Brian Cox Says He Worries About Jeremy Strong’s Method Acting On Succession: ‘It’s Intense to Live at that Level’

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Brian Cox has confirmed that Jeremy Strong’s method acting can get “complicated” and “intense” on the set of Succession. 

Cox discussed his experience on the hit series Succession during a recent interview with GQ Hype, opening up about his Strong’s method acting, which Kieran Culkin has already labeled as “challenging.”

British GQ’s Ben Allen asked the actor about Strong’s acting process, asking if it has caused any riffs in their relationship outside of the show.

“That would seem to be the case, but it’s not. He’s very sweet, Jeremy, but he’s complicated, you know?” Cox responded. “And he does think there’s an element of religious experience about doing our work.”

Cox clarified that he does not agree with that viewpoint, noting that he believes one should be “free of all that” and able to separate areas of one’s life.

“You have to be able to sort of keep yourself in a channel, where you act like a receiver and a monitor, so that things are passing through you,” he said. “And he lets it affect him, to such an extent that I sometimes worry about him, because it’s intense to live at that level. But it’s also part of the learning curve.”

Cox noted that Strong used to serve as an assistant for Daniel Day-Lewis, a famed method actor, adding, “And I think a lot of those habits he’s developed from Dan.”

“There’s the Laurence Olivier story with Dustin Hoffman, where Hoffman is exhausting himself, and doing all this stuff in this big scene where he’s sitting in a dentist’s chair, and Olivier says, ‘Why don’t you just try acting, dear boy?’ I don’t go that far, because I’m of a generation that’s lived through all of that and knows where that’s all coming from,” Cox added. “So I understand that. But I think sometimes it affects the person, that they should give themselves a break. It is a religious experience. But it’s not for you. It’s for them. It’s all about the audience.”

Earlier in the interview, Cox also said that Strong was a “very intense as an actor,” sharing that “He doesn’t like to rehearse, he just wants to do it.”

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