Succession, the acclaimed HBO series, has just premiered its fourth and final season, with which the production created by Jesse Armstrong culminates the story of the wealthy and dysfunctional Roy family. Brian Cox, who plays the patriarch, the ironclad Logan Roy, is clear about the nature of those who are as rich as his character, attacking them harshly. “They are all the same. Look at Trump, the fantasy world in which he lives,” says the actor, who defines the former US president as “a fucking idiot.”
“He’s crazy, they should put him in a mental hospital and receive care and electroshock treatment to recover his brain, because he’s gone, he’s gone. He’s a fucking idiot,” Cox says vehemently in an interview with Europa Press during his visit to Madrid to present the beginning of the end of the series. “The rich have marginalized themselves, they are no longer in touch with the world,” he says.
The British also took the opportunity to point out other names of great magnates, in addition to the former president of the United States. “Elon Musk may hide under the fact that he’s autistic, but he’s not doing autism any favors. I think he’s being stupid, and that’s not autistic, it’s just stupid. How he’s handling Twitter and all that.” criticizes the interpreter. “Power is the manifestation of money,” he says.
In turn, Cox qualifies that some rich people have known how to adapt and do things correctly. “Bill Gates, in many ways, has used it incredibly well. His sense of the world is pretty good. He has his own problems, his personal and domestic problems, which I don’t care about. But what he’s done, as I see it, is something that I can understand, is positive”, praises the veteran actor.
Next, Cox refers to the exploitation problems faced by workers at companies like Amazon or Starbucks. “They make a fortune. Of course it’s a person’s vision that gets it, and I don’t want to discredit any of that, having a certain vision and doing it. But it’s the sense of reality, the sense of knowing where you are in the world Unfortunately, that is lost in certain cases. Not in the whole world, but in some. That’s what our series is about too,” he says.
During his visit to Spain, Cox gave a talk at the headquarters of the Film Academy in Madrid, where he pointed out that cinema is now only image, leaving text aside. A reflection that she expands by comparing the cinema of the 30s with the current one. “Image and text were in balance. You see movies like The Secret of Life and all those Capra movies and there’s a sense that text and vision go hand in hand. Even in John Ford’s as well. I think the Marvel family, and it’s understandable… These stories work best when they’re allegorical and we can relate them to our lives,” he suggests.
“That’s why I love X-Men 2 so much. It’s a great example of that because it’s Bryan Singer talking about his own experience of being gay in a world where it’s more acceptable than it was before. He writes about it and it’s a an allegory of what the X-Men were, people marginalized from the rest of the world. That works, it’s very well written,” he celebrates, citing the film in which he gave life to the villain William Stryker.
“But a lot of others don’t pay that much attention to detail. They’re so busy doing fights, accidents, explosions, gunshots, and all those movie tricks, that they forget the word, the idea, that there’s something to think about and keep in mind.” tells about who we are. That’s what I think cinema is missing,” Cox says.
The first episode of the fourth season of Succession premiered on HBO Max on Monday, March 27. Along with Cox, the interpreters Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen or Nicholas Braun, among others, repeat in the cast. The award-winning series is the brainchild of Jesse Armstrong, with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay serving as executive producers.
