We do love a celebrity memoir that doesn’t shy away from bashing other celebrities. A celebrity memoir should be titillating, it should be filled with juicy gossip. Thanks be to Scottish legend Brian Cox, then, star of HBO’s huge hit Succession.
As the acid-tongued tycoon Logan Roy, he’s really lived up to the acid-tongued part in his new autobiography, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, as per The Independent.
While revealing that he turned down a role in Pirates of the Caribbean, the Hollywood veteran had some chastising words to describe the acting style of Johnny Depp. “Personable though I’m sure he is, is so overblown, so overrated. I mean, Edward Scissorhands.
Let’s face it, if you come on with hands like that and pale, scarred-face make-up, you don’t have to do anything. And he didn’t. And subsequently, he’s done even less,” Cox wrote acerbically.
Quentin Tarantino was next in the firing line. “I find his work meretricious. It’s all surface. Plot mechanics in place of depth. Style where there should be substance. I walked out of Pulp Fiction.” That doesn’t mean Cox wouldn’t work with the director, though, as he added dryly, “That said, if the phone rang, I’d do it.”
Other notable bars were aimed at Steven Seagal – his co-star in the 1996 film The Glimmer Man – who he said “is as ludicrous in real life as he appears on screen”, and Edward Norton, described as “a nice lad but a bit of a pain in the arse because he fancies himself as a writer-director.”
I’ve never been more proud to be Scottish. Cox’s autobiography isn’t all dour, though, as he found some nice things to say about some other actors. He described the late Alan Rickman as “one of the sweetest, kindest, nicest and most incredibly smart men I’ve ever met. Prior to acting he’d been a graphic designer and he brought the considered, laser-like precision of that profession to his work.”
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And he said of the beloved Morgan Freeman: “I’m pleased to say that although he was cold and pissed off and watching bedlam reign around him, Morgan Freeman remained an absolute gentleman. Being the very epitome of Morgan Freeman. The Morgan Freeman you would hope to meet. The Morgan Freeman you encounter in your dreams.”
Truly a shining example to all future celebrity memoirs. Cox has really set the standard.
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Check out the trailer for Succession season three:
