Succession star Brian Cox has revealed why he won’t watch his onscreen son Jeremy Strong in his Oscar-nominated film role.
Both Strong and A Real Pain star Kieran Culkin , who played Kendall and Roman Roy in the hit HBO show, have received nominations at this year’s Academy Awards.
In a funny case of life imitating art, the actors, who vied for their father’s job in Succession, are going head-to-head for the Best Supporting Actor trophy.
Strong is nominated for his performance as political fixer Roy Cohn in Donald Trump film The Apprentice, while Culkin is nominated in the same category for his role as Benji Kaplan in A Real Pain.
Asked who he is rooting for, Cox told The Jonathan Ross Show that his answer was complicated by US president Trump.
The controversial American leader is particularly unpopular in Hollywood, with several celebrities expressing concern about his presidency – and Cox refuses to watch anything associated with him.
“The problem is I won’t watch anything that is to do with Donald Trump,” Cox told Ross.
“Donald Trump is in The Apprentice, Jeremy is playing the lawyer. I have seen Kieran’s film and he’s wonderful. And I’m sure Jeremy is wonderful so I can’t really judge because I will not watch anything to do with that man - I’m talking about Trump.”
He had previously opened up about his plans to avoid the US altogether after the Home Alone 2 star was announced as the winner of the 2024 presidential election.
Asked if the result has made him lose faith in people, he told The Guardian: “No, it doesn’t make me lose faith in people. It just makes me realise people are stupid. We’re in for a pretty rough old four years coming up.”
Speaking about whether he will stay in the US, he said: “I don’t know. I’ve got to because my sons are there. But I’ll try to spend as much time here (UK) as I can.”
Cox, who is promoting his new play The Score, which is currently showing at Theatre Royal Haymarket, opened up about the challenges of keeping Succession’s final season storyline a secret.
“I said that I should be at the funeral because I know the paparazzi are going to want to know who’s funeral it is,” he told Ross on the segment.
“If I appear they’ll think it’s someone else's. As soon as I walked out of the car, there were hundreds of paparazzi there taking photographs.”
