Brian Cox reveals he turned down a role in Game Of Thrones because it didn’t pay enough
The Succession actor also talked about why he didn't appear in the Harry Potter films
Aux News Brian Cox
A new excerpt from Brian Cox’s memoir, Putting The Rabbit In The Hat, revealed that the Succession star almost had a central role in another HBO smash hit: Game Of Thrones. In the excerpt, published in GQ, the Scottish actor didn’t pull any punches about why he didn’t join the show.
“I’m often asked if I was offered a role in Game Of Thrones—reason being that every other bugger was—and the answer is, yes, I was supposed to be a king called Robert Baratheon, who apparently died when he was gored by a boar in the first season,” Cox wrote. “I know very little about Game Of Thrones so I can’t tell you whether or not he was an important character, and I’m not going to google it just in case he was, because I turned it down.”
“Why?” he continued. “Well, Game Of Thrones went on to be a huge success and everybody involved earned an absolute fortune, of course. But when it was originally offered the money was not all that great, shall we say say. Plus I was going to be killed off fairly early on, so I wouldn’t have had any of the benefits of the long-term effects of a successful series where your wages go up with each passing season. So I passed on it, and Mark Addy was gored by the boar instead. (I lied. I did google it.)“
Cox claimed that “the money thing” was very common in his experience as a British actor, and wrote that Brits are often offered less than their American actors. He said it was a “problem with British agents,” who are less ruthless than their American counterparts.
Cox also wrote that people often ask if he was offered a role in “Harry fucking Potter.” He said, “I think someone had a burning cross held up for me not to be in Harry Potter, because all my pals were in it. I think the part I might have played was the one that Brendan Gleeson got, Mad-Eye Moody, but Brendan was more in fashion than I was at that point, and that’s very much the way of the world in my business, so he got it. Also, he’s much better than I would have been.” Gleeson’s son, Domhnall, would also ultimately join the franchise as Bill Weasley.
Cox said he did turn down the role of Keira Knightley’s dad in Pirates Of The Caribbean. He wrote, “It would have been a money-spinner, but of all the parts in that film it was the most thankless, plus I would have ended up doing it for film after film and missed out on all the other nice things I’ve done,” before waxing poetic about his dislike of Johnny Depp.
Cox explained that the thing he was most looking for in his later acting roles was longevity, which he finally found in Succession. He wrote, “Hopefully we’ll do a fourth series, and that’ll probably be it, but it will have been a great run.”
Putting The Rabbit In The Hat will be released January 18.
121 Comments
Good for him!
“Cox claimed that “the money thing” was very common in his experience as a British actor, and wrote that Brits are often offered less than their American actors. He said it was a “problem with British agents,” who are less ruthless than their American counterparts.”I’m at a loss as to why this has anything to do with GoT. He was offered less because he’s British, so they got a Brit?
Hard to argue with any of that.
Brian Cox need never apologize for turning down a role.
The role should tell him sorry.
On the one had, every role he turns down is one less chance we get to see Brian Cox act. On the other, he’s Brian fucking Cox, and he answers to no one.
Those without knees kneel before NO MAN!
Brian Cox would have been a big enough name that it would have added to the shock of Robert Baratheon dying so early, but I certainly understand his reasoning.
Plus, having Mark Addy in the role you were always kept in suspense as to when he was going to finally start stripping to ‘70s music.
“Disco is dead, Robert!”“DISCO IS NOT DEAD, CERSEI! As the Ironborn say, ‘what is disco may never die, but ah, ah, ah, ah, stays alive, harder and stronger!”
Yeah, he made the right call.
Folks should check him out in The Minus Man, probably the most chill serial killer movie ever made.
Not to mention him being the original Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter
Technically he played Dr Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter.
Which James Bond was tasked with stealing from the Russian embassy in Istanbul.Wait.
Noted
Given this correction I retract my previous comment since technically Brian Cox didn’t play the original jack shit!
Funny, he looks a lot like Kieran Culkin on that cover
Now we know the origin of Boar on the Floor
I am not sure I would have bought that Brian Cox and Sean Bean grew up together.
Agreed. There’s only a 13 year difference between them (I googled; Sean Bean looks great for 62!), but that’s a big gap, especially since Brian Cox has always looked old.
I was always hoping they’d have shot flashbacks with the Mad King and his Kingsgaurd. I always imagined him as the White Bull.
That’s 3 years more than the age difference between Cox and Alan Ruck who play father and son on Succession.
He might have looked younger 12 years ago.
Hell, Brian looks great for 75.
Yeah, he would have been great as King Robert, because he is always great, but they were supposed to be contemporaries and he doesn’t look like Sean Bean’s contemporary.
It also wasn’t a big role no big deal that he turned it down plus it was in the first season the show wasn’t that big of a hit then.
Would have been a nice Troy reunion though.
Casting Cox and Gleeson as brothers in Troy was inspired, even if (as Cox points out in the article) it kind of ended up with Gleeson taking Cox’s corner.
Yeah, it would’ve been a little too easy to understand why Cersei was boning down with her brother if Cox was the alternative.
No offense to Nikolaj, but mileage definitely varies on that one.
“Oh FUCK OFF!” – Cox, reading this comment
I loved the two of them in Sharpe.
Nice candor from Brian Cox there.I know he is known for so much, but for whatever reason, I still think of him as the chief in Super Troopers. “If you were my son, Mac, I would have smothered you by now.”
“Just PRINT the fucking thing!”
That, and his role in the two RED films are my favorites of his.
That, and his role in the two RED films are my favorites of his Oh, he’s great in those. They’re silly movies, but not AS silly as they could have been.And… no one here disagrees about him being the best Lecter, do they?
The first thing I thought of when I read the headline was “How much of ST’s budget went on Brian Cox?”Then again, maybe he just really liked the script and the character.
That’s why he does those McDonald’s commercials.
They only pay scale, but he gets all the McGriddles he can consume.
He just wanted to do something “silly”:
He wanted to do a comedy, he told his agent to find a comedy, his agent found a bunch of unknowns called Broken Lizard that were looking for a name, and the rest is history.
O: Super Troopers must have had a decent budget. Brian Cox is in it, after all.SL: It was a million and a quarter. We got the money from a private investor. We had gone through everybody. We had gone to the studios, we had gone to private investors. We just couldn’t get the money for this movie that we were going to star in and direct. This one guy who had just retired from Wall Street and really wanted to get into film production saw the script and saw Puddle Cruiser and asked us if he could do our movie, and so he gave us the cash. He put up the million and a quarter—and got it all back, too….O: How did you get Brian Cox to be in Super Troopers?JC: He actually called us. He’s always playing parts like pedophiles and Nazi generals and nasty people, and he’s a big Jerry Lewis fan, and thinks he’s got that bone in him. He’s been looking for a comedy to do, and he kept contacting us and contacting us, and he turned out to be amazing.O: His presence couldn’t have hurt the chances of getting the film distributed.PS: We needed it. Given the way in which independent film has changed, the investor wanted to get some sort of cast, so the money was cast-contingent. It was huge for us to get him. When he first approached us, we desperately wanted him to be in the movie, and I think he nailed it.https://www.avclub.com/broken-lizard-1798208351
I mean…you can think that he wouldn’t have been zany enough to be Mad Eye Moody, and Gleeson did great with the role, but then yes you have to remember that Brian Cox in Super Troopers is a classic all-time top tier film comedy performance.
Absolutely 100% with you on this.
Loved him in Super Troopers. Just brilliant.“Ursula! I’m NAKED!!!”
“OH GIMME THAT FUCKIN’ SOAP”
FARVA!!! Your suspension…continues.
Does he talk about Super Troopers in the book, because I have spent decades wondering how the fuck Broken Lizard got Brian Cox????
I said above, it’s as simple as a wanted to branch out into comedy, his agent found a script by some unknowns called Broken Lizard, and he said fuck it, I’m in. Amazing.OH GIMME THAT FUCKIN SOAP
DRUNK ENOUGH TO KICK YOUR ASS!
I hope his memoir has a long section on the video game Manhunt. There was a peak moment in video gaming history, and it was Brian Cox muttering, “You just got me off,” after you stealth-kill a goon.
His performance in that game is striking. It was especially effective if you had the old-school Xbox Live headset and he was talking directly in your ear.
I love that stupid movie so much. “I’’ll believe that when me shit turns purple and smelks like rainbow sherbet!”.
FOR O’HAGAN
Seems like a pretty reasonable guy.
I also love the unmentioned detail that Brian Cox is famously socialist/anticapitalist. So his take is essentially: “It’s vile that money rules the world, but as long as it does, I know my worth and I’m going to hold out for the most money possible.”
Many people with such politics have supported labor unions which pushed for them to get higher wages.
It’s my understanding that unions are an important part of democratic socialist nations’ whole system.Soviet-style socialism took a different approach.
well, one definition of socialism does not preclude those who contribute more from earning more, as a difference to communism.Communism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.Socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.
Oh I know, I’m not saying he’s being hypocritical or anything! Just amused by how often he talks about money in this article!
Either way, in the end, he made the right choice because accepting the role meant being killed off 2/3rds into the first season. Still better than Ian McShane’s cameo but hardly worth Brian Cox’s time.
I think “worth” is the key point, not just because he wants the money but because an actor’s salary is a direct measure of their fame and how much they are valued by the industry compared to their peers. Which means greed might be a factor but ego would be even more so.
I’m in.
The audiobook version is narrated by the man himself and it’s truly glorious. An absolute King.
Audiobook version of what?
“A new excerpt from Brian Cox’s memoir”Its pretty clear in the article.
StrykEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
He would have been great, but he was too old for the role, so it’s probably best that he didn’t take it. Plus, there’s never anything wrong with someone knowing their worth and insisting upon proper remuneration.
the Scottish actorOk… what… I swear I’ve watch Brian Cox in at least a dozen films and I had no idea he was Scottish.
Most of them don’t actually talk like Sean Connery. In fact I’ve met Scots who claim *nobody* speaks like he did (even Connery himself really) and that he basically made up his accent.
Just as with most UK accents, there’s no one ‘English’ or ‘Scottish’ accent, and how you speak will differ radically depending on where you were born/lived, which school(s) you attended, and what your ultimate ‘station’ in life was. I had a Scottish coworker with a very posh accent and just the lightest touch of burr, and another that could legitimately slip into Glaswegian so thick it was unintelligible.Personally, I find the best possible use of a Scottish accent is here:
burr? Bill?
I wish his Doctor used more foul language.
Yeah, the Glaswegian (“Weegie”) accent is so thick I think even other Scots struggle to understand it.
“MAYBE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD RICE!” is one of the greatest lines on television.
The Caledonian Mafia turned profanity into an art form.
ooh, light touch of burr…!
I don’t expect all Scots to sound like Sean Connery lol. Despite being American, I grew up with a Scottish friend whose family moved over to the US when he was a child. I base most of my expectations off of him and his family.
There are very strong regional accents. Connery’s sounds like a stereotype vaguely based on Glaswegian. I had to learn a script phonetically using that one because that’s what the dialogue coach knew. And then had to seriously dial it back to be understood by the audience. I got a passing grade from Scots in the audience, but it was a long slog to get there.
Similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know how many Austrians sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger? NONE!
Cox has also been doing this for so long that I always assumed he’d developed a modern sort of Trans-Atlantic accent. It’s always there, but it’s not always obvious.
That’s basically true according to something I read years ago.
Apparently when he first started out acting his accent was so thick some people thought he was Polish. It’s definitely something he worked on.
I think the first two movies I saw him in were Rob Roy and Braveheart, so I never thought of him as anything but Scottish.
I haven’t seen Rob Roy, and I guess it’s been so long since I’ve seen Braveheart that I don’t recall what he sounded like in it. I guess I need to watch it again.
I was under the impression this had already been reported before.
So that’s how cheap British productions are, considering Broken Lizard was able to afford him for Super Troopers.
Instead he took the sweet, sweet money from McDonald’s, and free Big Macs for life, probably.
I about shat a shit when I heard his voice. Then I read an interview where he talks about “getting that cheese” and it all made sense. Get it.
Maybe they mistook him for the other Brian Cox and though, well since he hasn’t done so much acting, we only have to offer him so much.(Universe explodes from matter/antimatter collision.)
He does a pretty good live show that actually makes astrophysics entertaining though. I saw him at the Warner Theater in Washington DC in 2018? 2019? In the before-times anyway.
Or the other Brian Cox, the 90s linebacker who infamously came out of the tunnel in Buffalo giving the crowd the finger… or more accurately, fingers, because he held up both hands.
When they told him what it would pay, I hope he screamed “HOW DARE YOU OFFER ME A SALARY THAT LOW? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I AM BRIAN FUCKING COX, BITCH!” and then violently threw them out of his office.Really, I think anyone offered pay that’s too low should respond that way.
Kind of wish when he saw them speed dialing Mark Addy’s agent, he’d gotten to scream “THERE ARE NO ANSWERS THAT WAY, BENIOFF AND WHATEVER THE FUCK THE OTHER GUY’S NAME IS!”
I wonder if they ever tried contacting BRIAN BLESSED for a role?
Based.
Man’s gotta eat. Or in this case needed money for more Lagavulin.
Somehow, I imagine Groucho making jokes about this, since the stock comic portrayal of Scots back in the day were as miserly skinflints.
That would have just distracted from the more iconic ‘Boar’ moment in his career. Really hope they do more than just one more season for Succession, I thought they were going for five!
I still think of him as Daphne’s dad on Frasier for some reason. I’ve seen him on so many things, and yet, whenever his name’s mentioned, I go to Daphne’s dad on Frasier.
That was him and not Phillip Seymour Hoffman in old people makeup?
My go to is that real-life writing seminar guy he played in ‘Adaptation’ who just yells abuse at Nic Cage’s Charlie Kaufman.
And God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you! That’s flaccid, sloppy writing! Any idiot can write voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of the character.
AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT END WITH A DEUS EX MACHINA.Love how the movie broke all these rules.
Mine is The Long Kiss Goodnight:
BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVER! I just watched this again on Christmas day, and Brian Cox remains utter gold in every viewing.
Logan Roy is probably the first character that I can truly associate him with since the guy from L.I.E. I do still like his bit parts in Rushmore and Zodiac.
He wouldn’t have been right for Robert IMO and Addy was great in his short time on the show. So all’s well that ends well I guess.Interested to hear what he wrote about Super Troopers in this book. In every interview I read from him that covered it, he seemed super happy about being in those movies.
From the interviews I’ve read, between takes he was basically “oh god damn, these fucking guys” with that sly upturned grin. So that tracks.
It should noted that Super Troopers could afford him twice.
Well, that’s on HBO. You want that Cox magic, you better be willing to lay out some cheddar.
“Cox magic!”
Goddamn I love this guy
Wow. At the Harry Potter line I thought “yeah, you didn’t becase they all had to be British”. Brian Cox is British. How many times is that gonna happen to me. I spent 8 years of his fame not knowing Christian Bale was British too. Also Andrew Garfield.
Brian Cox is a great interview, isn’t he?I wonder if the fascination with British actors that often emerges as pieces about are they better/it’s the theater training, how they do accents, etc… comes because they get more work and exposure because they settle for less then.Assuming Cox is right of course. And it’s not math, but I think it’s definitely true they have some glamor to them that American actors (who are in greater supply) don’t.
“Uh-huh.”
“Brits are often offered less than their American actors. He said it was a “problem with British agents,” who are less ruthless than their American counterparts.”THANK YOU!! Finally someone who acknowledges the elephant in the room when it comes to pay equity for high-profile entertainers. Every single one of them has an agent tasked with representing their interests, and it’s not society’s fault that some agents are more effective than others.For a lot of people and various industries, pay equity has a place in the conversation, but high-profile entertainers are the free-agents of the world and I’ve never understood people flocking to back people who grouse they aren’t paid what they’re worth when they have a person whose sole purpose in life is to get them exactly that.
I’m not sure what the point to putting people down is. So he doesn’t like Johnny Depp, Steven Seagal, Quentin Tarantino or Michael Caine. Just comes off as mean-spirited and gives him a bad look.
I don’t know. Disliking Seagal and Depp puts him in pretty good company.