It is just two years since Brian Cox picked up his best actor Golden Globe for his role in hit drama Succession.
And, by his own admission, he's more famous - and well off - today than at any point in his impressive 60-year career.
Few in his position - aged 76 and at the peak of his success - would be too worried about the possibility of finding themselves penniless.
But Brian, who overcame a poverty-stricken childhood to become one of the world's finest stage actors and a Hollywood favourite, admits he has a "constant fear of becoming poor again."
It's one of the reasons why the actor, best known, ironically, as the foul-mouthed billionaire media mogul Logan Roy in Sky's hit drama, decided to front a new documentary about society's complicated relationship with money and wealth.
In the three-part Channel 5 series, How The Other Half Live, which starts on Thursday, Brian investigates the growing wealth gap across the world, particularly in the UK, and his adopted home, the United States.
But it also turns into a deeply personal journey as he goes back to the Dundee home where, aged eight, his shopkeeper dad died from pancreatic cancer at just 51, a tragedy which plunged the family into poverty.
The series - in which the actor visits the homes of the super-rich as well as filming moving scenes in soup kitchens and food banks - is even more timely now, as the cost of living crisis pushes millions more into poverty.
Brian says the painful memories of living below the breadline have meant he is both uncomfortable with money, and afraid of having it taken away.
"It never leaves you," he says. "It's like the Damoclean sword that hangs over you throughout your entire life.
"I never really felt it much when I was young, I was a kid and just got on with it, I was literally surviving. But as I got older I'd look at that boy and think, my God, he survived, how did he do it? And it's still a mystery to me."
Describing money as his "own personal demon", he adds: "After my father died, my mother discovered his bank had the sum of £10 in it. We were destitute.
"My mother only had a widow's pension, which would often run out before the end of the week. So I'd go to the fish and chip shop and ask if they had any scraps - the bits of batter at the bottom of the fryer - and take them home for us to eat.
"I had a very happy life until my dad died. He would stand me up on the coal bunker and had me doing Al Jolson impersonations. It was my first stage."
Brian, whose impassioned rant against then Prime Minister Liz Truss 's policies on BBC 's Question Time last month caused a sensation, also believes he inherited his left-leaning politics from his dad, whose grocery store was known for looking after the local community by giving them 'tick' - or credit.
"My dad was very sweet and kind and a real socialist," he says. "Last year an 80-year-old man came to me and said, 'I remember your dad very well, I used to go into his shop as a little boy, he was so kind to me and so caring about what I was going to do with my life.' I just thought, that's such a wonderful legacy he left.
"There was always a conflict with my mother, though. She thought he was far too generous, and she was probably right. She would say that charity begins at home."
The youngest of four siblings, Brian discovered a talent for acting and, aged 14, left school to earn £4 a week working at the Dundee Rep.
Aged 17, he left home when he got a grant to study acting at renowned drama school LAMDA in London. After two years at the Birmingham Rep, he made his West End debut in 1967 as Orlando in As You Like It.
He also established himself as an accomplished Shakespearean actor, spending seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and winning two Laurence Olivier awards and gaining recognition for his portrayal of King Lear.
But it was in the mid-1990s that Brian shot to superstardom, thanks to roles in big budget movies like Rob Roy and Braveheart, followed by hits such as The Bourne Identity, The Ring and opposite Brad Pitt in Troy.
Brian, who now lives in New York, firmly believes his rise to the top was down to both his own ambition, and a British welfare state which nurtured it - something he laments doesn't exist today.
"I had this intention about what I wanted to do with my life from an early age. In that way I'm incredibly blessed, a lot of people don't have that, they don't have a sense of what their purpose is."
He adds: "I managed to get a grant to go to drama school from the Scottish Education Authority, I had a full grant, all expenses paid. And I did rather well, I was able to be free to study my craft.
"Nowadays everybody had to pay for it. What happened to the state that prided itself on welfare? It has constantly been undermined by successive Tory governments.
"It's a tragedy, you look at the world and you think why have we fed it up so much? It’s greed, and not even conscious greed, it's mindless greed."
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Most of Brian's musings inevitably stray back to his deeply-held political views and frustration with the state of our country.
A once-staunch Labour supporter who even voiced party political broadcasts for Tony Blair, he moved away from the party because of the Iraq war, and in 2012 switched to supporting Scottish independence.
But he insists he would never stand for election himself. "I make certain political stances but it's not who I am, I'm only political in the sense of common welfare, that's what I believe in. I wouldn't stand for election because I really don't to be part of that idiocy that goes on."
He was surprised at the reaction to his Question Time appearance, when he tore into a Tory panellist who attempted to defend Liz Truss.
"It was amazing. People are still coming up to me and saying 'well done'. I was just on a plane coming back from the States and quite a few people approached me."
And he thinks his dad would have been proud of him for using his voice to speak up for social justice.
"He would have felt that he had made a good kid, that his kid did something. I’ve been lucky, because of who I am, to be able to use my voice and contribute to my society. I hope he'd be happy with it."
Brian, who has two grown-up children from his first marriage, and two teenage sons, Orson and Torin, with his wife, actress Nicole Ansari, who he married in 2002, says he has tried to instil the same values in his kids.
He says: "What I love about my four children is their consciousness. They don't take anything for granted. My youngest son recently went on a trip after graduating from High School and he told me he wasn't sure he should go, I had to reassure him that he wasn't taking advantage of anything.
"My first kids, really on the condition of my first wife, all went to public school. My second family is slightly better off, but my sons go to a normal school, I wanted them to experience that. They're really good and conscious young men and that's all you can hope for really."
"I don't think of myself as the greatest parent though. When you lose your father at a young age it's very hard, you've no model except for this image of goodness and consciousness, and that's all I had.
"I do still have this habit when I'm suddenly absent, even though I'm there. It's a form of self-protection, a psychiatrist would have a field day, but I always try to be present when I need to be present."
He adds: "When I hear people say they don't want to have children because they don't want to bring them into this world, I do think, 'That's rather stupid'. One way you can change this world is to bring up children and hope they will carry something on and contribute to the common good."
As for Brian, success continues to follow him into his 70th decade. This year he was nominated for an outstanding lead actor Emmy award for Logan Roy in Succession, a part that has made the actor synonymous with the 'f off' line his character has become famous for.
He says: "I'm very grateful for the success it's given me but I don't take it too seriously. The only thing now, since Succession, is that I've lost my anonymity, people now know who I am.
"People are always very nice, and of course they always want me to tell them to f** off. And that is one of the greatest things you can say.
"I was really tired the other day and I was sitting in the airport and someone came and sat beside me and I knew he wanted to engage. I was just too exhausted to engage, so I just said, 'No thank you, thank you but no thank you, and fuck off.' And he went away very happy!"
He adds: "There reality of that is I'm surviving, and I'm still here after all these years. The problem is I still have stuff I want to do. Logan is just a stop on the journey, not the end of the journey. I hope I can keep on going."
Brian Cox: How The Other Half Live airs on Thursday night (November 17) at 9pm on Channel 5.
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