Succession’s Brian Cox: ‘I was touched up by Princess Margaret’
I interviewed Logan Roy and we talked about his love of cannabis, his loathing of Trump and the time Princess Margaret felt him up. So just a typical day at the office, really https://t.co/SBRlzV3tj3
- Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) January 13, 2020
+ Brian Cox talks Succession, politics, his love for cannabis and an odd royal encounter.
+ On the love for Logan Roy and how it mirrors current politics: “It’s astonishing how much audiences love Logan’s cruelty. I think it’s a reflection of the state we’re in. All of our moral certainties have gone by the wayside with the elections, with the Etonian twit in the UK and the pink Pinocchio in the White House, and you feel you can’t do anything about it. It’s like with the impeachment: it’s so clear that [Trump] is a bad man, but the Republican senators say: ‘No, it’s not this, it’s that’, but it’s all bollocks. He’s a horrible human being and he’s fucking everything up and he doesn’t give a shit.”
+ On being a fan of cannabis: “It’s absolutely great and I recommend it to everyone - get stoned! It does make the politics easier to bear. It’s a way of dealing with idiocy.”
+ On whether British acting is too dominated by posh people: “When I came to London as a student in the 60s, it was a great period of social mobility. It was in the wake of John Osborne and the angry young man, the rise of people like Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole. And that’s a legacy I’m so proud of, that I was at the tail end of. I was given a grant and had my expenses paid, and I was grateful for it. And now it’s like that never happened. I think it would be bloody impossible for me [to become an actor] if I were starting today. The tragedy in the UK is there’s a whole working class that is being removed from the culture. [...] You can’t blame Damian Lewis or Eddie Redmayne or whatsisname, er, Benedict Cumberpast, er, Cumberpat, no, Cumberbatch - that’s it. You know, talent is talent and one has to be careful about not being mean. But it says something about our creative work that we haven’t got an even playing field. Egalitarian thinking is completely lacking in the UK.”
+ On being touched up by Princess Margaret: “I was at the Royal Court. I was doing a play with Alan Bates and it was my 23rd birthday and I’d been given a red shirt from Lindsay Anderson. I’d just washed my hair so I was sort of glistening, heh heh heh, and I walked in and was introduced to her. She put her fingers on my shirt, and said: ‘This is a lovely shirt.’ And she started to run her fingers down the inside of my shirt. And I went: Uh oh! What do you do when you’re being touched up by a royal? It was so funny. James Bolam, he could see what was going on and started going ‘Ooooh’ out of the side of his mouth, which somehow said princess didn’t take in at all. She just kept saying: ‘You were so wonderfully hooded on stage. I wanted to know more about you …’ She was an extraordinay creature. I excused myself and said: ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ and it came to a natural end.”
Full interview @ the source