The actor Brian Cox He has a long history behind him, but it is fair to say that he currently enjoys much more popularity thanks to his participation in the series ‘Succession’. Now he has published his memoir ‘Putting the Rabbit in the Hat’, in which he does not hold back at all explaining different aspects of his career.
The first and most striking is that he has finally answered the question of many fans of ‘Game of Thrones’ – he himself admits that they have often told him – about whether at some point he was offered to participate in the series, to which comments that “was going to be King Robert Baratheon, who apparently dies when he is rammed by a bear in the first season“, thus justifying that he said no to the offer:
‘Game of Thrones’ ended up being a huge success and everyone involved made a fortune, of course. But when they offered it to me, let’s just say it wasn’t not much money. Plus I was going to be killed relatively soon, so I wouldn’t have had any of the benefits of the long-term effects of the show’s success, where his salary grew with each new season. So I passed, and the bear hit Mark Addy instead of me.
The case of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’
In addition, it was not the only role in a great worldwide success that he turned down, as he was also about to give life to the Governor of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, a character that finally went into the hands of Jonathan Price, although he himself admits that he does not regret his decision:
I would have been a money maker, but of all the characters in the movie I was the most ungrateful, and I would have ended up doing one movie after another and losing all the good things I’ve done.
Cox also acknowledges that he wasn’t too keen on working with Johnny Depp, about which he does not mince words when stating the following:
Another thing about ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ is that it’s basically Johnny Depp’s show as Jack Sparrow, and personally I’m sure he’s so hyped, he’s so overrated. Think ‘Edward Scissorhands’. Let’s face it, if you come with hands like this, pale, scarred face makeup… you don’t have to do anything. And did not do it. And subsequently it has done even less. But people love it. Or he loved it. They don’t like it so much anymore these days, of course.