Succession star Brian Cox said his co-star Jeremy Strong begged him to stop talking about him after their public spat about method acting.
The 79-year-old actor, who played media tycoon Logan Roy on HBO’s Succession, made the revelation in an interview with The Times, reflecting on the fallout from his past comments about Strong’s immersive acting style.
Cox previously made headlines for criticizing Strong’s approach, which the actor described as “f--king annoying” and “not good for the ensemble.” Strong, 47, played Kendall Roy, Logan’s son, and had spoken openly about fully inhabiting the character in a 2021 interview with The New Yorker.
“Of course, Jeremy was Dan Day-Lewis’ assistant,” Cox said of Strong in 2023, referring to actor Daniel Day-Lewis. “So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.”
Asked by The Times he’d reached out to Day-Lewis, Cox said he hadn’t “because it’s got nothing to do with Dan Day-Lewis,” adding that the Oscar-winning actor is “discreet” and does not disrupt filming.
“I don’t want to go on about Jeremy, because I’ve got into a lot of problems and he’s begged me to stop talking about him,” Cox revealed.
“He’s a good actor, Jeremy. He’s a wonderful actor,” he went on. “It’s just all the bulls--t that goes with it. You watch children — they don’t say, ‘What’s my motivation?’ They just do it!”
Strong addressed Cox’s criticism in a 2023 interview with British GQ, saying: “Everyone’s entitled to have their feelings. I also think Brian Cox, for example, he’s earned the right to say whatever the f--k he wants. There was no need to address that or do damage control.”
Cox also expressed concern about Strong’s acting methods during a 2022 appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, saying Strong “does get obsessed with the work.”
“And I worry about what it does to him, because if you can’t separate yourself, because you’re dealing with all of this material every day,” Cox added. “You can’t live in it. Eventually, you get worn out.”
He pointed to Day-Lewis as an example of the toll such methods can take. “Like, to me, Daniel Day-Lewis got worn out at 55 and decided to retire because [he] couldn’t go on doing that every day,” Cox said. “It’s too consuming. And I do worry about it.”
Cox added: “But the result—what everyone says about Jeremy—the result is always extraordinary and excellent.”
