With Succession returning to our screens Sunday (October 17), we’re making the great Brian Cox our British Icon of the Week. Here are 10 things we find admirable and intriguing about the award-winning actor who brings the formidable media mogul Logan Roy to life. 
1. He's a great Shakespearean actor.
During his career, Cox has worked extensively with the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in productions of King Lear, Titus Andronicus, and The Taming of the Shrew, among others. In this adorable video clip, he teaches a toddler the classic "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet. 
2. He is a proud and patriotic Scotsman.
Cox has twice served as Grand Marshal at the New York City Tartan Day Parade, an annual celebration of Scottish heritage that takes place on April 6. Cox led the way in 2012 and again in 2020.
3. He has done important charity work.
In 2010, Cox appeared in a TV commercial for Age UK, a British nonprofit that aims to make life easier for older people. Like Sir Ian McKellen, who featured in another Age UK commercial during the same year, he gave his time free of charge. 
4. He isn't afraid to say it how he sees it.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Cox shared his thoughts on the somewhat overlooked Winston Churchill biopic he starred in, Churchill, and the one for which Gary Oldman won an Oscar, Darkest Hour. "I was pissed off," he said of Churchill's lack of awards, "particularly when I saw the other movie. I thought it was bloody awful! I mean, Gary’s a great actor, but…"
"You learn not to be attached, to let go," he continued. "Churchill probably wasn’t the greatest script, but I think the relationship with Miranda [Richardson, who played Churchill's wife Clementine] was second to none. She’s a great actress, and she made me raise my game. And from that point of view I thought: 'Well, this is good work.'"
5. He has a terrific sense of humor.
In this amusing backstage interview from the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, where Cox won Best Actor for his work in Succession, the actor said that he loves playing Logan Roy because "I get to say f**k off as often as I like."
"Something I’ve really wanted to do for most of life," he continued, "is tell people to really f**k off, and so I am very pleased to have the opportunity to do that on a regular basis – and get paid for it!"
6. He is genuinely terrifying as Logan Roy.
As this tense scene really testifies.
7. He was brilliant in Braveheart.
In Mel Gibson's Oscar-winning film about the First War of Scottish Independence, Cox plays Argyle Wallace, the uncle who has a profound influence on Gibson's fearless military leader, William Wallace.

8. He's a great believer in the benefits of cannabis.
"It’s absolutely great and I recommend it to everyone – get stoned!" he told The Guardian last year. "It does make the politics easier to bear. It’s a way of dealing with idiocy.”
"I didn’t start until I was 50," Cox continued. "I was very against it, actually. You know, I got married at 21 to an upper-middle-class English girl – well, with Scots parentage, but you know English Scots are the most English! Hahaha! We had two children, one went to [prestigious private school] St. Paul’s, one went to [the equally prestigious] Cheltenham Ladies College. It was all done proper. It wasn't who I was, but happy wife, happy life. Then when I was 50, I realized I missed out on what was going on with young people because I was so square, and I was working so hard, I needed something to relax. So I discovered the wonderful world of cannabis."
9. He has three books to his name.
Salem to Moscow: An Actor's Odyssey and The Lear Diaries are factual books on theater and acting, while Putting the Rabbit in the Hat – publishing October 26 – is Cox's memoir. According to his Succession co-star Dame Harriet Walter, who supplies a quote in the press release, the latter is "laced with his characteristic generosity, self-deprecation, and cut-the-crap wisdom."
10. And finally, he is a fine reciter of poetry.
Check out Cox's beautiful reading of "Ae Fond Kiss" by the great Scottish poet Robert Burns.
Do you have a favorite thing about Brian Cox?