Brian Denis Cox (born 1 June 1946) is a Scottish actor. A classically trained Shakespearean actor, he is known for his work on stage and screen. His numerous accolades include two Laurence Olivier Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award as well as two nominations for a British Academy Television Award. In the 2003 New Year Honours, he was appointed to the Order of the British Empire at the rank of Commander.
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. Cox received two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Actor for his performances in Rat in the Skull (1984), for the Royal Court and Titus Andronicus (1988). He received two more Olivier Award nominations for Misalliance (1986) and Fashion (1988).
Known as a character actor in film, Cox played Robert McKee in Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002) and William Stryker in X2 (2003). For his starring role in L.I.E. (2001), he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination. His other notable films include Manhunter (1986), Iron Will (1994), Braveheart (1995), The Boxer (1997), The Rookie (2002), Troy (2004), Match Point (2005), Coriolanus (2011), Pixels (2015) and Churchill (2017).
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). 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. 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 Awards for Best Actor in a Drama Series.
Cox was born on 1 June 1946 in Dundee, Scotland, 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. 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.
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. 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.
It was during this time that Cox narrowly avoided boarding the ill-fated British European Airways flight from Edinburgh to London that crashed on landing at Heathrow Airport on 27 October 1965. Cox had been invited to meet with Sir Lawrence Olivier but the meeting was cancelled, and while Cox considered taking the flight anyway, he decided to return home only learning of the tragedy the next day.
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 in King Lear opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role. 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 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 additional Laurence Olivier nominations for Misalliance (1984) and for Fashion (1988).
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. 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.
1990s: King Lear and St. Nicholas
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.
In 1997, he starred in Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas at the Bush Theatre in London, and in 1998 returned to the off-Broadway stage reprising his role for Primary Stages, where he won a Lucille Lortel Award and earned a Drama Desk and an Outer Critics Circle nomination for his New York performance. In the same year, he played Marc in the Broadway production of Art.
In 2000, Cox reunited with award-winning playwright Conor McPherson on The Royal Court Theatre's production of Dublin Carol in which he starred as grim alcoholic undertaker John Plunkett. In 2004, he played the title character in Uncle Varick for the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. In 2005, he starred in The Ride Down Mt. Morgan in Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Theatre Works.
From 2006 to 2007, he starred as Max at London's West End production of Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n Roll, a role he reprised on Broadway until 2008. In 2011, Cox appeared on Broadway opposite in a revival of Jason Miller's That Championship Season. His portrayal of Jack in The Weir at the Donmar Theatre in April 2013 is reprised at Wyndham's Theatre in January 2014. In Fall 2015, Cox starred in a new production of Waiting for Godot, for Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh's 50th anniversary. In 2016, he became co-artistic director of the Mirror Theater Ltd. Cox returned to the Broadway stage in 2019 to star as Lyndon B. Johnson in Robert Schenkkan's The Great Society at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. In 2020, he directed the UK premiere of Joshua Sobol's Sinners — The English Professor. Cox has also previously directed I Love My Life, Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Philanderer, The Master Builder, The Crucible, and Julius Caesar on stage.
Cox made his first television appearance as Nelson in an episode of The Wednesday Play in 1965. He made one-off appearances in Redcap, ITV Playhouse and The Gamblers, before taking a lead role in The Year of the Sex Olympics in 1968. His first film appearance was as Leon Trotsky in Nicholas and Alexandra in 1971. In 1978 he played King Henry II of England in the acclaimed BBC2 drama serial The Devil's Crown, then starred in many other television dramas. He played the lead role in Dalhousie's Luck, a drama by Fulton Mackay set at the time of the siege of Aberdeen by the Marquess of Montrose in 1644 and broadcast as part of the BBC's Play for Today series on 3 August 1980. In the same year, he appeared in the ITV serial Hammer House of Horror as an ex-convict alongside veteran actor Peter Cushing. In 1981, he starred opposite Kate Nelligan and Alan Rickman in the BBC adaptation of Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin as Laurent LeClaire.