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[0:06] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Broadway's Theatre Podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with the stars and creators of the hottest shows on Broadway, Off Broadway, and beyond.

[0:17] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox. On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to the actor Brian Cox, no relation. With a long and very active career that's seen him play everyone from King Lear to Hermann Göring to Winston Churchill to Hannibal Lecter, Brian is having something of a pop culture moment right now, thanks to his role as the fictional media mogul Logan Roy in Succession. And just as that HBO series saw its popularity explode during its recently concluded second season, he also stepped into the Broadway spotlight this fall, portraying President Lyndon B. Johnson in The Great Society, playwright Robert Schenken's sequel to his Tony-winning play, All the Way. Brian's in the studio with me now to talk Shakespeare, Succession, his sprint to prepare for The Great Society, and what's been gained and lost in the entertainment industry over the years.

[1:08] Gordon Cox: Hi Brian, thanks for joining me. Um so I'm talking to you in the last uh just at the start of the last month of your run in uh The Great Society. Um what are you enjoying about doing the show and has what you are enjoying changed over the course of the run?

[1:24] Brian Cox: No, I'm enjoying the I I I love the play, and I love the fact that the play deals with issues which not a lot of American theater deal with.

[1:33] Gordon Cox: Yeah, like what specifically?

[1:35] Brian Cox: Well, the historical aspect of how we are where we are, and especially in our current political climate, it is very much reflected in what went on in the sixties, and you'll see that in movements that America always takes a time to play catch-up with its political life. Uh I mean, Johnson, you know, it's it the f slaves were freed in nineteen sixty and eighteen sixty-five. But it wasn't until nineteen sixty-five that they got voting rights.

[2:04] Gordon Cox: Right.

[2:04] Brian Cox: So it's quite fascinating from that point of view. And and that whole I mean I love Bob's work. I think it it's it's it's almost Shakespearean.

[2:13] Gordon Cox: This is Robert Schenken, the playwright.

[2:14] Brian Cox: Robert Schenken, sorry, Bob's Robert Schenken and the playwright. And uh I love the fact that he he's tackling a subject which is both classical in its in its demands, because it is like a it's like doing one of the uh Shakespeare history plays.

[2:31] Gordon Cox: That was one of my questions, actually, is how much you have a lot of experience with Shakespeare, and I wondered how much something like this reminded you of something that's...

[2:31] Brian Cox: Well, very much so, yeah. And you need that kind of energy, you know, right? Uh Bill Roush, uh director, talks about language to language, so that you really have to come in. You can't hang about with it.

[2:47] Gordon Cox: Language to language, is that what you said?

[2:51] Brian Cox: Language to language. It means that you there basically it means there are no pauses.

[2:55] Gordon Cox: Okay.

[2:56] Brian Cox: You know, you know, that you pick up from where you go off. Yeah, a scene stops and then you start. And then you keep yeah. You know, you don't go pause, wait, what have you, make a moment. You y and you have no time for that.

[3:08] Gordon Cox: Right.

[3:08] Brian Cox: And that's the demand. I mean, that is why the play is immensely difficult to do. And it was so difficult because we've only did it in three weeks.

[3:17] Gordon Cox: And I uh you know, I just done this TV show.

[3:20] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[3:21] Brian Cox: How soon had that had your shooting that ended before you picked up rehearsal?

[3:25] Brian Cox: Oh my god. A week.

[3:27] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[3:28] Brian Cox: Uh and I had to start with the lines, and of course, it's a hundred and fifty-four pages. I only had three weeks.

[3:34] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[3:35] Brian Cox: So m and originally Jeffrey Richards intended it to be uh...

[3:36] Gordon Cox: This is Jeffrey the producer.

[3:41] Brian Cox: Jeffrey the producer, Jeffrey Richards, the producer. He intended it to be a dramatized reading because he had the theater for this time. So he wanted to go for the theater and he was desperate to do the play.

[3:49] Gordon Cox: Right.

[3:52] Brian Cox: He said we'll do it as a dramatized reading. Bill clearly didn't think that was such a good idea. And uh then he I mean and I said okay fine I said yeah we we'll probably have a few uh LBJs that they'll they'll change. I said oh really okay. And so you would you do the first batch I said sure thinking it was a dramatized reading.

[4:13] Gordon Cox: Right.

[4:13] Brian Cox: So I agreed and then Bill called me and said you know we'd like you to do longer. I said oh that's fine okay as long as you pay me being a Scot I thought yes okay you know and then the next thing I knew is was we we're going to do it as a full production not as a dramatized reading. So I suggested to Bill that you could possibly kill me in the process because of the demand. So I had three weeks to do it.

[4:40] Brian Cox: And I knew I have this wonderful assistant friend who's been helping me called Mickey Abati and he was he taught me the lines. He literally had to teach me the lines and I had knew eighty percent of them by the time we came to the first preview.

[4:55] Gordon Cox: Right.

[4:56] Brian Cox: And I said to Bill I said, you know I can't you know I have every waking hour I devote to this and I'm not a kid anymore.

[5:03] Gordon Cox: Right.

[5:03] Brian Cox: And he said Is it harder now to memorize lines?

[5:06] Brian Cox: Yeah no it's just no it's not it's just that this is a ridiculous anybody anybody would find this you know no matter who they were yeah and actually younger people would probably even find it harder because they get more distracted. I'm older, I don't get as distracted.

[5:18] Gordon Cox: Right.

[5:21] Brian Cox: So in a way what we agreed on was uh well well first of all I was going to take the book on to show that it was something in process, it was previews.

[5:28] Gordon Cox: Right.

[5:28] Brian Cox: And then they weren't keen on that idea, which I understood, but I also thought it showed really what the demand of the play was.

[5:35] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[5:36] Brian Cox: So we came up with a system of uh having an earpiece.

[5:39] Gordon Cox: Right.

[5:40] Brian Cox: So I had an earpiece for the first ten days of the previews.

[5:42] Gordon Cox: How hard that seems really hard to have to lay it.

[5:44] Brian Cox: Well it's hard. Um you you learn to do it, and Mickey and I, who Mickey's an old friend, so he kind of adjusted. Mickey's interesting because he he was deaf as a child. And I and when we were rehearsing the lines, I kept saying, you know, you keep lo I keep hearing and I'm a bit deaf as well. And then he confessed to me, he said, you know, I was deaf. I I only learned to speak when I was about eight, and I went, Oh, really? I said, Hmm, that could be a problem. Thinking when we do but actually he was perfect, absolutely perfect.

[6:16] Brian Cox: But the interesting thing was we did it in that way that we and you f they feed the line in, and I and of course um if I pause he will feed the line in. And and uh and then it gets me going. I mean, I just need a word and I'm away.

[6:31] Gordon Cox: Yeah, right.

[6:32] Brian Cox: So it was like that for the la I mean I kinda knew it, but you know, I wasn't a hundred percent with it, you know, about eighty percent with it. But I knew the shape and everything. And I'd worked it because I'd worked it every day with the book, with the book, with the book, and and and understood the demands of the volition of the play, you know, because it has to have tremendous volition.

[6:52] Gordon Cox: Right.

[6:52] Brian Cox: So I kind of took it up on that level, and uh and it seemed to work, you know, and we and then finally we got to the opening and you know, and the rest is the history of the play.

[7:03] Gordon Cox: Right, yeah. Um and you've played real people before. You played, you know, Winston Churchill and uh you know, another one.

[7:11] Brian Cox: Hermann Göring, yeah, Hermann Göring, exactly. Um how how do you think about uh as an actor, how do you think about trying to do something to sort of convey some sort of mannerism or the way they speak or their physical versus your own interpretation I mean if you're playing Churchill I mean his manner has gone mad, you know, in terms of you know the V sign, the the cigar, the hats, the whole the whole thing of him.

[7:39] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[7:39] Brian Cox: The drinking. Yeah. Uh and and his and his speech, you know, that thing that he had, which was his performance speech is very different from his speech speech. You know, that he wouldn't speak he didn't speak like when you hear him speaking in real life, occasionally you you pick him up, like you'll there's a couple of videos where he's speaking doing the speaking and then he's talking and saying, well what did you think of that? So he's much more natural.

[8:05] Gordon Cox: Right.

[8:07] Brian Cox: So there was this performance element and this and there's always the performance element, especially if you play a politician.

[8:14] Gordon Cox: Right.

[8:14] Brian Cox: Yeah. You know, because they're they're the biggest performers there is now Lyndon Johnson, it's the Texas speech. It's uh getting that vernacular, getting the the f way he used and also he used his I mean he could be very with his own people, he could be very fast, very cruel, very you know but when he talks to other people he could be a lot slower like the fascinating c conversations. And the LBJ tapes, which is a series of DVDs which you can get uh of him talking to Jackie Kennedy, for example, just within weeks of Kennedy's assassination. And he's very uh very uh very considerate, almost kind of slightly kind seductive in a way. I mean not not consciously, and she completely melts when she speaks to him. And that was what was interesting, is the effect that he has on people.

[9:12] Brian Cox: So you knew that this was this was a credibly c incredibly complicated character, but I mean uh and full of full of contrast, but kind of true, very true, but also a politician, and also getting his own way. So those you put into the mix and with a sense of you know, a physical sense of who they look like, what they are, that g that's a given. But in Johnson's case, it's very much even more than Churchill, ironically, it's very much to do with his speech. You know, it's uh it's to do with how he used his Texas role.

[9:49] Gordon Cox: Right.

[9:50] Brian Cox: And the lovely thing in the play is there's this reminder, can't my favorite speech in the in The Great Society is when he talks about um he talks about the his growing up period when as a kid in the Hill Country and all the women he grew up and and how he brought electricity. And you realize this is the man he was, you know, that he and he became a congressman, and uh he grew out of that, and he's and of course, and again to go to the Shakespearean side of it, it's epic. And he's this the president, so he's an a kind of like a Shakespearean king. And he has these flaws, which finally the thing about telling a lie, how you start off with one little lie and how it builds up to bigger lies, and how eventually you as he says in the play, I don't know where I am anymore or who I am. So there's a sort of tragic momentum to the part, you know, which is makes the part very ch very demanding, very challenging and and also very rewarding.

[10:51] Gordon Cox: It sounds like you did a fair amount of research on the...

[10:51] Brian Cox: Well, I did a research, but I had to do it very quickly. I mean I couldn't read I couldn't read the Caro books. I mean, you know, because I would still be reading the Caro books. You know. Uh I mean I hear they're great, and I actually promised myself I am going to read the Caro books now. Uh 'cause his work is extraordinary. But the tapes were the thing that helped me. That was and that's quick research because you've got the man himself and you're hearing the man. So you're dealing with your relationship to the man as opposed to your relationship to an author and the man. Of course, the author I have is Bob Schenken. So I I go with Robert, I go with Robert's play, and I I acknowledge Robert's play and what Robert is doing and what he's attempting to do and how and how also the context what you should do and how important it is in terms and particularly now, you know. Because it really is about the machinations of American political life, you know.

[11:46] Gordon Cox: Yeah. Did you see All the Way?

[11:47] Brian Cox: No, I never did, sadly.

[11:50] Gordon Cox: Well, it was sadly 'cause I was working, so I was busy, you know, so I never saw that.

[11:55] Gordon Cox: So you didn't you didn't uh catch Bryan Cranston's performance?

[11:58] Brian Cox: No, I know I never I never got Bryan's performance. So it's diff it's a you know, it's it's uh it's a different thing, you know. You you you you I wouldn't have wanted to see I mean I've I'd seen Bryan's performance, that would have been the fact. But I th nature and nurture and all the other stuff didn't allow me to see it because I wasn't available to see.

[12:16] Gordon Cox: Yeah, and doing Shakespeare, of course, you've seen you must have been in plenty of shows where you've seen other people play those roles.

[12:20] Brian Cox: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's not a that's a thing that happens. I've seen lots of Leas, I've seen lots of I've seen more Hamlets than I've had hot dinners. So I've you know, I've seen those parts being repeated. And and it happens in movies too.

[12:32] Brian Cox: You know, you look at I created the role of Hannibal Lecter. So I mean, and now I see everybody playing Hannibal Lecter since then. It's a bit it's an iconic role that's reinterpreted and will be reinterpreted. It's in it's slightly out of fashion, but it will come back. Yeah, they'll re they'll read this. Oh, remember that? That's a movie for listeners who don't know, uh called M uh Mindhunter.

[12:55] Gordon Cox: Manhunter, thank you.

[12:56] Brian Cox: Mindhunter is the Netflix series, right? Um and Michael Mann directed that. Yeah, and it was it was his second movie, and it was the first movie that that character would be in it.

[13:06] Gordon Cox: Yeah, right, right. Um you mentioned uh you'd just finished up uh working on your TV show. Um and the it sort of so felt like to me that as Great Society was starting and getting going, that at the same time Succession sort of had this huge explosion in kind of awareness and uh popularity and sudden interest. I mean, I was one of the people who came on board with the set like j started watching once the second season sort of started and one and one.

[13:35] Brian Cox: A lot of people did that. A lot of people played catch up on that.

[13:37] Gordon Cox: Yeah, that's understandable. That's the and that's the great thing about long form television and also television where you can stream, you can pick it up, you can get it on demand.

[13:47] Brian Cox: Yeah. Did the the sort of coincidence of the timing of those two experiences, how did that how did they impact each other?

[13:53] Brian Cox: It was bizarre. Yeah, it was just totally bizarre. I mean, suddenly there I was doing this, having done this uh this amazingly, and I could see it. And it was just I mean, I literally started rehearsing after the final episode. And of course, when the final episode uh hit the public, I mean they went Which was just uh now as I'm talking to you just a couple weeks ago and it went it it kind of went wow you know everybody went crazy about it and it was happening while I was still rehearsing. So it was kind of weird.

[14:22] Gordon Cox: It was weird.

[14:23] Brian Cox: And it was weird for me because at my age, you know, I mean I've done a lot of work, but I've never done so much work that has been so to the fore as it was in the in this time, you know.

[14:34] Gordon Cox: Yes, that because it's it is I can see how not only Succession but also The Great Society in its own way kind of speak to what's happening right now.

[14:41] Brian Cox: Exactly. Exactly. And and and I'm sort of and also because I'm older and uh there are not very many of us around who tend to fall off the perch. I mean, I've seen you know my comrades over the years, sadly, some of them live not as long as they should have lived, quite honestly. I'm thinking of my great friend Alan Rickman, who was uh great friend, and we started together, so I've and was still a shock to me and when I think that he's not around anymore. So in a way I've I've I've kind of gained advantage out of that.

[15:13] Brian Cox: And also I always knew as a young actor, I mean I I was told by several people who were meant mentored me when I was young. Uh one was uh Lindsay Anderson, the director Lindsay Anderson.

[15:26] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[15:27] Brian Cox: And the other one was uh a wonderful director, uh unsung hero of the British Theatre, started the wonderful theatre in Manchester called the Royal Exchange, and he was the father of Marianne Elliott.

[15:38] Gordon Cox: Oh called Michael Elliott.

[15:40] Brian Cox: Okay. And he was probably the best theater director I've ever worked with. Wow. I mean, he astonishing, astonishing talent, really.

[15:49] Gordon Cox: And uh obviously his daughter has picked up on this.

[15:53] Brian Cox: She's not bad herself, yeah.

[15:54] Gordon Cox: No, considerably.

[15:55] Brian Cox: And it's interesting because actually Marion was my assistant. Well, I I directed Richard the Third in the twenty years ago.

[16:01] Gordon Cox: Wow.

[16:02] Brian Cox: And she was my assistant. So it was kind of bizarre. So but Michael actually said to me, he said, It's it's gonna happen much later for you. He said, You're you know, because I was playing parts way beyond my age when I was in my twenties.

[16:14] Gordon Cox: Well, I feel like did you play Lear at 40 or something like that?

[16:16] Brian Cox: I was forty four when we played. I mean, come on. I was forty-four when I played Lear. And then previous to that I played Titus Andronicus, which was my biggest Shakespeare success.

[16:24] Gordon Cox: Yeah when I was forty.

[16:26] Brian Cox: Right. So I mean I did all of those parts. And in fact, ironically, going to back to The Great Society, because of this panic that I had, and I really did have a panic. How am I going to do this in the time given my age? I thought, what am I gonna do? So I literally had a conversation and called upon my younger self. I literally said, I called up the 40-year-old Brian Cox and said, What do we do? How do we get this through? And he said to me, It's gonna be really difficult. Really difficult. But um, I don't know, let's see that the old muscles are there. And they were.

[17:05] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[17:05] Brian Cox: You know, I mean, physical muscles. I mean, I still have some physical problems because I have to wear lifts on stage.

[17:10] Gordon Cox: Yeah, right.

[17:11] Brian Cox: And I can't read my legs really I it's hard on the legs.

[17:14] Gordon Cox: Yeah, it's hard on the legs.

[17:16] Brian Cox: But so that's fine. So that's to make you as tall as DJ, right?

[17:20] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to do it.

[17:22] Brian Cox: Yeah, I'll get up there, you know, to look roughly.

[17:25] Gordon Cox: Right.

[17:26] Brian Cox: So I wear that. And uh so that was one thing. But the other thing was the the the muscle memory of the brain is astonishing. I mean, you know, I'm I I'm at an age now where a lot of people are going into the Alzheimer's zones or the dementia zone and you know, touch wood.

[17:42] Gordon Cox: I think the movie wood somewhere, yeah, touch wood.

[17:44] Brian Cox: That doesn't that's not happening. But I still forget names, you know, but the but that also do I that's good.

[17:51] Gordon Cox: Yeah that's very and when I when I hear somebody as young as you say I always feel very reassured.

[17:55] Brian Cox: Yeah no but but the interesting thing is that that was the thing that that got me through it. That the the old muscle memory that just said you did this. This is what you did. And what how you prepared and how you did your day and of course my day is it's all about the play. I mean I because I have no extra energy you know right yeah yeah.

[18:17] Gordon Cox: Um I do feel like we should uh for we should exhort listeners to watch Succession if they haven't already because I feel like it is uh one of the casting directors is Doug Abel for who is a figure in theater and I feel like every time I turn around on that show I people who have gone to see shows in New York state shows in New York for years and years will recognize almost every single actor on that like they just sort of pick these people who show it like Peter Friedman has a major part in that like I I don't know that I've ever seen him on Pods Green.

[18:50] Brian Cox: Oh Peter's wonderful yeah and he's great and Jason Cameron is yeah Jason I mean the the extraordinary thing about it is that Peter's character keeps getting fired when Jesse Armstrong you know he just says oh we hire him.

[19:03] Gordon Cox: Yeah and of course it's well within Logan's lack of morality to do that.

[19:08] Brian Cox: Right. Logan Roy is a character yes exactly. Do you find how do you find your theater work sort of filtering how you filtering into how you work on something like Succession because they're uh Succession has its own sort of Shakespearean elements to it.

[19:21] Brian Cox: I mean well there's there's clearly the ruler references. So you know you know about the overall sweep of it. So you kind of know you learn quickly about the man and then you create the man. I mean you learn what the man's demands are, what Logan's demands are.

[19:27] Gordon Cox: Right.

[19:27] Brian Cox: And then you create the man.

[19:41] Brian Cox: And you create the man, of course. I mean, I used to get f uh anxious that I didn't have the scripts, you know, in the first series.

[19:49] Gordon Cox: Right.

[19:49] Brian Cox: In the second series, I was very grateful not to have the script.

[19:52] Gordon Cox: That's interesting.

[19:53] Brian Cox: Because I like the free song of not knowing. Because I'd already established who Logan was and they trust me.

[20:01] Gordon Cox: Right.

[20:02] Brian Cox: And they've and you know, I apparently I've given them a lot in terms of how they write Logan. They kind of they write it for me, you know, which is fantastic.

[20:11] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[20:11] Brian Cox: So now I will do anything that they ask because we were we we've achieved a kind of wonderful uh sympathique between one another. Whereas in the first season I was very much the hired hand, you know, playing the role, and the role was there.

[20:28] Gordon Cox: Except in fairness to them, they each episode was always later and later and later because they were always making that adjustment.

[20:35] Brian Cox: Sure.

[20:35] Gordon Cox: And that's how it's worked for all the actors as well, not just me.

[20:38] Brian Cox: Yeah, yeah, no, I imagine. It works for Jeremy, where for Kieran, we're for Tom, you know, what were you know uh uh Tom, I mean Matthew McFadyen and the wonderful Sarah as well. I mean it's a wonderful cast.

[20:49] Gordon Cox: Yeah, it's really great.

[20:50] Brian Cox: Um you you started to mention some of your early days in uh back in the UK in the theater. Um you were born in the UK and did your training and early work there.

[20:59] Gordon Cox: What brought you over to the US?

[21:01] Brian Cox: Well, it it was a simple thing, really. I I always as a child, I I'm Scots. So my natural predilection a Scots I'm I'm actually a Mi'kmaq I'm an Irish Scot. When a lot of I've never heard that term a Mi'maq a Mi'kmaq it it's uh it's a it's that's the Irish Scot who came this way as I mean came to Scotland as possible most of them went to America.

[21:27] Gordon Cox: Right.

[21:27] Brian Cox: But a few of the foolhardy ones went to Scotland.

[21:30] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[21:31] Brian Cox: Uh and my family came to work in the jute trade business. I mean they were ju um the women yeah the men were unemployed they were known as kettle boilers the men because that's what they did. And they're all farmers they'd all been farmers. But at the time of the famine there was no work. So and the skills that were required were people who could spin uh flax weave uh jute and and and weave and my that was my that was my family they were all part of that generation they came from Ireland and the women did it.

[22:03] Gordon Cox: Right.

[22:04] Brian Cox: So that was you know that was the ghetto area that I grew up in. So I I my adherence always in in terms of entertainment was always to do with American stuff.

[22:16] Gordon Cox: Right.

[22:17] Brian Cox: I mean I I responded much more to the James Cagney, you know the the para Bryan that sort of those American kind of icons of the time than I did to Alec Guinness or Kenneth Moore or all the English guys because that that was as alien to me as anything.

[22:35] Gordon Cox: So I always had this thing about the movies.

[22:37] Brian Cox: Right. But of course the tradition in England is the theatre it it is the you know you can't get away from it. We you know, America is about cinema, but England is definitely about the theatre because of Shakespeare.

[22:52] Gordon Cox: And you can't get around Shakespeare as much try as you might.

[22:55] Brian Cox: So I became a you know, I s I I worked in the theatre I started in my hometown in Scotland, and then I eventually went to Lambda. And the reason I went to Lambda because there was this amazing teacher who came up while I was at while I was in the theatre when I was literally this the second second ASM.

[23:14] Gordon Cox: And this woman arrived, and the guy who ran the theater, who was a guy called Bill Davis, who's very famous for playing the smoking man in the um what is it called that series?

[23:25] Brian Cox: Uh the X-Files that one?

[23:26] Gordon Cox: Yeah, uh huh.

[23:27] Brian Cox: Bill. And uh he was, you know, but he ran the theater and he said, I'm bringing this uh young woman up and we're having a voice class. He said, Would you like to come? And I I had no idea what a voice class was. I mean, I had a garden I had an accent you could cut with a knife and you really couldn't understand what the hell I was saying.

[23:44] Gordon Cox: So this woman arrived, young woman, she was very, very young, she was in her oh, she was in her early twenties.

[23:50] Brian Cox: And I just thought, I want to go there. I wanna go where the I want to go to where that woman teaches. And that woman was Kristen Linklater.

[23:57] Gordon Cox: Oh wow.

[23:58] Brian Cox: All right. That's who that was. Who is I mean, is she the most famous voice teacher?

[24:03] Gordon Cox: Well, she's uh she is one.

[24:04] Brian Cox: She's certainly one of her in scenario.

[24:09] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[24:10] Brian Cox: And now, I mean, I went there and of course as soon as I went there, she came here.

[24:13] Gordon Cox: Right.

[24:14] Brian Cox: She came to New York and had this amazing career with Shakespeare and Company and everything up there. And uh but now ironically, uh Kirsten is b is back in Orkney and she has this voice studio in Orkney, and I'm dying to get there because I'd like to go and get uh you know, I'd like to have uh you know a retread.

[24:32] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[24:32] Brian Cox: But so that was a great influence to me. And then why I came to America was in the nineties I was very it was great because I ended up doing theatre. I did a hell of a lot of theater, and I would go from theatre and that that but there was always this thing of movies, and we don't we never really had any a movie industry in the UK. We did movies and we did a lot of great movies. But I m from my point of view, the great charm of movies was the free cinema of the sixties with you know Lindsay Anderson, Carl Rice, Tony Richardson, uh actors like Alan Bates, Al Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Peter O'Toole.

[25:04] Brian Cox: That was a great period for me. And it was a very liberating period. It was the greatest period of social mobility. It's it has since evaporated, needless to say. But what happened was I always had this appointment that I needed to make with my movie career. And I put it off and I was fifty. I was fifty when I came here. And it happened because I used to go from television to the theater very happily and did a lot of great television in the UK. But I was, you know, I was and I'd done Lear, I'd done all the stuff at the RSC and I was a pretty major actor in the UK. And I decided and I came here to do Strange Interlude, which I did on Broadway. And I also did another play at the same time. It was a very similar situation to now. I did a play at the Public, which was a big success called Rat in the Skull, where I got my great notice from Frank Rich.

[26:00] Gordon Cox: Well, the friend.

[26:01] Brian Cox: Yeah. And so what you're working with Frank on Succession?

[26:04] Gordon Cox: He's our godfather.

[26:05] Brian Cox: Frank is the godfather of Succession. So what happened was that I decided, you know, and I was fifty. I decided I'm gonna go to the States. I'm gonna go there and just see. And of course, people always said, What are you doing? Why? And I was very inspired by people like Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, much younger than me and who'd done that. And I was they've done really rather well, and I think I could probably do well there. Because and also because television was so awful in England at that time. It had gone really reached an all-time low. It's now gone the other way. It's now really pretty amazing. But it was at an all-time low then so I thought I really better you know reap while the harvest is good. So I did that. I came and also the big factor was if I was going to be paid money I'd rather be paid more money for doing crap in America than crap in England.

[26:59] Gordon Cox: So the guard's what the Scott right and what have over the years what has been some of you mentioned the changes in the London TV industry and sort of the how the output has changed. What do you consider some of the biggest changes in the entertainment industry over the years?

[27:16] Brian Cox: Well, it isn't the same as it was. There was a kind of lineage about being an actor particularly in the theater in the UK. Yeah, that lineage is gone. I mean, you know, I work with Olivier, I work with John Gielgud, I work with Ralph Richardson, all who were awe inspiring. Paul Schofield. I never worked with Paul but I used to watch Paul in rehearsal because he was to me he's probably the greatest stage actor there was, you know, so that lineage kind of evaporated a little bit and the RSC was really the, and the National to a certain extent, but really the RSC there was a kind of continuum there but that started to fall apart. And so it and people, people there was an element of people just seeing wrongly Emperor's new clothes and saying, oh well, it doesn't really mean anything anymore.

I think it always means something in the theater. So the theater became much more fractured in a way. It still works and it's still incredibly impressive. And it's new. It's now it's there's now diversity. There's all kinds of stuff, which wasn't around when I was a kid. You know, I was I mean, I would be like an African American actor or a West Indian actor now because I was working class, so I was given those breaks. You know, I was and I and I was very encouraged, particularly in the 60s and with the casting directors in the UK. So that has changed. And the American theater has lost a lot of its impetus tragically, because I think this cast I'm working with in The Great Society is one of the best casts I've ever worked with.

And I walk on that stage every night, and I cannot believe the intensity that's on that stage and the commitment that's on that stage. And it's rather tragic because you know I keep thinking of old Tony Randall. You remember Tony Randall who had this great desire for an American national theater?

[29:01] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[29:18] Brian Cox: And it's something that I would like to see reinstilled because the quality is there, but they don't know where to go. You know, they're all thinking, what do we do after? What's our next job?

[29:29] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[29:29] Brian Cox: And in the UK, there was that structure which helped me. I mean, if it hadn't been for that structure, I wouldn't have I would never have become the actor I became.

[29:38] Gordon Cox: And that's is that the repertory structure is that the remote.

[29:40] Brian Cox: It's the repertory structure. It's the repertoire structure, and it is working, but it's almost work you know, in those days, you're right. I mean, if you think of it, Ian Holm, he was a wonderful actor. Ian Holm spent ten years at the RSC. It couldn't happen now. Before he got a role, before he got a sizable role. Wow. You know. That was the so you had an apprenticeship. And that was very considered. It doesn't happen now because everybody's it's so instant, you know. I mean a kid can come out of drama school and be playing Hamlet almost straight away. Right. Without necessarily the craft, but you know, all the adherent other stuff that goes with it. So that sense of craft has been sort of not eradicated, but a film has gone over it.

A sort of a blur has gone over it in a way. And I think that's sad. I think and I see it with these young actors here where I think these actors deserve a better future than I know the future they're gonna get because it's pretty dog eat dog out there. And it's also dog eat dog from the producing point of view. I mean, I think the way people are cast in this country, I think casting is they're so rude. They are so incredibly rude.

[30:53] Gordon Cox: Really?

[30:53] Brian Cox: Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. So how sales can you can you elaborate on that?

[31:01] Brian Cox: They never meet anybody. They do it in a way and it's and it's some secretary who's doing or some casting assistant. Yeah. So there's no I mean, that didn't happen when I came here. When I came here and my uh and I got my big break in Manhunter, I you know, Bonnie Timmerman, who was a wonderful infamous casting director. Yeah, she saw me, she interviewed me, you know, Marion Doherty, there's this wonderful program about God. There was a tradition of casting. There was a care. And there's a lack of care now. There's a rudeness. I see it with you know, I see it with my wife, who's a wonderful actress, and she goes through it all the time. And I just think this is not good. Right. This is really not good. It there's this the human you know, we're about humanity. That's what we do. And there has to be humanity in the room, you know.

[31:48] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[31:48] Brian Cox: You know, in order to do what we do. And I think that's been gone. And I see it with these kids here I'm working with. They deserve a much they deserve much more respect than they get.

[32:01] Gordon Cox: Interesting. Um and you're in um you're in The Great Society through the end of November. And what's next for you after this? You mentioned that Succession season three happens in the spring.

[32:12] Brian Cox: I've got this film coming out now called The Etruscan Smile, which again is a pet project because again it's something that really, you know, I know Scorsese's been going on about this, you know, not liking the Marvel films.

[32:25] Gordon Cox: The Marvel films.

[32:26] Brian Cox: Well, I don't dislike the Marvel films. You know, I mean there is an argument that Scorsese his films always have the same themes, which you know the corruption of the American business and how it's sure translates into mafia, you know. He doesn't stray from that Italian basis. So I don't mind it. I think he's because he's a genius. Right. You know, he's a brilliant filmmaker. But what I do mind is the fact that in the cinemas, there are five, say five screens, and there are four screens showing whatever Marvel, whatever DC comics are going on. Yeah. There's that one cinema, and there are so many films fighting for that one cinema. Yeah. And there is nothing like that's why festivals are great and very important, because there is that in element of community.

And community and my film, The Etruscan Smile is a life-affirming film. Yeah. You don't get lots of life-affirming films nowadays. And as you look ahead at the kind of stuff you wanna do as an actor and want to sign on for, what has guided you in your choices?

[33:27] Brian Cox: Well, young directors, yeah, uh young visionaries. Uh I did a film called L I E several years ago. Great movie. Yeah, and uh that was a movie that people said you don't want to be playing that character. Right. And I said, uh no, I think this is interesting because it's an interesting dilemma. That kind of thing, Michael Cuesta, working with Elly When Wes Anderson, you know. Right. I've worked with a lot of people at the beginning. That's of and also the scripts, you know. Um I did a film with a wonderful film with this Icelandic director called Dagur Kári, and Paul Dano and I reunited after he was much grown up. It's a beautiful called The Good Heart. And it's kind of eccentric, but it's a lovely film.

So I'm I'm very keen on that. And of course doing the money earners as well. Right. But also now I'm there's a very good script I'm interested in now, which is about the opioid uh generation. Oh yeah. And I'm really interested in doing scripts of the now, of really the crisis we are in at the moment. Uh even Succession is a morality tale. Succession is clearly a morality tale, and it's clearly about the fact that God is dead and what do we have in its place. And Logan represents a sort of nihilist viewpoint, you know, that he feels he's somebody who's been disappointed by humanity. So y and you realize that people like that are a danger to humanity and people who tell lies. And there's a lot of lying going on around us as we witness every day. Particularly in this country and also in the UK. So that is important to me, is really doing stuff which has a real meaning for the now.

[35:15] Gordon Cox: You came over here to do film, uh, but what you have always come back to the theater. You were last on Broadway in That Championship Season.

[35:23] Brian Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[35:24] Gordon Cox: Is that important to you to come back to the theater and why?

[35:27] Brian Cox: It is not. Yeah, why? It's hard. Well, I think because the live performance is really how I've been trained. It's where I, you know, it's it was it's it's where I was propelled to. I never intended. I mean, I always just want to do movies. Yeah, but then I got the theater, the theater came like a bug to me. And of course the theater in the UK was particularly when I was growing up, was second to none. And it was just the most amazing time theatrically. And there was also a great quid pro quo between people being in the cinema like Albert and then doing films, PC doing theater, theater and film. So I really feel that. And now I I'm very keen on you know, I just I'd like a bit more time. I'd like a no I'd like a normal rehearsal time. But I am keen on doing stuff in in the theater and doing stuff, you know, that has you know, there's stuff that I'm interested in, like I'd like to re-look at something like Inherit the Wind, for example.

[36:24] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[36:24] Brian Cox: Because I think it needs rethinking because it's you know, especially when we do with fundamental the fundamental, you know, this whole thing of fundamentalism, and that that's a play that deals directly with that. Right. And sometimes it gets clouded that we forget what the central issue is, what that monkey trial scope trial is. So that is something that would appeal to me.

[36:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. Well, we look forward to seeing what you do next, both on stage and on screen.

[36:48] Brian Cox: Thank you, Gordon.

[36:48] Gordon Cox: Thank you, Mr. Cox. Thanks for being here.

[36:50] Brian Cox: Thank you, Gordon. That was great.

[36:58] Gordon Cox: That was actor Brian Cox, now appearing on Broadway as Lyndon B. Johnson in The Great Society at Lincoln Center Theater through November 30th. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or tell a friend. Next week on Stagecraft, I'm talking to Jonathan Groff, the theater fan favorite, now headlining a new revival of Little Shop of Horrors. Until then, see you at the theater.