Brian Cox: Playing Logan Roy made me feel like a rockstar

Actor Brian Cox has told how fans' reaction to him playing Logan Roy in the hit TV series Succession made him feel like a rock star.

Brian Cox as Logan Roy in Succession

Cox, 75, has become one of the biggest stars on television for his portrayal of the foul-mouthed media mogul and patriarch of the Roy family in the multi-award-winning series.

Speaking on The Brian Cox Interview, to be shown on BBC Scotland channel on Tuesday, he said he knew the show would be a hit but he could never have predicted its global success.

He said: "I knew straight away this was a winner as a show... I just got a feeling about it, a sensation and it proved to be correct.

"But I didn't expect the global success -- that was beyond measure. We knew that the first series went well. The figures weren't great but they got better and now of course they are ridiculous.

"But when we premiered the third series in London we played a couple of episodes at the Royal Festival Hall. We'd already done a thing in New York and it was well received but in London it was like a rock concert. I remember walking on stage and I'd never had a reaction like that in my whole career, ever. I kept thinking someone had come on at the same time. And then I realised it was for me."

He said his wife, the actress Nicole Ansari, was delighted by his newfound global fame because it was finally recognition for his work.

He added: "She's been wonderful about the show, she's really enjoyed it. She's delighted that finally there's some recognition coming my way and I'm delighted she's delighted by that."

Cox said there were some similarities between himself and the billionaire media mogul he portrays in Succession. He admitted that, like Logan Roy, he was often an absent father as he attended to his career.

But in stark contrast to the head of the dysfunctional Roy family, he insisted he is "constantly apologising for it", to the extent Roy would not like him and would consider him a bore.

Asked if he drew on his own experience as a father to play Logan Roy, Cox, who has two children with ex-wife Caroline Burt and two with Ansari, whom he married in 2002, replied: "Someone told me the other day that perhaps I wasn't as bad a father as I thought I was.

"I don't think of myself as a particularly good father because I was absent for a lot of the time so in a way, like Logan, I was attending to my career and, like Logan, there's probably an element where he's been remiss at dealing with his children.

"But unlike Logan I express myself more about being remiss in that area of one's life and I'm constantly apologising for it. In fact I'm a bit of a bore in that way and Logan would certainly find me a bit boring.

"He wouldn't particularly like me. He'd just say 'that Brian Cox, he just goes on and on and on and on, he never knows to shut the f' up."The Brian Cox Interview is on Tuesday, BBC Scotland, 10pm.