Brian Cox is still promoting his dishy memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat. He’s gotten top-tier press about the memoir, I guess because he is gossiping so much about other celebrities and actors, and it’s not always complimentary. Plus, Cox is currently on everyone’s favorite show, Succession, and Logan Roy is just one of those characters that everyone wants to hang out with, even though Logan Roy is a giant a–hole. Anyway, Brian Cox chatted with Deadline about Jeremy Strong’s controversial New Yorker profile, his real feelings on Johnny Depp, and what he thinks about America. This is mentioned as an aside, but Cox is still pro-Scottish independence. Some highlights from Deadline:

He’s not having a go at Johnny Depp: “I’ve had a lot of flak about disrespecting some and all that, and people clearly haven’t read the book and they think I’m having a go at Johnny Depp. Well, I’m not having a go at Johnny Depp. I don’t disrespect Johnny Depp. I think Johnny Depp has done some incredible work, but he’s … you know, I have my reservations.

He actually halfway admires Michael Caine too: “I feel the same way about Michael Caine. What I think about Michael Caine is, well, nobody’s honored his working-class roots like Michael Caine, right from the word go. But yes, I talk about rage problem. I also think he’s done some wonderful things, like Alfie, which is a formidable piece and my favorite movie of his, and also of Sean Connery’s, is The Man Who Would Be King. I think that’s a tremendous movie, and he gives a tremendous performance in it.

His opinions change: “What I have an opinion about 25 years ago, it’s not necessarily the opinion I have now. I don’t really dismiss or disrespect anybody who goes for this profession because it’s a tough, bloody profession. I think Johnny Depp is a wonderful actor. He’s very good, but he’s not the greatest actor who ever lived, you know? And I do think a lot of things are projected onto Johnny Depp, which are more than he would even desire, I think.

He and Logan Roy “share the disappointment in the human experiment.” “I mean when you get to my age, you look back and you say, “It’s a f*ck-up.” Especially if you’ve lived through…four years of Trump. You go, how the f*ck can this country vote for such a f*cking a–hole? And yet, this part of this country will, you know, adore him. What is it they adore? What is it they want? And how disappointing that is. So I feel that disappointment in the human experiment. I feel it, but again, it’s a shifting thing. It may change. We will get better. We have moments of greatness in our history, but we have these incredible down moments, and we’ve just been through the riot of January 6 — put the kibosh on everything, as far as I was concerned. And all the love that I had for America, I just thought, “What the f*ck’s going on? What is this? What is this?”

On Logan Roy’s line that America has become “fat as f*ck, scrawny on meth or yoga, they pissed it all away.” “That was weird because that is very close to who I was, and I suddenly felt, “Oh, that’s weird that Jesse even wrote that, that they allowed that to be in because Logan never expresses an opinion.” He always avoids expressing an opinion. If you notice, he’ll express an opinion about his children, but that’s a different thing. That’s family. But the basic difference between us is that Logan is a misanthrope. He really thinks that we’re doomed, whereas I feel the opposite. You know, as long as the conversation keeps going on, I’m an optimist. I think the one thing that what we mustn’t do, like an improvisation, you don’t stop the conversation.”

On Jeremy Strong’s New Yorker profile: “It was Jeremy’s idea, the whole article. He pushed for it, and you know, and people kept warning him about it. In a sense, he got hoisted by it, and I think it was unfortunate. I think he should never had gone down that road because playing Kendall has put him in a very vulnerable position…he does what he does and he does it brilliantly, but it’s also exhausting. Particularly exhausting for him, but it’s also exhausting for the rest of us from time to time. But we weather it because we love him and because the result is always extraordinary, what he does, but at the same time, there is the double-edged sword that goes with it.

Jeremy Strong lives in pain: “Let me tell you, I have such respect for Jeremy as an actor, and I just wish him well. I think he lives in a lot of pain. I mean, he creates the pain in the role he plays. That doesn’t necessarily help, but he does. … There is a certain amount of pain at the root of Jeremy, and I just feel for that pain. I think that he puts himself in vulnerable positions and with that New Yorker article, he placed himself in a very, very vulnerable position, and I think that he didn’t need to do that.

Whether he, Brian Cox, has put himself in a vulnerable position: “No, no. Listen, I’m too old, too tired and too talented for any of that sh-t.

[From Deadline]

I loved that line in Succession, about America was once the land of milk and honey for Logan Roy and now America is “fat as f*ck, scrawny on meth or yoga, they pissed it all away.” It was like: oh, yes, Logan Roy is fundamentally an immigrant in America, he had his own American dream, and having success in America was everything to him. But it changed, and he got jaded on America. I think Brian Cox feels the same way – as a working class kid in Scotland, he dreamt of Hollywood success. Now he spends a lot of time in America, he’s had a full career in film and TV and he’s still unsettled by just how f–ked up many Americans are. The Trump thing did a number on our global image. So did the insurrection.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar and Backgrid.