Brian Cox Interview: How Dundee Influenced ‘Succession’

By Hannah McLaren -

Shutterstock / lev radin © Brian Cox Interview. Image of Brian Cox attending Succession Season 4 premiere. He is wearing tinted reading glasses, a white shirt with red necker-chief and a black suit jacket.

In this interview we chat to award-winning Scots actor Brian Cox. Discover how the star’s Dundonian childhood shaped key Succession storylines as well as his role in the TV series.

From the offset of our conversation, Brian Cox’s Dundee roots are strong and clear.

Much to his delight, a full episode of season two was actually filmed in his hometown of Dundee, Scotland. This gave a us lots to talk about!

So what was it like being back there for work? And in what way has his humble beginnings influenced his many successes of today?

Find out in this quick Q&A style interview with Brian Cox.

Catch up on Succession over on Prime Video.

**Returning to your hometown of Dundee to film an episode of Succession – that’s a throwback?**

It was bizarre. My character, media company boss Logan Roy, was originally supposed to be born in Quebec, so I was playing a Canadian.

I suggested that he could be Scots, and by the ninth episode of the first season he was. He left Dundee when he was very young and moved to Canada after his mother died. So that became the story and that’s why we were filming in Dundee.

Logan returns to Dundee for the 50th anniversary of his career and to honour his mother by opening a School of Journalism at the university and a wing at the V&A.

It was just all kinds of weird for me. My colleagues were saying never mind Logan Roy’s background – what about you? They all wanted to know more about me, where I was born and my own links with Dundee.

How would you describe growing up in Dundee?

Dundee is a big part of my childhood history.

It’s not always been the best place in the world to be, but I think it’s pretty amazing. They call it the City of Discovery, but I think it is the City of Survival. The Dundee I remember was a pretty medieval, wee town.

It was like the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. So many bustling shops and green areas. A great city to grow up in!

I’m particularly proud of the people – I think they’re great people, the Dundonians.

Did you always want to be an actor?

Oh yes! Ever since I was tiny.

My dad used to put me on the coal bunker in our wee flat in Brown Constable Street and it was my first stage at the age two.

I used to do Al Jolson impersonations and I realised that I got the applause. Even at an early age, I could see the effect of what I was having. I thought, this feels good. This is what I want to do.

Then I got really into going to the pictures. I used to go to the pictures all the time and I’m still a cinema addict. I have classic movies on in the background all the time, so I can dip in and out like a book and it keeps me inspired.

How do you think your childhood influenced your success?

When I knew I wanted to act, there were so many obstacles to overcome.

My father died when I was eight and my mother was practically institutionalised because she had a murderous nervous breakdown. While my schooling was a disaster – an absolute bloody disaster.

But I had two great teachers at St. Michaels in Dundee who really saw my value. They were so good to me and found me a job at Dundee Rep, which sent me on my way.

There was no future for me, otherwise. I failed my 11-plus and I didn’t want to go to trade school or anything. I just didn’t fit in and I wasn’t bright enough.

My childhood was quite disrupted. However, I saw it as the making of me – it developed my independence.

What does it mean to you to represent Scotland on the global stage?

One doesn’t really think about it. I am what I am.

As I’ve gotten older, I have become more affiliated with Scotland. But as an individual I just had a strong vision of who I was. I had something I was good at and that something was going to sustain me.

Touch wood it has sustained.