The completion of a book is generally a reason for celebration. Actor Brian Cox is not one of them. The book in question, 'Putting the Rabbit in the Hat,' is now available and covers the actor's rise from modest origins in Dundee, Scotland, to being the buzz of Hollywood owing to his Emmy-nominated part in the blockbuster drama Succession.
According to a report by The Indian Express, he said that finishing the book led him to go into melancholy over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and he hopes it hasn't "put a full stop" to his life.
“I was feeling, ‘Is that all there is? That’s the summation of my life?’ I don’t want it to be the summation of my life. I wanted it to be an illustration of where my life had gone to,” said Cox, adding, “I’m sure there’s more.”
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Despite his hesitations, the veteran actor found the experience "liberating and cathartic," allowing him to honour his late parents, whom he describes as "two very tragic figures in my life." His dad, Charles, died when Cox was eight years old, and his mother, Mary Ann Guillerline, suffered from nervous breakdowns.
Cox, one of five children, was born in 1946 and characterises his childhood as "bloody tough and bloody lonely" — and he believes his challenges will surprise readers.
“I hope they’re going to be surprised by my background. I hope they’re going to be surprised about what a boy from the age of 8, from the age of 15, had to go through. And that, to me, is the most key thing about the book — just this kid who is literally abandoned by everybody, not only through circumstance, it’s nobody’s fault,” he said.
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Despite his upbringing, Cox views his path to acting as easy, due in part to the social mobility of the 1960s. He is unsure whether working-class actors would be given the same possibilities in 2022.
“God bless Dominic West and Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne and all that. And they’ve done very well. And I don’t question their talent, they’re certainly talented. But what about the others? What about the lost ones?” he said.
Throughout the book, he quips that people may be startled by his candour, but adds, "maybe some people think, 'Well, he's always had a big mouth, Cox, so it's understandable.'"
Logan Roy, the foul-mouthed father Cox plays in HBO's Emmy-winning comedy Succession, shares Cox's candour. Roy's catchphrase has followed him wherever he goes as a result of the show's success.
He said that he recently attended a New York Knicks basketball game where a large portion of the audience serenaded him with one of Roy's more famous expletives. Cox stated that his Roman Catholic mother would be shocked that her son is now associated with an obscenity.
Season four of Succession is presently in the works, and Cox is waiting to see what happens to Logan.“I don’t know what it’s going to be, we never know until it is because that’s not the deal. The deal is the scripts are out, you do it,” said Cox, smiling.
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Some of his fellow cast members, he claims, push the authors with ideas for character arcs for the forthcoming season, which are "dutifully ignored," adding, "They never learn the lesson that the writers are not interested in what the actor wants to present for himself."
