There’s a decent chance that you or someone you love spent recent years obsessing over the Emmy-winning HBO drama, Succession. And Logan Roy, the head of the miserable Roy family — played by Brian Cox — was a foul-mouthed bully who managed to come off as both maniacally manipulative and imperfectly human. Last week, Katie caught up with Cox at the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival to talk about the success of the show, his years spent on stage, and what he thinks of co-star Jeremy Strong’s method acting.

If you couldn’t make it to Aspen this year, don’t worry — you can watch their in-depth conversation at your leisure. Plus, we’ve highlighted some of our favorite moments below.

Katie Couric: Do people really come up to you on the street and ask you to tell them to f*ck off?

Brian Cox: All the f*cking time. The most bizarre incident was when I was in L.A. for the Golden Globes. Rosanna Arquette is an old friend of mine, and she said, “There’s a Me Too meeting going on this weekend with Ronan Farrow. He’s going to read some stuff from his book. Would you come along and watch?” I said, “Oh, sure. I’d love to come.” But I arrived late. So I’m standing at the back watching him doing his stuff, and it was very impressive. He finished, they gave him a round of applause, and they turned around and they saw me. They immediately got their devices out, went up to me, and they said, “Could you tell us to f*ck off?” I said, “Is that really appropriate at a Me Too meeting?” 

Let’s talk about Succession. What did you think when you first got that script?

You don’t get a script. That’s a common illusion. You get the pitch or the idea. I knew straight away it was going to be a success because of the satirical nature of it. 

I said to Jesse [Armstrong], “You know, [Logan Roy] could be Scottish. And Jesse [Succession’s creator] said, “No, he can’t be Scottish. He’s got to be American.” So we left it at that. You get the script incrementally. You don’t always get the whole thing. You do a reading, but then they rewrite it. So I get the script and it says, born in Quebec. And I thought, I didn’t know Quebec was in the States. I always thought that was Canada. But I’d already started doing whatever accent I was doing. In the ninth episode, Peter Friedman, who plays Frank, said, “They’ve changed your birthplace.” 

I said, “What do you mean they’ve changed my birthplace?” He said, “you’re no longer from Quebec.” I said, “So where was I born?” He said, “Oh, I can’t remember.” He took his device out and he said, “Somewhere called Dundee, Scotland.” And I said, “But that’s where I was born.” And he said, “Yeah, it’s a hell of a f*cking coincidence.” I said, “This is the ninth episode, and now you’re telling me I’m Scotch?” And I thought I was Quebecois or American. 

So I went up to Jesse and I said, “What’s with the change of nationality?” And — this is typical of writers — he said, “Oh, we all thought it’d be a little surprise.” I said, “It’s a hell of a f*cking surprise.”