Brian Cox is a classically trained Scottish actor, known for his roles as Logan Roy in Succession and Agamemnon in Troy. He has received numerous awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe.
Cherwell: You’ve previously criticised method acting for being disruptive to other actors; speaking to The Guardian about working on Glenrothan, the upcoming movie you’re directing, you said you thought you were more of a ‘curator’ than a director. How do you see the individual vs. the collective in the creative process?
Cox: Well, I’m a socialist, so I believe in the collective, and I believe that everybody has a role to play in that collective, and everybody brings a different thing to it. I think that’s one of the great things about the theatre.
My problem is with the American system, or ‘the system’ in general. And it’s not so much Stanislavski, it’s this absorption in the role, where it’s a discipline. You have to be absorbed, but you also have to be aware of what’s around you, you’ve got to be aware of the ensemble, because it’s not just you.
Even if you’re playing Hamlet, there’s also Fortinbras you’ve got to think about, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are as important as anything else, and they’re all in their place. A lot of the time with the absorption, say you’re playing Rosencrantz, it becomes all about Rosencrantz. So you forget where your place is within the dramatis personae. It comes out selfish, but it isn’t necessarily selfish at all. It’s actually something else. It’s self preserving, as opposed to selfish, this feeling that you have to preserve your role and have to look after your character in a way, but you don’t have to. You can trust – trust yourself. A lot of it is about not trusting yourself, not trusting who you are within that framework. I think that’s what people suffer from, that not being able to get the trust that they need.
It goes back to Strasberg too. There was a great story, which is a true story, actually, about Stanislavski. The Group Theatre was a famous bunch of theatre professionals in America in the 30s – there was Elia Kazan, there was Strasberg, there was Cheryl Crawford, there was John Garfield. They were vulnerable, but they discovered Stanislavski, and they loved it. Stanislavski is great. I love Stanislavski as well. With Stanislavski, there was one thing that Strasberg focused on, which was called ‘affective memory’, which he translated as ‘emotional memory’. It was an exercise where he would get actors to relive the trauma of their childhood and how that would affect their acting. Now, it’s a laudable ambition, but it’s kind of pointless, you know?
So Stella Adler, who was an equally great teacher as Stanislavski, a wonderful teacher, she was a little bit worried about the situation. So she took herself to Paris because she knew that Stanislavski always went to Paris for the summer. The Russians allowed him to go there, and he lived in the Bois de Boulogne. So she goes to see him in the Bois de Boulogne, and she asks him about affective memory. And he says, “Oh, I got rid of that years ago. It interferes with the imagination.” The imagination is a flowing thing. It’s not an absolute thing. It flows. He said it stops that. So she goes back to the group, and they’re all there, and everybody asks: “So what did the great man think about affective memory, emotional memory?” And she says: “Well, he doesn’t use it anymore. He thinks it gets in the way of the imagination.” And Strasberg said: “Then Stanislavski is wrong”, and that’s where the split happened.
So he took it his own way and enabled a lot of actors, there’s no question. The James Deans and the Paul Newmans. You know, Newman had real problems as an actor in himself; he was very beautiful and good looking, but he had problems about his acting, about revealing himself. And he felt that Strasberg released him in a way. That was important, there was an element of that which was good, but also it becomes a sort of ‘thing’. Whereas nothing should be a ‘thing’, it should be a help, and it should have that sense of: you can leave it, or you can take it. But if you get locked into it, you suddenly become dogmatic. It’s like following a religious cult: “This is the right religion, not that”, and that makes a difference.
That’s what caught the American imagination. But it didn’t help the American imagination, because he said he wasn’t interested in the imagination. The imagination is it; when you look at children, that’s all they do. They imagine. They live in the world of imagination. And children are the best actors, to me. I love child actors, because they’re just so committed. That’s the great thing about Kieran [Culkin]. Kieran was a child actor, and he has that child actor’s enthusiasm, and it would be terrible to in any way curtail that.
Cherwell: You used the word ‘release’ there, that Strasberg ‘released’ Paul Newman, and it’s the same word you used in your talk [to the Oxford Union]. If a director’s job is to release an actor, how did that affect your own directing of your recent movie?
Cox: I’m going to take you up on the curator thing. When I started to direct this film – and I never wanted to direct this film, by the way, it wasn’t my idea. I was asked to be in it, but then I was asked to direct it, and I thought: “Oh, I didn’t expect that. But okay, I’ll have a go.” But then I realized there are so many talented people around you, and you have to give them the position. You have to get a group of people who are ostensibly on the same page, but who are allowed to do what they do more than anybody else. I had a wonderful costume guy, I had a brilliant set designer who did the most extraordinary things, she was absolutely amazing. You just say, let people do their job. That’s why they’re there. Don’t interfere. Let it go. Let them do their job. Then, of course, there will always be questions that you can ask, but don’t come in with a negative. Come in with something positive. Empower. It’s important to empower, that’s a key for me.
Cherwell: Do you feel if the collective has been set and the group’s been brought together, and for whatever reason the project isn’t working, is there a way the director saying no can make a good product, or is it just not going to be good?
Cox: It depends on casting. You know, the first thing the director has to do is to cast. Some directors are very good at casting, and some are not. I’m not necessarily good visually, but I am good at casting. I know shit from Shinola. I know what an actor is. I had a great cast. I had Alan Cumming, I had Shirley Henderson and the writer David Ashton. I found a wonderful fledgling DP, who did a fantastic job. So there’s an element of trust, there’s an element of risk, but you also have to do that. It’s like my editor, who I loved, who’s also great, I just trusted him immediately.
Now the problem with the editing is not necessarily to do with his job. It’s to do with the fact that, because we had a tight budget, there’s a lot of coverage that we didn’t get. I think that what’s going to happen is I’m going to be called upon to spend May doing some coverage on the shoot. But it’s about empowering people to do their best, not controlling them or not dictating the odds. If you see a talent, let the talent be. Don’t try and make it something else than what it is. You say: “Well, she knows how to do a room like nobody knows how to do a room”. So that’s a given.
Cherwell: Of the talents you worked with on Succession, you said [in your Union talk] you’d seen Kieran in A Real Pain. Jeremy Strong just starred in The Apprentice, and Sarah Snook was also in the West End doing The Picture of Dorian Gray. Did you see either of those things?
Cox: I only saw The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve seen A Real Pain, which is excellent. It’s really good, and Kieran is fantastic. He got the Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, and I think he’ll get the Oscar, because it’s a wonderful performance, and it’s so committed. I’m just so proud of him, because he’s so released now as an actor. He just goes for it and does it. He can be naughty, but he’s brilliant.
