'Succession' star Brian Cox says it's 'wrong' to reserve roles for actors with the same lived experiences as the characters they're playing: 'It's acting'
- Brian Cox said an actor's lived experience should not dictate the roles they play.
- "It's acting, it's a piece of craft," he told Radio Times on Tuesday, per The Guardian.
Brian Cox said actors should not be cast for roles based on how their lived experience compares to the character's story during an interview with Radio Times on Tuesday.
According to The Guardian, the 75-year-old Scotsman told the outlet that he watched a series of films in his downtime after wrapping production on the third season of "Succession," premiering October 17.
Specifically, Cox, who plays media magnate Logan Roy on HBO's hit dramedy, watched Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash, a mathematician diagnosed with schizophrenia, in "A Beautiful Mind" (2001) and Eddie Redmayne's performance as Stephen Hawking, a physicist that has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), in "The Theory of Everything" (2014).
"Both brilliant performances," the actor said, per The Guardian.
Crowe's take on Nash in "A Beautiful Mind" earned him a best actor nomination at the Academy Awards in 2002, and Redmayne won best actor for his performance in "The Theory of Everything" at the 2015 Academy Awards.
Though many critics applauded the films, others took issue with seeing non-disabled actors depict characters that have physical and mental health conditions.
Cox said his wife, Nicole Ansari, told him that Crowe and Redmayne likely would not be cast in their respective roles if the movies were made today.
"My wife said: 'Well, of course, they wouldn't be allowed to do that now,'" Cox recalled. "I said: 'What do you mean?' And she said: 'Well, they're not disabled or mentally ill.'"
Cox told Radio Times that he does not agree with this logic, also referred to as "authentic casting," or reserving roles for actors that have the same lived experiences as the characters they play on-screen.
"That's wrong, because it's acting, it's a piece of craft," he said.
He also said it "might be exploitative" to seek out actors with mental or physical disabilities, such as schizophrenia or ALS, to play certain characters.