Succession‘s Brian Cox has revealed in a recent interview that he was annoyed his character’s birthplace is the same as his own hometown. Cox plays Logan Roy, the founder and CEO of Waystar Royco and is the patriarch of the Roy family in HBO’s blockbuster series, Succession. The hit drama focuses on the internal conflicts and struggle for power within the dysfunctional, mega-wealthy Roy family.
Succession season 3 ended with quite the bang, as Logan showed that he never intended for any of his children to take over the media empire. Even before the season finale, the show has proven to be a huge hit with HBO, and a fourth season had been renewed by the network a week within the season 3 premiere. While Logan Roy’s hometown isn’t ever focused on in a major way throughout the series, it is told that he originally hails from Scotland.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Cox talks about how his character was originally supposed to hail from Quebec. For Succession‘s first eight episodes, his accent was that of a Vermont/Quebec background. He revealed that later on during production, show runner Jesse Armstrong informed him that his character would actually be from Dundee, Scotland, the same hometown Cox is from. Cox expressed his annoyance at the character’s background changing after having already shot nine episodes. The full quote can be read below:
“In the first episode I was originally born in Quebec, so I thought I’m not pretty good at Canadian. But I’ve spent a lot of time in Vermont, so I decided eh maybe a sort of that kind of accent around that-the Canadian border will do, so I did it. And then finally in the 9th episode Peter Friedman, who I’m constantly firing and rehiring in the show, he came to me and he said, “Um, they’ve changed your birthplace.” And I went, “What do you mean? He said, “Well, you’re no longer born in Quebec.” I said, “So where am I born now?” “Somewhere called Dundee, Scotland.” I said, but that’s where I was born. And Peter said, “Well that’s a coincidence.” I said “Yeah, it’s a hell of a coincidence.” And then I went over to Jesse, I said, “what’s going on?” He said, “We thought it’d be a little surprise.” I said, “That’s a hell of a surprise!” I said, “For nine episodes I’ve been playing this guy from Vermont, Quebec area and suddenly there I am now…” “Yeah but you’ve been here a long time and you left very early.” I said, “Oh that’s reassurance thank you.”
It’s easy to see how Cox would be taken by surprise with this news. The classically trained actor had already established his legendary portrayal of Roy, only to be blindsided by the fact that he was going to be from a different country altogether. It’s also funny that Jesse wanted to scare him a little bit, but also turning around and offering assurance that Roy had left at a very early age, and therefore didn’t have to worry about changing his accent to fit a new background. In the end, Roy still grows up in Quebec, thus the accent remains.
In the series, Logan Roy’s past is never really shown. According to Logan, he was born into poverty and later on sent to live with his uncle in Quebec. Audiences see marks on Logan’s back in season 1, episode 7, indicating that Logan was beaten as a young man by his uncle. Other than that, there aren’t any flashbacks or cutscenes that go deep into the early life of Logan Roy. Perhaps audiences may get more backstory information on Logan when Succession season 4 premieres on HBO sometime in 2022/2023.
Source: Vanity Fair
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Author: Tony Kimble
