Brian Cox has new and exciting words to describe his established dislike of Method acting
"I don’t put up with all that American shit," Brian Cox says, to Jeremy Strong's chagrin
Aux News Brian Cox
Succession’s Brian Cox continues to stoke the flames of a familial feud on-screen and off. Although he’s previously made it very clear he’s not into the whole Method acting thing (a performance style his co-star Jeremy Strong happens to really like), Cox is back to shit on it once more.
“It’s really a cultural clash,” Cox says in an interview with Variety. “I don’t put up with all that American shit. I’m sorry. All that sort of ‘I think, therefore I feel.’ Just do the job. Don’t identify.”
He goes on to talk about the patron saint of Method, Daniel Day-Lewis. Cox worked with DDL on the 1997 film The Boxer and cites his devotion to Method as a factor in his early retirement in 2017.
“He retired at the age of 55, and I’m going, ‘That’s when the roles become really interesting. You’ve retired just at the point when actually the roles get better!’” Cox explains. “Of course, Jeremy was Dan Day-Lewis’ assistant. So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.”
Day-Lewis (who’s not an American) was indeed a pivotal character in Strong’s early career after he was hired to assist the immersive actor while filming Rebecca Miller’s The Ballad Of Jack And Rose. Strong was known for his intensity even then, with one crew member recalling in Strong’s infamous New Yorker profile, “His whole brain was focussed on Daniel Day-Lewis. I never really saw him unless he was standing outside Daniel’s trailer.”
As Strong’s style has become a talking point for Cox over the last few months, the lines between the two’s dynamic in the show and in real life continue to blur with Cox grimacing and griping, just as Logan Roy would.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cox tries to use another example to define the differences between Americans and the British: showrunner Jesse Armstrong’s decision to bring Succession to a close this year.
“He’s very disciplined in that way, and also he’s very British in that way,” Cox says. “The American inclination is to milk it for all it’s worth.”
Now, we’re not sure the Brits are particularly known for their discipline, but sure. In a predictable fashion, Cox is also not too sentimental about the HBO drama ending with its upcoming fourth season, but we’re sure that has nothing to do with him relishing in not sharing a set with Strong anymore.
“I’ll miss the cast, I’ll miss the atmosphere, I’ll miss the bonhomie,” he says, ticking off reasons during a recent Zoom interview from London. And Logan? “Logan, probably, I’ll miss a bit. But upward and onwards.”
Season four of Succession premieres on HBO on March 26.
135 Comments
“Now, we’re not sure the Brits are particularly known for their discipline”
He *specifically* says “He’s very disciplined in that way” and referring to the fact that the show is ending after a relatively short run rather than going on and on and on.And guess what? The Brits ARE particularly known for their discipline “in that way”, in that their scripted shows tend to end after a relatively short run rather than going on and on and on.
You know, the exact thing that fucking EVERYONE brings up when comparing British telly and American TV?
Learn some reading comprehension, idiot.
Grumpy Old Men reboot with Brian Cox and Hugh Grant, please.
No, Cox and Gleeson.
Your both wrong. The obvious choice is Cox and Ian McShane.
Brian Cox and Courtney Cox
Brian Cox and (physicist) Brian Cox.
In “Cox vs. Cox”
“Cox vs Cox 2: crossing streams”
Brian Cox (actor) vs Brian Cox (astronomer).
Courtney Cox (actor) and Courtney Cox (guitarist)
Weren’t they both in that short-lived Kings show from six or seven years ago (more, maybe), as opposing kings or something? I don’t remember if they ever shared scenes though.
They were both in Deadwood first and then yes they were both in Kings (which was a great show). Cox was the king before McShane’s character and I think they only had scenes together.
Gleeson certainly has some Mathau-like qualities but I’m sticking with the Grant-Cox axis. She’s only 60, but Michele Yeoh would be fun in the Sophia Loren role (and be age-appropriate for Grant yet a bit young for Cox).
> “He’s very disciplined in that way, and also he’s very British in that way,” Cox says. “The American inclination is to milk it for all it’s worth.”
Doctor Who celebrates its 60th Anniversary this year.
The exception proves the rule! I don’t know how that works, but it proves it, Fanamir!
Coronation Street is on Season 63.
Even more exceptions to make the rule even stronger! You’re only helping my argument, and in the process making yourself look like a fool! A fool, I say!
Dr. No is 61.
No, not close.
And once you’re on the BBC, you’ve got lifetime tenure. Obviously the Savile exception, but they tried really hard to cover up that shit.
And Red Dwarf (which Cox appeared in an episode of) keeps plugging along after 35 years.
Yes indeed, and at 74 episodes, that’s at a clip of marginally over two a year!
Midsomer Murders has been killing British villagers in increasingly inventive and bizarre ways for 20+ years.
I want Midsomer to finally be declared vacant as the last two living occupants of the county are murdered and imprisoned, respectively.
By now it should be a depopulated savannah.
My idea is to have whatever Inspector Barnaby and whatever sidekick he’s got be the last ones left in the parish. Looking at each other, wordlessly, they know what they must do to break the cycle – for good this time. They each pull revolvers from their desk draws, point them at each other, cock the hammers back, and the screen fades to black at the exact moment two simultaneous gunshots ring out. The sound of two bodies hitting the floor, and the final credits roll.
Falkland Islands.
Doctor Who’s a bit different in that the show reinvents itself every few years. There can be some radical differences between eras.He’s not wrong in that there is an abundance of limited series made by British television over the decades, Doctor Who and other long running shows over the years are a bit of a minority over there.
*45th.
EastEnders would like a word.
That’s a good run for a children’s show!
Isn’t milking it for all its worth what got the Brits an American Revolution thrown at them?
relevant? no. as stupid as “British be like this and Americans be like that..” yes.
JFC. Were his opinions this sought after when he was the star of Super Troopers? It’s like your lonely grandpa got an audience.
Was one of his Super Troopers castmates a method actor?
To be fair he wasn’t the star of super troopers, just a supporting role. Now he is one of the leads to a very critically well received show that is about to start its final season. Most likely on a constant press tour and keep being asked this question. Blame the journalists for asking the same question and expecting a different answer.
Hahaha. What? Cox had way over sixty screen credits before Super Troopers (that does not include theater). He had been an established working character actor for almost thirty years (beginning his professional career in 1965). Including a major pivotal role in the Academy Award winning film 1995’s Braveheart. Cox has one of the most certifiable well known and well respected careers in the trade. And he acts in anything and everything. Yes. Actors and very much cared what he had to say.It’s not his fault you don’t pay attention.
Eh,,, as much as I like Brian Cox he was most certainly a verry lesser Hollywood talent.
I agree with everything you say except when you lay Braveheart out there like being in is the apotheosis of your (otherwise excellent) rhetorical points.
It’s a terrible movie.
It’s irrelevant what you think of it. It made a fortune and swept the Oscars. It’s an example of the sheer weight of the guys career. He was the first Hannibal Lector for Fuchs sake. A DECADE before Braveheart. And don’t act like your fucking edge lord subjective assholery is the end all be all.
Also the *worst* Hannibal Lecter.
Obligatory:
“It made a fortune and swept the Oscars. It’s an example of the sheer weight of the guys career.”
TIL that Braveheart swept the Oscars because of Brian Cox.
The great thing about this obvious horseshit is that if you tried to tell Brian Cox this he would absolutely tell you to fuck off. Not even Brian Cox believes you.
Cool.He’s also a cranky old asshole who was undeniably in Super Troopers.And he’s one of those lovely UK actors who is supportive of TERF fuckwit JK Rowling.He’s an amazing actor. He also can eat a bag of dicks.
“He’s also a cranky old asshole who was undeniably in Super Troopers.”
So? The point is that he’s been in a ton of stuff, why does him taking a great role and giving a great performance in Super Troopers mean he lacks credibility?
He’s been an absolutely brilliant actor since long before you were born. He’s considered one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his generation (“King Lear” in particular). People have sought his opinions on acting for at least 45 years. JFC indeed.
Not only that over half the productions the guy has touched for the last 25 years has been either box office or critical gold. Like. Almost no one but the hand full of top A-listers have his success record and NONE of them even approaches the sheer diversity and volume of work. And for a cranky old socialist from the workingest of working class Scotland that’s pretty god damned amazing. The guy is the GOAT.
Usually people who are confident in their abilities and 30 plus year career don’t have to be so disrespectful to their costars. It’s not like Jeremy is the daughter of the producer and couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. His career isn’t exactly made up of ABC sitcoms.Lincoln, Molly’s Game, The Big Short, Zero Dark Thirty, Selma, just to name a few. He studied at Yale, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
I love it when these articles expose the ignorance of the average American pop-culture consumer via said consumers desperately trying to look intelligent. “Ahem, I’ve been following Brian Cox since his first role: Super Troopers.”
Sure, but his King Lear would’ve been better if he’d spent the time to become the king of Britain and then done a bunch of ogling and shit.
““It’s really a cultural clash,” Cox says in an interview with Variety. “I don’t put up with all that American shit. I’m sorry. All that sort of ‘I think, therefore I feel.’ Just do the job. Don’t identify.””Cox went on to say “That’s why it was such a breath of fresh air to work with Steven Seagal—-an American who didn’t think or feel anything.”
Steven Seagal—-an American who didn’t think or feel anything
Besides, Steven Seagal identifies as a drawbridge.
Ohhh, sexy reminder. I think it moved.
it moved :O
So if Jeremy Strong was Daniel Day Lewis’s assistant on a movie does that mean DDL’s character in the movie also had an assistant? Because if not how did that work?
Also, was Jeremy Strong an Assistant Daniel Day Lewis or an assistant to the Daniel Day Lewis?
Assistant to the Regional Daniel Day Lewis.
It’s a Celtic knot of administrations. You wouldn’t understand.
Have you seen ‘Synecdoche, New York’? Basically that.
I always wondered how far Daniel Day Lewis took method acting for My Left Foot.
I know we are joking but by accounts “My Left Foot” is one of those prime examples of an actor being a total dick because of the “method”. DDL made people push him around in a wheel chair on set(forcing them to lift him and the chair over cables and around tight sets) and feed him during lunch breaks for that one. The exact kinda shit Cox was bitching about but I feel like only a few actors even try to do and only DDL got away with consistently.
My buddies worked on Goodfellas. De Niro stayed in character the entire time. They had to call him “Jimmy.”
We’re never going to beat the time during Marathon Man when Dustin Hoffman excitedly told his idol Laurence Olivier about all the work he put into method acting, to which Olivier responded “Why don’t you just act?”
That came after Hoffman positively tortured the elderly Olivier by making him rehearse the scene where Hoffman has a gun to his back. He marched Olivier around that little sewer substation or whatever it was for a long time while he searched for his motivation or whatever. Tool.All of my favorite actors are guys who just do it. If I can detect any trace of ACTING I’m out. I can’t stand James Dean.
No human being has ever behaved remotely the way James Dean does in his movies. It’s ludicrous that people compare his performances to Brando’s during the same period. He’d be laughable if he wasn’t so monumentally annoying. I can’t even look at him. He might be the single most pretentious actor in movie history.
Fleas don’t recognize swans.
Fascinating.
I respect people for wanting to get it right, but it seems to me if it takes you so many fucking attempts…you mightn’t be that good at your job. “No, no, I’m sorry I filled your car’s engine with with strawberry jam and glue instead of oil. Go out and buy another car for me and I’ll try again. I’ve got some good feeling about this pondwater/sawdust mixture.”
“All of my favorite actors are guys who just do it.”
Sure they are.
Ya, why don’t you do this?It’s because as a Jew he’s not allowed any ham.
Oh good I was worried no one would repeat this thing we all already know that’s posted on every single article about method acting.
She said to her fat self.
Well I like em real wild
The only thing you like is an excess amount of food and dying prematurely of diabetes.
In two recently published books, one on the making of George Steven’s “Giant”, and the other on the history of The Actors Studio, both authors go out of their way to insult, ridicule, and viciously attack James Dean as a talentless and worthless artist whose legacy and reputation deserves nothing but intellectual mockery and diminishment. That should tell anyone what kind of reactionary and dangerously revisionist times we are now living in.
I watched ‘Giant’ last night (really). Dean is awful. Embarrasingly so. For the first half, I could have used descriptive captions. Must have been a Brando devotee on mumbling. With the JR character successful and drunk later on though, just the worst acting ever on screen. Rock Hudson’s acting put him to shame. I didn’t have to read any recently published books. I just watched the film.
I’m no Method fan but fucking yikes my dude, take a pill.
Which one? Then red one for blocking out idiots? Or the blue one for pretending you’re witty?
Whichever one calms you down.
No wonder your not a Method fan. You way too in love with your own lack.
You should send a joke package to some late night shows!
Whichever pill shuts you the fuck up.
fat
Like Prince said “you’re a sexy mutha”
Right. And you’re fat.
It should also tell you how his genius still has the timeless capacity to threaten and intimidate those who a comfortable (but not really) within the strong armor of their socially acceptable insensitivities.
Or maybe…juuuuuuuust maybe, James Dean actually wasn’t that great an actor?
Cox is starting to get insufferable, between his book, and his approach to acting in general. Leaving out the method stuff, his, “just say the words,” attitude towards acting has kept him in that middling ground forever. He’s hired to be Brian Cox. He’s just sort of there. In Succession he’s, by far, the least compelling actor. This is pretty much explained in this: “Just do the job,” Cox continues. “Don’t identify.” He points to the case of estimable Method actor Daniel Day-Lewis, with whom he worked on the 1997 film “The Boxer,” and blames those immersive techniques for Day-Lewis’ early retirement. “He retired at the age of 55, and I’m going, ‘That’s when the roles become really interesting. You’ve retired just at the point when actually the roles get better!’” Cox exclaims. “Of course, Jeremy was Dan Day-Lewis’ assistant. So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.”“Don’t identify,” is one of the most profoundly stupid things to say about acting that I could imagine. That he would even bring DDL into the conversation and say, “and I’m going.” Yeah, you’re a working actor, with a fraction of the talent DDL has. How do you think that bolsters your argument?
Method acting has certainly led to some great performances but I think Cox is making the point that it is exhausting, on yourself and others, and can therefore reduce the span of your career. Also method acting is inherently selfish and not always conducive to the collaborative atmosphere of a production. Of course you have great actors like DDL channeling incredible performances from it, but they are the exception. A much higher number use it as an excuse to be a scumbag, i.e. Jared Leto.
Also to call Brian Cox ‘just sort of there’ is ridiculous. Even forgetting his excellent career he is the rotten core of Succession and it would be nowhere near as compelling without him.
His quote’s reduced to soundbite size, but I’m guessing he meant “don’t identify AS the character,” which Method actors do, not “don’t identify WITH the character,” which all actors do. Like, you need to perform as if you were the character, not BE the character.
“not “don’t identify WITH the character,” which all actors do.”
No. They don’t.
Wtf are you talking about? Cox’s screen presence is absolutely immense in Succession.Method acting is pretentious, narcissistic bs. Cox is bang on.
I mean, 2/1 is technically a fraction…
“Leaving out the method stuff, his, “just say the words,” attitude towards acting has kept him in that middling ground forever.”
I’m sorry, he’s in the middling ground, is he?
Good one.
So a big difference between serious American and British actors is that generally speaking, the British will still see a movie role as a job and take on every kind of role if they know they can do it, whereas American actors tend to take themselves and their persona more seriously and limit their roles if they have the luxury. That’s why Brian Cox is fantastic in Succession and Super Troopers and a bunch of random B-level stuff alike. Tim Curry is another great example. It’s why DDL (even though he’s also British he does method which is popularized by Americans) only does one prestigious movie every 6 or 7 years. Now, we’re not sure the Brits are particularly known for their discipline, but sure.He’s referring to showrunners/writers and networks which tend to not let their shows continue into infinity purely for money a la American “The Office” running well past the point it ran out of ideas vs english “The Office” which is less entertaining imo but more consistent at just 1-2 seasons iirc. Hope someone found this useful
Sir Ian McKellen said it better and nicer:
It’s secondary to the point of the video, but God, McKellen looks great there.
I will always laugh at “Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian.”
I never tire of that clip!
And, as his best mate put it even more succinctly:
Isn’t “If you have to use an accent in a movie, you make a point of exclusively using that accent in your normal life for a period of time so it’s more natural for you to do” also “Method acting”? Like it’s not all “be a nightmare to your coworkers and do permanent damage to yourself” though maybe Austin Butler is always going to sound like that.
a thought: why don’t you interview brian cox? instead of just rehashing someone else’s work? you know, journalism!
Lee Strasberg, The High Priest of The Method, despised when an actor would get drunk to play drunk. He would have considered Strong a talentless cretin and beneath contempt for wanting to tear gas extras in order to feel the reality of poison. Rape to feel rape, murder to feel murder? You get the point. As far as Cox is concerned, his remarks are a boring and tiresome cliche of British theatrical tradition trotted out and repeated ad nauseum by the mythological condemnation of method acting by Olivier, who in reality, being unable to kindle the kind of required emotions that once brought him to his knees on stage and caused him to panic and flee, realized his technique had suddenly failed him and it was a failure that continued to haunt him for the rest of his professional life.
I agree with most of what you said but acting like rape and murder would be the natural conclusion for someone practicing Method Acting is a little reductive.
I meant it in the absurd and extreme theoretical sense to illustrate what a violation it is of the creative imagination and anything remotely connected to Stanislavskian principles. Where is the stop point between illusion and reality in terms of an art form? Are you a genius because you gained 100 pounds for the character or a mediocrity because you used prosthetics? Are you to be looked upon with awe because you shot heroin to play a junkie? To watch an artist have a nervous breakdown with real tears in a scene and then turn it off is in the transcendent realm of what The Method was founded upon. Emotional Memory, Substitution, As If. And when all is said and done, whatever your process is other than doing something literally in order to get a real result, ( and romanticizing it as linked to “method acting”) is in the realm of the profoundly insecure no matter the level of one’s public acclaim.
I’m more just speculating that as “slavish” as Jeremy Strong or others might be to the Method, they are also more than willing to take no for an answer (Strong asked for the tear gas, was denied, and still did the movie without it) and to see limits where things might be illegal (like heroin). It could be insecurity. It could be worse than any other choices they could make, but I think similar to whatever the user might romanticize, those reading articles seem to assume that it must mean no limits.
Its insecurity. Period. Wrapped up in pretentious and desperately obstufucating terms like “identity diffusion”. And putting aside, just for a moment, the frantic aspirations of Mr. Strong to want to scale the highest peaks of his profession, certainly in words if not necessarily in deeds, let us see those true pioneers whose evidence of real greatness was The Method incarnate, with no off-camera histrionics involved: Kim Stanley as a mentally disturbed Marilyn Monroe-like starlet in “The Goddess” from 1958; Montgomery Clift as a permanently damaged survivor of the Nazi concentration camps in “Judgement At Nuremberg” from 1960.
Kim Stanley was amazing in “Seance on a Wet Afternoon” (1964) too.
Kim Stanley was the single greatest actress of the 20th century, Method or otherwise. She makes ANYONE today, male or female, look like kindergarten students performing “King Lear”.
“Its insecurity.”
It’s how he was taught, you fucking idiot.
There needs to be a clarification here: whatever process an actor uses to get truthful and honest results within the given circumstances of the script and the character is to be respected, other than doing something in reality in order to obtain reality. That is the low road, and all too easily available to the most fearful and insecure performer. And now for burned at the cross heresy: Daniel Day Lewis refusing contemporary medication when he was deathly ill because it wasn’t around in the 1800’s period of his character is nothing short of mental illness….as was his running off stage in the middle of “Hamlet”. Want the lowdown on DDL? Watch a little known film called “A Double Life” with Ronald Colman from 1947. I’m the child in the parade shouting that the emperor is naked.
“Where is the stop point between illusion and reality in terms of an art form?”
Wow, explain in longer-form how completely you don’t understand method acting AT ALL.
It’s a great show, but with the size of the personalities on some of these actors, I bet that set gets exhausting.
Except for good old Alan Ruck. He remains affable and delightful and I’m just so goddamn happy he continues to not only work prolifically, but looks freaking GREAT for his age (the man is 66!).
My mind cannot take that Cameron is 66 yrs old.
“Let that Cameron gooooo.”
I believe he was something like 30 when he did Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
“I believe he was something like 30 when he did Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
That’s crazy, because he didn’t look a day over 40 in that movie.
He’s right. Laurence Oliver said (not these exact words but this is the gist of it)-’youre an actor, forget all that bullshit, just fuckin ACT.’
“My dear boy, why don’t you trying acting?”
After Brexit, I find any assumption that Brits are capable of restraint, reason and maturity hilarious.
48% of them are
Brian Cox does put up with transphobes, and actively supports them
There’s something beautifully familial about the way Cox hates Strong’s shenanigans yet clearly likes and respects him. And Strong takes me as the kind of person who really can just feed off the annoyance (especially since isn’t that their characters’ dynamic anyway?).
OF COX
“Dan Day-Lewis” just sounds wrong.
But it’s so much easier for the British and Irish. First of all, they are better actors at baseline. So if an American like Sean Penn (who used Method in his prime) needs to use Method, let them use Method.
I wonder if it’s possible that there are numerous valid, useful ways to approach acting.
Why all the Brian Cox hate? Getting past the anti-American sentiment and his general crankishness, the man has a point.Did anyone read the Jeremy Strong NY profile? Not to mention some of the behaviour by the likes of Jim Carrey, Jared Leto, Dustin Joaquin Phoenix on the sets of these movies…Method mostly seems like an excuse for pretentious men to behave unprofessionally. Not to mention the fact that the female greats like Street and Blanchett view Method skeptically, perhaps with good reason having witnessed all this bullshit behavior…
He seems to put up with that American shit on McDonalds commercials.
Yeah, you’re right. He almost certainly is forced to method act in a McDonald’s commercial.
I hope someone was around to close your gaping headwound.
British actors recreate types; American actors create individuals.
Serious question: Is Method Acting considered to be largely an American thing? I just always think of DDL in connection with it.