HBO
While Brian Cox is undeniably an excellent actor, he also mistakes himself for being such a next-level performer that he’s allowed to bloviate as if he were the arbiter of quality acting. The latest example of this came in an interview with The Times of London, which saw Cox take aim at multiple A-list stars.
The former Succession recently star sat down with The Times of London to promote his new directorial film Glenrothan and unloaded on a remarkable number of colleagues, including Johnny Depp, Margot Robbie, Edward Norton, Quentin Tarantino, Gary Oldman and Ian McKellan.
Veteran actor Brian Cox disparaged a litany of actors in a recent interview, including Johnny Depp, Margot Robbie, Edward Norton, Quentin Tarantino, Gary Oldman and Ian McKellan
i like Brian Cox but sometimes he's moving like his Laurence Olivier — meanwhile he was just cast as "The New York Ripper" in S2 of the Dexter sequel series lol https://t.co/7bZsqBpOzl
— Eric Italiano (@ericitaIiano) April 3, 2026
On Johnny Depp, Cox reiterated that he turned down the governor role in Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to avoid working with him, calling Depp “so overblown, so overrated.” As for Edward Norton, he said his 25th Hour co-star was “a pain in the arse.”
When speaking about the legendary Ian McKellen, Cox said that “his performances are not to my taste.” He called Quentin Tarantino “meretricious,” and said that Gary Oldman’s Oscar-winning Winston Churchill performance in Darkest Hour was “cobblers” and “a crowd-pleasing farrago.”
Then were his comments on Margot Robbie’s casting in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights — a film Cox has not seen — he performed what The Times described as “a cod Australian accent” while adding that “Margot Robbie is far too beautiful for that role…. It may be a brilliant film.”
Cox is 80-years-old, and as the kids say, clearly has no f—s left to give. Simultaneously, however, his willingness to put down colleagues suggest that Cox has an overblown elevated opinion of himself, as if he actually knows better than those he’s disparaging. It was humorous the first few times he called Jeremy Strong annoying, but not it’s just become a tired, grump old man shtick.
It’s not like Cox his putting in Anthony Hopkins level performances in recently, either — he was just cast as “The New York Ripper” in S2 of the Dexter sequel series. Not exactly Gone with the Wind, now, is it?