Brain Cox, who plays Logan Roy on HBO's wildly successful show Succession, has had quite the life. Now 75 years old, Brian Cox has enjoyed a career that spans decades, and he has won Emmys, Golden Globes, and performed in Academy Award-winning films. He has also done his share of stoner comedies and sitcom cameos, but most notable are his tenures with the Royal Shakespeare and the Royal National Theater, two of the most acclaimed theater companies in the world operating out of London.
Even though he has such a collective resume, he does not just take any offer that is given to him. This is how the award-winning actor accumulated his collective resume and multi-million dollar net worth.
8 Brian Cox Was Born In Scotland
Brian Cox was born in Dundee, a coastal city in Scotland. His mother, Mary Ann Guilerine suffered from mental illness which Cox has spoken about candidly in interviews. His father Charles McCardle Campbell Cox was a butcher and shopkeeper. Brian Cox is very proud of his Scottish birthplace and he contributes to the Scottish theatrical arts constantly.
7 Brian Cox Started His Acting Career In The Theater
Brian Cox started his career in the theater when he was only 14 years old when he joined the local theater company of Dundee then in 1965 he broke into the theater scene in Edinburgh with his performance in a play called The Servant O’Twa Masters. In the 1980s, after a series of supporting and starring roles in various plays, he was invited to join the Royal National Theater in London. In the 1990s, he began performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
6 Brian Cox Was Doing Television At The Same Time He Started In Theater
While working in the theater, Cox was also acting in bit roles for a few ITV and BBC miniseries before landing his first film role in 1971’s Nicolas and Alexandria. Cox played Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian Revolution, confidant of V.I. Lenin, and the creator of the U.S.S.R. Red Army.
5 Brian Cox's Breakthrough Role Came Late In Life
While he was enjoying success in the theater and was working in television and film, he was not a household name until the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of his biggest breakthrough roles, and one that surprises people, was when he played Hannibal Lector in 1986’s Manhunter. The film was the first portrayal of Hannibal Lector on film, and not many people realize that, although Anthony Hopkins's portrayal is the most famous, it was Brian Cox who first brought the character to life five years before Silence of The Lambs was filmed.
4 Brian Cox's Role In 'Braveheart' Permanently Established His Career
Mindhunter was a successful film but is sort of a cult classic by today's standards. The film that locked Brian Cox’s career down was when he acted opposite of Mel Gibson in one of his most popular films, Braveheart. Brain Cox plays Argyle Wallace and the film is considered by several people to be one of the best movies ever made.
3 Brian Cox Has A Quite Diverse Resume
Over the course of an almost 60-year-long career, Brian Cox has landed some interesting and surprising roles. In one film he plays a Scottish rebel, in another he plays a cannibal serial killer helping the FBI, and to the amusement of stoners in the mid-2000s he played the lovable Captain O’Hagan in the stoner comedy Super Troopers. He also played prominent lawyer Melvin Bell in David Fincher’s thriller Zodiac, Ivan Simonov in Bruce Willis’ Red, he was even in an episode of Frasier and played Daphne Moon's father.
He has also continued to do several theatrical productions, including renditions of several Shakespeare plays like King Lear. He was also in Troy, X-Men 2, Match Point, Running With Scissors, and two of the Bourne movies. To date Cox has 235 acting credits to his name on IMDb, and that’s only his film and television roles.
2 Brian Cox's First HBO Show Was 'Deadwood'
Brian Cox has done several television shows over the course of his career, especially for ITV and the BBC, in the mid-2000s he was in Marple, an adaptation of the Miss Marple Mysteries by Agatha Christie, and he was in Laura Linney’s Showtime series The Big C.
Fans of HBO should already know that Succession is not his first show on the network, but it is the first show for HBO he’s done as the star. He did however play a supporting role on another HBO classic, Deadwood, where he played Jack Langshire.
1 Brian Cox Is Now Worth $15 Million
In addition to all the residuals from his films, his theatrical paychecks, and his television salaries, Cox has done a series of animation and voice-over work as well. He has narrated several documentaries, and he played an alien in the 2009 Doctor Who Christmas Special. He was in Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Scooby-Doo, even in Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom. Since 2020, he has also done voice-overs for commercials for McDonald's, and he loaned his voice to all three entries in the Killzone video game franchise. Today, Brian Cox is worth approximately $15 million.
