Brian Cox, an actor known for not pulling any punches when it comes to speaking his mind about Hollywood as well as his fellow actors, is once again flapping his gums about some of the filmmaking industry’s most beloved personalities. Recently, while speaking with the U.K.’s The Times, Cox set his sights on Margot Robbie, saying she was the wrong actress to cast as Cathy in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights.
“‘Keith Cliff! It’s me, Cathy!'” Cox said in a mocking Australian accent. “‘How ya doing, Keith? Awright?’ ‘Yeah, I’m awright!'” Satisfied with his performance, Cox quickly added, “Margot Robbie is far too beautiful for that role. I mean, I think there should be something more of the Gypsy about her, but it’s wrong of me to judge. It may be a brilliant film.”
Typically, actors refrain from making fun of their peers, but this is par for the course with Cox. The fact of the matter is that he doesn’t care if he comes off as controversial or curmudgeonly. Cox says he doesn’t hold back because he’s too old to care what people think of him. “Well, I don’t know yet if it’s caused me problems,” he told The Times. “I mean, my wife [Nicole Ansari-Cox] keeps saying, ‘Brian, be careful. Brian, be careful.’ I think, ‘F**k it. I don’t want to be careful anymore! I’ll be 80 this year. Fuck it! I’m gonna say what I want to say.'”
While thinking about Cox’s comments, one can’t help but recall him calling his Succession co-star, Jeremy Strong, “f**king annoying” for his method acting approach. Cox’s comments prompted a call from Daniel Day-Lewis, who wanted to speak to Cox about the art of immersing yourself in a role. When asked if he’d responded to Day-Lewis’ offer, Cox admitted:
“No, I haven’t reached out because it’s got nothing to do with Dan Day-Lewis,” Cox told The Times. “Dan Day-Lewis, he’s discreet. He never upsets it [the filming process]. He’s never, sort of… 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. He’s a good actor, Jeremy. He’s a wonderful actor. It’s just all the bollocks that goes with it. You watch children — they don’t say, ‘What’s my motivation?’ They just do it!”
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