Brian Cox: 'Scotland is the only place where social democracy seems to be functioning '

Not surprisingly, Cox takes less than a nano second to work up an ire, to offer at least a hint of the fearsome creature he’s revealed all too often on stage and screen. “Are you talking about yourself, I presume?”

Indeed, not. "Let me explain." Or rather, let me grovel for a couple of minutes in the hope this interview doesn’t collapse before it’s begun.

"There is a line in the book, Brian, in which your mother once wrote to your prospective mother-in-law saying, 'Brian’s not awfully bright. But he’s got a good heart.' I was quoting Molly Cox – and attempting to highlight how our parents can be a little inappropriate at times. I realise you probably wrote this book at least a year ago, and some of the detail will have slipped to the outer edges of the mind. Sorry, Brian, I was trying to be funny."

Thankfully, the penny drops and the Dundonian blood returns to room temperature. “Ah, yes, I forgot about that,” he says, laughing, perhaps in relief he’s not having to converse with a self-destructive idiot. “My ma was trying to be kind. But sometimes the wording Scots mothers use isn’t exactly right.”

For sure. I tell him the tale of how I once had a parachute accident and a few days later, while I was in hospital, my mother told a friend I was going to be OK. She added: ‘There’s very little sign of brain damage.’

Cox laughs at this. Hard. I like him a lot for letting me off the hook. “Yes, Scots mothers do that. And they are wonderful.”

Brian Cox had a wonderful mother who worked hard to look after her five children in a two-roomed flat in Dundee. But she had serious mental health issues, no doubt exacerbated when Cox’s father, Chic, a shopkeeper, died when young Brian was just eight years old.

For most of his early life, he was looked after by his older sisters and an aunt. “You don’t think about it at the time. You just get on with it. But what I didn’t realise until I wrote the book was that when you’re eight there is a certain resilience. What I also didn’t appreciate was that my brother, Charlie, who was 16 at the time, must have been really affected in terms of grief.”

He adds: “I have a 16-year-old son now. And being a teenager is tough enough. When we think of teenage hormone attacks, we think of females. But we should also remember that male teenagers go through all levels of s***.”

Charlie ran off to the army. Young Brian endured an early life of eating scraps from the chippy. Surviving. Is it fair to say this early tragedy created a sense of detachment? And did that, perhaps, play a part in his becoming an actor, perhaps separating himself from the real world? “You know, I think you are absolutely right. In life, you sometimes have to find ways to protect yourself.”

He adds: “It’s funny you should mention that detachment because I later came to realise that it led to a sense of absence growing up, and it has really been something I’ve had to deal with.”

The actor, who has undergone therapy, admits he was absent a great deal during his first marriage to wife Caroline, and ‘had little affinity with the process of fathering’ his two children. “I still beat myself up about that. It was almost a medical fact. There was nothing I could do about it. But it takes over me sometimes. I still feel a sense of grief about relationships I’ve had in the past, the break-ups with ladies I’ve had. I have to acknowledge that this feeling of being absent is still with me yet try and move on. It’s about the journey.”

Brian Cox’s lucky escape from poverty came about when he discovered Dundee Rep. Aged 14, this ‘rough-speaking urchin’ found work as the lowest assistant. But he loved the world, of sweeping up, banking cash, setting Lynn Redgrave’s stage wig in rollers. “It was a blessing. It was an egalitarian world where I was welcomed. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I was also a curiosity. [He mimics his old accent; ‘Talkin’ like that, ken.] But I couldn’t believe my luck and the kindness shown to me.”

Cox resolved to study acting and took himself off to LAMDA in London. And this career choice offered up a surrogate father in acting legend Fulton Mackay, who would later find TV fame as Mr Mackay in Porridge.

“He was probably the most important man in my life. He had also gone into therapy because his mother died when he was young from diabetes, and his father travelled all over with the NAAFI. Fulton had no real home. And he shared all this knowledge with me.”

Cox offers a warm smile. “I found in theatre the family I craved. And [that connection with other actors] continues. I also have this right now with the Succession family. I love all of them. Sure, there are moments, but I deeply adore them.”

Brian Cox’s acting – and life – story features a rainbow of colours. His journey from Dundee to RADA is full of passion, his tales of rep theatre companies illuminating. One minute he’s appearing on stage as Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (and trying not to laugh when his false leg falls off) the next he’s sharing actor Linda Thorson’s flat in New York with thousands of cockroaches. Or he’s warding off dressing room advances from a fruity, very handy, Princess Margaret. He laughs when you suggest had the roles been reversed, he would have been taken to the Tower.

Along the way the actor picked up major acclaim and theatre prizes such as two Olivier Awards. What emerges however is that Cox has never assumed technical greatness; he has continually looked at technique and style. “Yes, and Fulton encouraged that need to improve. He was a great learner.”

But what of the rejection? It’s also a world in which you can be turned down because you are too small, too tall, too heavy, too slight . . . if you can’t ride a horse like Willie Carson . . . “Yes, it’s hard, but especially for females in the business. And I’ve seen many who have been under siege at the hands of the likes of the horrible (Harvey) Weinstein. I have nothing but respect for those who’ve survived this element of the business. But of course, the women had to keep it secret. They were under so much pressure not to reveal. But now they can.”

Cox speaks of egalitarianism in theatre. But he admits there were glass ceilings facing working class hopefuls. Scots, for example, could play army sergeants, but not officers. “That’s true. It goes back to the time when we lived in a feudal society, where everyone knew their place. We still have that. We still have monarchy.”

Brian Cox is most certainly a class warrior, but interestingly he supports teaching of Received Pronunciation, which was once forced upon working class students. “The thing about the sound of RP is that you have 24 vowel sounds you can choose from. And in standard accents, Scots, Irish or Welsh, there are only 13 vowels to choose from. It actually increases your range. So, it’s not a class thing at all. When you think of people such as [John] Gielgud or [Paul] Scofield, they had a tremendous range. And it was really important for me to learn clarity.”

He adds: “One of the problems in movies these days is there is not enough clarity. Too much mumbling. Brando mumbled in Streetcar, of course, but his Marc Anthony revealed immense clarity.”

Brian Cox became, undoubtably, one of the greatest theatre actors of his generation. But he decided to side line that part of his career in a bid to conquer Hollywood. Does he regret moving to the States and becoming a multi-millionaire film star, living in New York, working with the likes of Brad Pitt in Troy (in which he made the American look very ordinary) when he could have been appearing at the Royal Court for £400 a week?

“No,” he says, laughing. “And remember, for me the cinema was essentially the proletarian art form. That’s where I first saw Albert Finney who gave me hope and possibility. In Dundee we had 21 cinemas, which showed double features and I could see eight films a week. I could see Danny Kaye and James Dean and Brando. And the films did have a classless element to them. I always knew that’s where I wanted to go.”

It’s no real surprise that Cox has made such a success of his film career. He brings with him a weight, a confidence and a toughness. He has little hesitation in telling directors what he thinks of their instruction. “We Celts came from Europe and settled in Ireland and Scotland. We have a tough character.”

Invoking his cultural history sees the actor leap onto his political soapbox with such ease you’d never guess he had 75-year-old knees. He expounds for at least a few minutes about his incredible disappointment with Labour, how he was appalled by Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq and the demise of social democracy in the UK. “I used to think the Scots Nats were a joke party but now I think the only place that social democracy seems to be functioning is my home country. So perhaps that’s where my allegiance lies.”

Does he believe independence can contend with economic realities? “Those realities are now being defined by the condition of the planet,” he says. “That’s why kids really are the future. We’ve taken so much for granted and we can’t anymore. My big problem is that I fly. When I’m playing Logan Roy, I can be in the likes of Dubrovnik next week and I have to get there. We’re on the horns of a horrific dilemma. And Russia and China won’t come to the party.”

And even our friends the Australians who insist on mining coal. Aren’t they a set of selfish drongos? “You’re right there, pal. And I’m also intolerant of America when it comes to coal, because it doesn’t make any sense. The government is behaving like frat night in a minor university.”

Brian Cox calls it as he sees it. He certainly isn’t backwards about coming forwards about the movie stars he doesn’t rate. Cox adores the likes of Alan Rickman but he’s not a huge Michael Caine fan, although he admits Caine is “an institution.”

Edward Norton is “a pain in the a***.” Steven Segal however is up there on the Hopeless list. And he turned down the chance to star alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean because Depp’s acting is panto.

But does he feel perhaps his criticisms went a little too far? “Yes, that’s a very good question and I’m planning to write an addendum. I’ve been getting a lot of brouhaha, in particular from Johnny Depp fans. But it’s also made me think I want to put a perspective on things. Yes, I have called people an ass**** in the book, but then I realised that this referred to a time.

“So, what I’m going to do for the American publication, is write that there is a possibility that people can change.”

Cox admits the business can cause/allow people to behave very badly. “You can, if you’re not very careful, lose the plot. And you do. During rehearsals for his first play in New York, he remembers asking the stage manager to fetch him a cup of tea. "He looked at me with absolute astonishment and said, 'Why don't you get your own tea?' And I thought, 'Yes, absolutely right. Why don't I get my own tea?'"

He adds: “But we should allow for the fact that sometimes we go through a dark tunnel – and hopefully come out the other side of it. There may have been something extraordinary going on in actors' lives which impacts upon their performance.”

The theme of the book appears to be an actor in search of an identity? Is this fair? “Oh, yes,” he agrees. “I feel the search to be an on-going process. You really never stop. You’re always weighing up the good stuff and the crap that goes on around you. And you spend your life trying to get a balance.”

He grins. “And if you’re a Gemini like me, it’s doubly hard.”

And me, Brian. “What? You’re a Gemini as well?” Oh, yes.

He breaks into a loud laugh. “Well, as a fellow Gemini you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. We have this side of personality that says ‘f*** them.’ And then there’s the other side that says ‘Oh, no. We have to consider this opinion.’”

He becomes even more exercised. Not Logan Roy angry at all, but certainly Agamemnon loud and commanding.

“You know, Brian, there’s a constant dialogue in my head. My whole life has been about this, with my head battling with the idea of what makes right and wrong. And the opposite sides of my head can’t agree a lot of the time.”

Perhaps it has helped make him he actor he is? Take Logan Roy, for example. He has real angularity. He’s a man conflicted. “You know. You understand,” he says.

I do. And I now know not to suggest actors may be a bit dim.

Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, My Autobiography by Brian Cox. Published by Quercus, £20

Key dates in Brian Cox’s calendar

• 1946. Born in Dundee

• 1960. Began working at Dundee Rep as ‘an assistant to the assistant.’

• 1965. Cox was one of the founders of the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh.

• 1965. Made his first television appearance in The Wednesday Play.

• 1967. He made his debut in London’s West End.

• 1983. Played the Duke of Burgundy opposite Sir Lawrence Olivier in King Leer.

• 1984. Awarded an Olivier for his role in Rat in The Skull.

• 1986. He played the first on-screen Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter.

• 1988. Picked up his second Olivier for his starring role in Titus Andronicus.

• 1990. Starred as King Lear.

• 1995. Appeared in both Braveheart and Rob Roy

• 2002: Cox landed an Emmy nomination for his guest appearance in TV sitcom Frasier.

• 2002. Played William Stryker in X2: X- Men United.

• 2012. Cox starred as Bob Servant in Neil Forsyth’s Dundee-based sitcom.

• 2020. Golden Globe winner for his lead role in Succession.