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Succession’s Logan Roy Is Only Brian Cox’s Latest Role as a Terrible Man
Succession will finally bury the foul-mouthed, power hungry patriarch of the Roy family. No one expected the death so early in its final season, especially Logan (Brian Cox) himself. The Waystar RoyCo founder’s lasting legacy is not his media company, but his ruthless parenting style over his kids. The younger Roys owe plenty of their weaknesses to their father, even if he avoids accepting that responsibility. Brian Cox’s career is full of duplicitous characters, each one different from the other. His take on Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter (1986) is the first on-screen portrayal of the incarcerated cannibal. In X2: X-Men United (2003), his Colonel Stryker is a supervillain without any powers who nearly ends all mutants. While Succession bids a final goodbye to Logan Roy, in his absence here are other noteworthy men Cox has played, full of bad behavior.
When Brian Cox Hunted Down Jason Bourne
In The Bourne Identity (2002), Ward Abbott (Cox) is a shady CIA section chief, who protects Operation Treadstone — really doing it to save his own ass — by working to eliminate an assassin-gone-rogue. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), suffering from amnesia, is walking evidence of the CIA’s top secret kill squad. Conklin (Chris Cooper), current head of Treadstone, orders hitmen left and right to get rid of Bourne, with no success. Abbott has no plans to sink with this highly classified ship, choosing to put a hit on Conklin and let him take the posthumous fall for Treadstone’s failure. Abbott’s snowy-white hair can represent his seniority and a facade of patriotic, white morals. The blood he washes his hands off each day is done to protect American citizens — or so he claims. It’s obvious this is one of the many lies he tells. He’s outlived the many younger men who have been put in a body bag, hired killers and assigned targets alike. Conklin jeers at Abbott for being better equipped to sit in a boardroom to discuss funding, not be hands-on in clandestine assassinations. Conklin underestimates his superior gravely. Abbott ends his involvement, and then moves on to attend a government oversight meeting to discuss a fresh, new start. Treadstone is shut down, to launch Operation Blackbriar.
Abbott’s return in The Bourne Supremacy (2004) makes him the rare villain to reappear in this series. Here, he frames Bourne to tie up the loose ends to his connection with the deactivated Treadstone. Of course, as fans know, if you try to put Jason Bourne down, he’ll put you down faster. Abbott is forced to join CIA deputy director Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) in apprehending the rogue assassin, bringing out a more flustered side of him, letting Cox spit out lines like, “You’re in a big puddle of shit and you don’t have the shoes for it!”
Out of desperation, Abbott gets his hands dirty this time, stabbing an associate with a knife to cover his tracks. It’s messy, his methods not like the operatives Treadstone and Blackbriar have programmed into hired killers. In Supremacy, a character detail explains Abbott has had two failed marriages and it isn’t surprising, This shady man’s true desire is holding power and control over others. It makes sense that once Abbott knows his blood-stained involvement with Treadstone and Blackbriar will come to light, he ends his own life. “It’s what you are, Jason, a killer! Go on, do it!” he yells as Bourne holds him hostage — except the gun pressed against Abbott’s head is actually a tape recorder. It’s his final error. He doesn’t know Jason like he thought he did. Abbott’s last words (“I’m not sorry.”) are telling, a self-proclamation that Logan Roy would respect.
A Greek Epic Gives Brian Cox a Crown
In Troy (2004), Agamemnon is the greedy king of Mycenae who plans to conquer the entirety of Greece. It’s the role Cox admitted to being, “the only part I’ve ever pursued.” Agamemnon craves a legacy, the movie’s opening narration setting this up for him and his rival: “Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity and so we ask ourselves: Will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved.” Agamemnon is a king who wants soldiers to shed blood for him to lay the path to a royal throne. This is what pits him against his best warrior he despises, Achilles (Brad Pitt). The ego to Agamemnon is as grand as the riches he’s covered in. He’s a hefty man, wearing layers of robes, the sound of gold and jewelry clinking as he walks around his private chambers. Curled hair falls behind his back, tied in a braid. He’s an egotistical ruler, shouting out to Achilles, “History remembers kings, not soldiers!” No one does remember him, although Brian Cox does him justice.
Young brother, Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), requests the help of Agamemnon to attack Troy after his wife goes off with a prince. While this isn’t how he planned it, Agamemnon agrees. He desires to take over Troy and if this is how, so be it. The king of Mycenae is selfish, although the eventual death of his brother does pain him. He’s the one to carefully place the coins on his brother’s eyes and to light the funeral pyre. Anger is his method of grieving, giving Cox the chance to deliver an attack cry to lead his army in honor of his fallen brother.
“Peace is for the women…and the weak,” Agamemnon remarks, foreshadowing his death by the hand of Briseis (Rose Byrne), Princess of Troy. When Agamemnon grabs her, vowing to turn her into his slave, Briseis sends a dagger into the king’s throat, ending his voice before his life diminishes. This fate isn’t as remarkable as the king would wish, it doesn’t happen on the battlefield, nor by the hand of a warrior he might have expected. Achilles’ mother (Julie Christie) warns him of his future earlier by saying, “For your glory walks hand-in-hand with your doom,” and it just as well refers to Agamemnon’s destiny. His sudden death brings to mind the pitiful, unremarkable end to Logan Roy. High up in the sky, Logan’s decision to fly on a business trip rather than attend his eldest son’s wedding, means his fatal heart attack has him surrounded by employees, not loved ones. Agamemnon to Logan, these are awful men who try but can’t beat their own mortality.
This Halloween Classic Makes Brian Cox Hate The Holiday
In Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Cox is the wheezy curmudgeon Mr. Kreeg, in an anthology where everything is not what it seems. At first, no one in their right mind would want to live next to Mr. Kreeg. He hates Halloween, sending out a, “Screw you!” should anyone give him a positive greeting for the holiday. Once little Sam (Quinn Lord) attacks, Mr. Kreeg turns into a grumbling anti-hero, blasting away at the burlap-sack wearing, Halloween-rule loving creature. This being Brian Cox, his favorite curse word needs to be used. Kreeg sees Sam’s separated hand crawl back to his back and he can’t help muttering, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” While he survives this encounter, a dark secret comes out.
Seeing Kreeg’s appearance, horror fans might notice familiarity to an iconic horror director. Cox personally requested to wear makeup and prosthetics to look like a cross between Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead — and director John Carpenter. The actor also agreed to play the part in Michael Dougherty’s directorial debut, only if Dougherty told Cox what to do on the day of shooting, in the actor’s words, “like doing a silent film.” This Trick ‘r Treat character might feature prominently in the segment “Sam,” but his past is seen in “Halloween School Bus Massacre.”
As the urban legend of Warren Valley goes, a school bus driver accepted bribes from parents who wanted nothing more than their children with special needs to be gone from their lives. Kreeg is this hired driver, who is unable to escape the bus when one of the kids accidentally drives it off a cliff into the ravine. Kreeg crawls out of what could have been his watery grave. The zombie kids, forever in costumes, finally get to go trick or treating at old man Kreeg’s home, the screen switching into comic panels to hint at how graphic his death is. Logan Roy’s past never comes back to punish him, but Kreeg’s sure does.
Here lies Logan Roy, who sabotaged his own family when it comes to picking a successor. During a tense moment, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) even stammers, “You know, I–I–I hate to say this, ’cause I love you but you’re kind of evil.” Logan isn’t evil, at least that isn’t how the writing and Cox treats him. The eldest, and now late, Roy is so out of touch with how he treated his family, he views their ineptitude to step up as the next Waystar CEO as their shortcoming, not something he had a factor in. From the Bourne movies, Troy, and Trick ‘r Treat, these roles of Cox aren’t really exactly evil men either. It would be too one-note if they were. A lot of that comes down to Brian Cox excelling at what he does best. Their actions are inexcusable, and yet, you love to hate them or you love to love them for all their terrible traits.
