Checking in with BRIAN COX

In his more than five decades as a film, television and stage actor, Brian Cox has taken on memorable characters ranging from Hannibal Lecter and William Wallace to Winston Churchill and King Lear. And at 72, he gets to add another meaty role to his long resume playing a Machiavellian media mogul in a drama series debuting this week on HBO. In “Succession,” premiering Sunday, June 3, the Scottish actor stars as Logan Roy, the head of Waystar Royco, a family-controlled entertainment empire, who is planning his eventual exit from the company and considering his successors, thus setting the stage for conflict among his wife, children and various executives. The obvious comparison here is to media magnates such as Sumner Redstone or Rupert Murdoch. But Cox, as he told a recent gathering of journalists in Pasadena, Calif., begs to differ. “I didn’t channel anybody, really,” he says. “It’s a great role, and it’s a great subject, and it’s about the nature of how greed and (acquisitiveness) desensitizes people. And this is a man who is a selfmade man. He is a man who has acquired a great deal of wealth. He has clearly had trauma in his life, which he has kind of eschewed, covered over. “He has created this dynasty, but he himself is desensitized by his position,” he continues, “and I think that’s what happens to people, that ... it’s a choice. Some people don’t go that way. But the majority, it’s always the problem that greed and (acquisitiveness) leads to that kind of area. So from an acting point of view, that’s a interesting kind of exploration.”

Full name: Brian Denis Cox Birth date: June 1, 1946 Birthplace: Dundee, Scotland Alma mater: London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Family ties: Has two children with wife Nicole Ansari-Cox and two from a previous marriage Did you know?: Cox was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2002 for his services to drama. Movie credits include: “King Lear” (1983), “Manhunter” (1986), “Rob Roy” (1995), “Braveheart” (1995), “The Long Kiss Goodnight” (1996), “For Love of the Game” (1999), “Super Troopers” (2001), “Adaptation” (2002), “The Bourne Supremacy” (2004), “Match Point” (2005), “Running With Scissors” (2006), “The Good Heart” (2009), “Her” (voice, 2013), “Churchill” (2017) TV credits include: “Superman,” “Nuremberg,” “Frasier,” “Deadwood,” “Agatha Christie’s Marple,” “Doctor Who,” “The Day of the Triffids,” “The Game,” “The Slap,” “War & Peace” Stage credits include: “Peer Gynt,” “As You Like It,” “Titus Andronicus,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “King Lear”