Брайан Кокс

Brian Cox

Brian Denis Cox, CBE (born 1 June 1946) is a Scottish actor who works with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he gained recognition for his portrayal of King Lear. He is also best known for appearing in The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, X2, Braveheart, Rushmore, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Troy and Doctor Who. He was the first actor to portray Hannibal Lecter on film in the 1986 feature film Manhunter.

Cox was educated at St Mary's Forebank Primary School, followed by St Michael's Junior Secondary School (both in Dundee), which he left at the age of 15. After working at Dundee Repertory Theatre for a couple of years, he went to drama school from the age of 17 to 19, at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Cox left the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in 1965 when he joined the Lyceum company in Edinburgh, followed in 1966 by two years with the Birmingham Rep, where his roles included the title role in Peer Gynt (1967) and Orlando in As You Like It, in which he made his London debut in June 1967 at the Vaudeville Theatre. He made his first television appearance in an episode of The Wednesday Play in 1965 and made one-off appearances in several other TV shows before taking a lead role in The Year of the Sex Olympics in 1968. In 1978, he played King Henry II of England in the acclaimed BBC2 drama serial The Devil's Crown, following which he starred in many other television dramas. His first film appearance was as Leon Trotsky in Nicholas and Alexandra in 1971.

Cox is an accomplished Shakespearean actor, spending seasons with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre in the 1980s and 1990s. His work with the RSC included a critically acclaimed performance as the title character in Titus Andronicus, as well as playing Petruchio in The Taming of The Shrew. Cox said later that his performance in Titus Andronicus was "the greatest stage performance I've ever given." Later Cox portrayed Burgundy opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role of King Lear (1983). He went on to play King Lear at the National Theatre.

His most famous appearances include Rob Roy, Braveheart (both in 1995), The Ring, X2, Troy and The Bourne Supremacy. He usually plays villains, such as William Stryker in X2, Agamemnon in Troy, Pariah Dark in the Danny Phantom television series episode Reign Storm, devious CIA official Ward Abbott in the first two Bourne films, and in Chain Reaction.

He has played more sympathetic characters, such as Edward Norton's father in 25th Hour. Super Troopers saw him play a fatherly senior police officer. He also played Rachel McAdams' father in Red Eye and appeared in the U.S. sitcom Frasier as the father of Daphne Moon (played by Jane Leeves). He was also the protagonist in the film The Escapist. Cox made a guest appearance in the 1997 Red Dwarf episode Stoke Me A Clipper, as a medieval king in a virtual reality game. Cox was in L.I.E. (2001), in which he played a pedophile New Yorker. He won an Emmy Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award that year for his portrayal of Hermann Göring in Nuremberg, and also appeared as Jack Langrishe in the HBO series Deadwood.

In 2002, he appeared in Spike Jonze's Charlie Kaufman-scripted Adaptation as the real-life screenwriting teacher, Robert McKee, giving advice to Nicolas Cage in both his roles, as Charlie Kaufman and Charlie's fictional twin brother, Donald. In 2004, Cox played an alternate, villainous version of King Agamemnon in Troy.