Brian Cox (actor)

Brian Denis Cox (born 1 June 1946) is a Scottish actor.

A classically trained Shakespearean actor, he is known for leading performances on stage and television, as well as supporting roles in film.

His numerous accolades include two Laurence Olivier Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award as well as a nomination for a British Academy Television Award.

Cox was born on 1 June 1946 in Dundee, Scotland as the youngest of five children.

He is from a working-class Roman Catholic family of Irish and Scottish descent.

His mother, Mary Ann Guillerline (née McCann), was a spinner who worked in the jute mills and suffered several nervous breakdowns during Cox's childhood.

His father, Charles McArdle Campbell Cox, was a police officer and later a shopkeeper, and died of pancreatic cancer when Cox was eight years old.

Cox was brought up by his three elder sisters, including Betty, with whom Cox has remained close.

In Dundee, Cox attended St Mary's Forebank Primary School and St Michael's Junior Secondary School, which he left at the age of 15.

Brian Cox began his acting career at age 14 at Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1961 and then as one of the founding members of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, performing in its first show, The Servant O' Twa Maisters, in October 1965.

After working at Dundee Repertory Theatre for a few years, he began his training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art at age 17, graduating in 1965.

From 1966, he worked at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre for two years, where he played the title role in Peer Gynt (1967) and made his West End debut in June 1967 as Orlando in As You Like It at the Vaudeville Theatre.

Cox is an accomplished Shakespearean actor, spending seasons with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1983, he portrayed the Duke of Burgundy opposite Laurence Olivier who played title role of King Lear.

Cox received two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Actor for his roles in Rat in the Skull (1984) for the Royal Court and Titus Andronicus (1988).

In 1984, he played the Royal Ulster Constabulary officer Inspector Nelson in the Royal Court's production of Rat in the Skull.

He was subsequently awarded that year's Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a New Play.

He received two additional Laurence Olivier nominations for Misalliance (1984) and for Fashion (1988).

He made his Broadway debut in February 1985 as Edmund Darrell in Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude at the Nederlander Theatre for which he received his first British Theatre Association Drama Award for Best Actor.

In May that year, he made his off-Broadway debut, reprising his role as Inspector Nelson, in Rat in the Skull at the Public Theater.

He received two more Olivier Award nominations for Misalliance (1986) and Fashion (1988).

His other notable films include Manhunter (1986), Rob Roy (1995), Braveheart (1995), Rushmore (1998), Super Troopers (2001), The Ring (2002), The Bourne Identity (2002), 25th Hour (2002), Troy (2004), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Red Eye (2005), Zodiac (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), and Churchill (2017).

His performance as Petruchio in The Taming of The Shrew (1987) also garnered positive reviews and won him another British Theatre Association Drama Award for Best Actor.

He won his second Laurence Olivier Award, this time as Best Actor in a Revival, for his performance as the title character in Titus Andronicus (1988).

Cox later said that he considers his performance in Titus Andronicus the greatest he has ever given on stage.

Cox returned from some years teaching and directing at the Moscow Arts Theatre School to tour with the Royal National Theatre worldwide, delivering a highly acclaimed performance as the title role in King Lear (1990-1991).

His account of the emotional and physical difficulties that came with playing King Lear's all-consuming role was detailed in The Lear Diaries (1995) which he authored.

King Lear is one of Shakespeare's most difficult roles, and Cox's portrayal broke new ground in the understanding of this most enigmatic figure.

In 1995, he directed Open Air Theatre's chilling adaptation of Richard III which was well received by critics.

During the same season, he also appeared in one of the theatre's productions, The Music Man, as Professor Harold Hill.

For his starring role in L.I.E. (2001), he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Cox won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his portrayal of Hermann Göring in the television film Nuremberg (2001).

Known as a character actor in film, he played Robert McKee in Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002) and William Stryker in X2 (2003).

The following year he guest starred on the NBC sitcom Frasier earning his second Emmy nomination in 2002.

He portrayed Jack Langrishe in the HBO series Deadwood.

In 2003, he was appointed to the Order of the British Empire at the rank of Commander.

Empire magazine awarded him the Empire Icon Award in 2006, and the UK Film Council named him one of the top 10 powerful British film stars in Hollywood in 2007.

Cox trained at the Dundee Repertory Theatre before becoming a founding member of Royal Lyceum Theatre.

He went on to train as a Shakespearean actor, starring in numerous productions with the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he gained recognition for his portrayal of King Lear.

He starred as Logan Roy on the HBO series Succession (2018–2023), for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series and was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series.