Sarah Snook Says Brian Cox Was Prone To “Terrifying” Rages On Set Of ‘Succession’

Jake Kanter
·3 min read

Sarah Snook has revealed that Brian Cox was capable of channeling Logan Roy, even when he was not in character as the menacing media baron in HBO’s Succession.

The Australian actress, who clinched an Emmy for her portrayal of Logan’s daughter Shiv in the final season of Succession, said Cox would test the energy on set with “thunderous” outbursts.

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Speaking to Mariella Frostrup on Times Radio, Snook laughed: “He has a habit of sometimes going into a false — or could it be real, who knows? — diabetic rage, where he’ll go [growl] all of a sudden.

“I think part of it’s a little of trying to just jolt the energy of the set and rustle a few feathers, get it going and moving faster. The quality of his voice can be very terrifying sometimes, for sure. Thunderous.”

Cox suffers from type two diabetes and Kieran Culkin (Roman Roy) has joked that he would “scream” if he was hungry on set. Cox has also admitted to hungry/angry outbursts. “Well, yeah I do get hangry because I’m diabetic,” he told ITV’s This Morning when asked about Culkin’s comments.

Snook is not the only Succession actress to admit to being a little intimidated by Cox. Justine Lupe, who played Willa Ferreyra, said the Scottish actor was capable of being “incredibly scary,” while J Smith-Cameron, who starred as Gerri Kellman, said he was sometimes “terrifying” to work with.

In an interview with Times Radio last year, Lupe said: “Brian has moments of being incredibly intimidating on and off camera. He’s got a power to him as a person and I think he knows that about himself. That being said, he’s also one of the more kind people that I’ve interacted with on set … He was always so supportive and sweet.”

Snook, who is starring in The Picture of Dorian Gray at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket, told Times Radio she nearly turned down the role of Shiv.

“She wasn’t familiar to me in a way that I felt that I could bring something that was great to the role that I found interesting enough to want to play,” she said. “I didn’t know, if being the only younger female in the cast at that time, whether I would be a prop and tried to be made to the beautified version of me that the female character could be, then just sort of pushed to the side. I’m not interested in playing roles like that, so I was fearful of things being trapped”.

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