, Cox’s memoir was already a must-read. For those looking for a revered actor getting salty about his onetime co-stars, though, it might just have ratcheded this book up a few to-read lists.
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