Let it be said that when Brian Cox takes aim at those who have annoyed, irritated or upset him over a 50-year career on stage and screen, he rarely misses. Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, the title of his new autobiography, is littered with the badly beaten, mildly dishevelled and simply jovially mocked.
Among those who fall into the first category are Sir David Hare, darling of the National Theatre, playwright and screenwriter, who is dismissed as “See You Next Tuesday”; and Michael Caton-Jones, the director of Rob Roy, who is skewered for his on-set behaviour by Cox wielding his pen like a Highlander’s broadsword.
In the middle category falls the actress Natascha McElhone, who did something, we are not privy to what exactly, that annoyed Brian during a stage production and which prompted him — on goading from his then girlfriend — to rescind an offer to write a letter of recommendation so she could secure her green card. Ironically, he is attempting to apologise in print for doing so.
The “jovially mocked” is Sir Ian McKellen, whose acting is the subject of a three-page critique that both serves to praise its brilliance while arguing that it is, in its own way, shallow shtick. Oh, and he really hates Quentin Tarantino — not the man, whom he has never met, but his films. Still, Cox is nothing if not brutally honest and states that he would happily appear in one if offered the right part. Yet, when I raise how refreshingly honest the book is, Cox begins to backtrack and it’s clear that, on reflection, he would like nothing more than to put certain rabbits back into his hat.
“Yes . . . I had a wee bit of . . . Well, I’ve had to reflect that my honesty is not always the best policy, but I can’t not be honest at the end of the day. But I think what I am going to do is in the American edition and the paperback of the British edition, I’m going to write an addendum where I talk about not disrespecting or dishonouring any of those people I’ve criticised.”
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He feels particular regret about his comments about Michael Caton-Jones, who initially attempted to stop Cox from appearing in both Braveheart and Rob Roy, which were filming in Scotland at the same time.
“I did say that thing about Michael Caton-Jones but I realised that was 30 years ago and there is every possibility that in a different light he will be different. You have to be careful about saying something about somebody in case they are no longer like that. They have moved on and through some kind of transformative element.” There is a pause, then he says: “Or they may still be assholes. You have to take that on board.”
While it is clear Cox is enduring a mild case of writer’s regret about certain anecdotes, it should be said he is, at times, equally harsh on himself as an unfaithful husband, at times an absentee father, and a brother unable, until recent years, to fully accept the love of his siblings. He is also unsparing, to the point of eye-watering detail, about the effects certain theatrical scenes have on the male genitalia: almost guillotined by an actress’s pair of tights in one case, or mashed inside his own body in another. All of which makes for a highly entertaining read, yet one also marbled with hard-won wisdom.
Cox was clever enough at an early age to recognise that his career would be a marathon and not a sprint. He embraced the theatre, which he believes has given him the greatest “bliss”, but after conquering all the great parts of the London stage by his mid-forties, he set his sights on Hollywood and a lucrative and critically acclaimed career as a character actor; rarely the lead but often stealing the show, as in his performance as Hannibal Lecktor (aka Lecter) in Michael Mann’s film Manhunter. He was disappointed that he wasn’t invited back for the sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, and had to watch as Anthony Hopkins won the Oscar. The same thing happened almost 25 years later when he played the title role in Churchill, only to see Gary Oldman collect an Oscar for the same role in Darkest Hour.
When I ask about the “curse of Cox”, as film critic Mark Kermode coined a predicament unique in cinema history, he laughs and replies: “The Gemini guy comes along and says: ‘Awards are shite.’ Then the other guy comes along and says: ‘Hang on, you should have got that award.’ There is a duality. I’m having paradoxical conversations, and it drives you nuts. I’m a hostage to it sometimes. The Oscars — I hate the fact that the Oscars are only about films that are released between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
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Yet, at the age of 75, Cox is enjoying the brightest spotlight in his long career with the role of Logan Roy, the media mogul in Succession, a character in which he finds echoes of The Master Builder, the play by Henrik Ibsen, which he performed in Edinburgh over 20 years ago.
“It’s great, but the success of Succession is the writing. They understand who I am now and they know when to be economic and the less said — at times — his ‘ahay’ and his “f*** offs” are as important as any speeches. It’s the brevity of Logan at times which is good.
“He sees that it is all a game, but you take the game very seriously. Logan is more than that. He’s much more mysterious and conflicted on that — they do write a satire but they are very human.”
It seems only appropriate to ask Cox about any regrets that emerged from writing about his long life and career. For a few seconds he seems slightly thrown. Then he replies: “I always regret the end of relationships. There is always that pain, that intimacy and tenderness, and the extraordinary experience you have with a partner, and that always leaves a regret. In the Catholic church they talk about ‘temporal punishment’: it attacks to the soul. I feel that is my temporal punishment, and every relationship that I’ve had, naturally they come to an end — except my present partner with my lovely wife, Nicole.”
Our time is quickly running out but there is still time to gauge his hopes for his native country and to squeeze in one last apology. He stills hopes to see an independent Scotland. “I hope so. The United Kingdom is not united. We have been at the tap end of the bath long enough. We deserve to have our back against the smooth surface for a while. It’s been tough and it is tough, and I think Nicola [Sturgeon] does an incredible job, and it’s a tough job. How do you balance the economy with what is happening with the climate?”
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As for the apology, he explains that when appearing on the BBC’s Question Time he was unduly dismissive of the position of the cleansing workers in Glasgow. “I was very naughty. I want to send an apology to the striking workers in Glasgow. I was on Question Time and they asked me about it, and I was so fed up with the party political posturing that was going on between everyone and I just thought and said, ‘That’s life.’ I kind of half-dismissed it and I have such a regret about it because I have such empathy for those people . . . so I do really want to send an apology about being so glib.”
As Logan Roy, he may well choose to kill a man with the shovel but Brian Cox is wise enough to know that when in a hole it is wiser to stop digging.
Putting the Rabbit in the Hat: My Autobiography, by Brian Cox, is published by Quercus and is out now, priced at £20