Why ‘Succession’ star Brian Cox is no fan of space travel

Brian Cox in 'Succession' (Season 3), on HBO Max from October 17. (Image: screen grab)

The TV show Succession, which has won fans globally with its story of a megalomaniacal media tycoon and his dysfunctional family, is back with its much awaited third season (releasing on HBO Max on October 17). But in real life, Brian Cox, the actor who plays patriarch Logan Roy on the show, is not always pleased with the antics of business lords.

For instance, Cox is not at all a fan of the space race between the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

“Look, the one thing Logan and I share is our disappointment in the human being,” Cox told The Guardian. “Like this farce that we all watched of Bezos going up in the sky, started by (Richard) Branson. What the ---- are they doing? He went up there for 11 minutes and then came back down. And you go: ‘So what?’ And then Branson goes: ‘We need a lot more spaceships.’ And you think: ‘No we don’t! We don’t need a lot more spaceships! We’ve got enough! The world’s gone nuts!’”

Cox also said, “One of the reasons I like Logan is that he would never do what Branson or Musk or Bezos did: ‘Let’s go up in the sky because we need more spaceships.’ What is happening to the planet that we need more rubble up in the sky? We don’t need to go into space. Where’s their head, their sense of proportion, their living in the real world?”

A respected actor with several theatre and screen credits to his name before Succession, Cox has written his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat. The title means that before the magic trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, a lot of hard work goes into putting it in the hat in the first place. The book will be released later this month.

Cox hasn’t pulled punches in his story. But he has tried to understand what made a certain person unpleasant. Cox abhors Donald Trump, for instance, but believes Trump’s father is the fundamental reason why POTUS No. 45 turned out the way he did.

“I can’t look at the man (Trump), he just makes me feel… vile,” Cox told The Guardian. “But at the same time he’s clearly an abused child; he’s clearly been indoctrinated by this horrible father, who’s also been indoctrinated. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever, I think the man’s a waste of space. But at the same time, like it or not, he’s a human being.”

Cox sees a similar pattern in the character of Logan Roy.

“I think that at some point in his life, Logan has been brutalised,” he said. “And he’s in the process of committing an act of revenge on the rest of humanity, but for really quite legitimate reasons. The thing that’s so hard for him is that, like (King) Lear, he loves his children, and he would hope to see some of that love reciprocated, as opposed to them just seeing him as a chequebook, or as the road to entitlement.”