Brian Cox sure is opinionated. If he doesn’t like you — or if he doesn’t like the acting approach you use — he’ll say it publicly. Even if he profoundly admires you, he might say the opposite. Just ask Meryl Streep.
As caught by Entertainment Weekly, the erstwhile Logan Roy did one of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” sit-downs with Emily Blunt. Fun fact: The two have worked together once, on the 2005 BBC biopic The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle. Cox, meanwhile, has never acted with Queen Meryl. Blunt has, thrice. Cox was clearly jealous and shared an anecdote that is very him.
“I met her once, and I said, ‘I never liked you.’ And she went, ‘What?'” Cox told Blunt. “I said, ‘I never liked you because I was jealous.’ How can anybody be that good?”
They then discussed one of the films in which Blunt acted alongside Streep: The Devil Wears Prada. (They also appear in Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns.) Is Cox too cool for Prada, in which Blunt plays the more seasoned assistant to Streep’s Anna Wintour stand-in? Nope.
“I loved it,” Cox confessed. “And to work with one of the greatest screen actresses of all time, I so envy you. One of my ambitions, before I snuff it, is to work with Meryl.”
Blunt assured Cox that he will, describing her as “amazing” but also “slightly terrifying on that film.” Blunt also recalled that Streep it was “one of the first times she’s tried Method acting. But it made her so miserable, playing Miranda.”
Of course, Cox once again weighed in on his fellow Succession alum Jeremy Strong’s acting approach (which is technically not Method, for what it’s worth).
“I’m all for whatever gets you through the day. But the great thing is how you transmit energy,” Cox explained.”If you hit it right, it just works. That’s the most important thing that we have as actors, that ability to go into something very quickly and come out of it. Not to dwell.”
That led Cox to once again both praise Strong and tell him to chill. “Strong is talented. He’s f*cking gifted,” he said. “When you’ve got the gift, celebrate the gift. Go back to your trailer and have a hit of marijuana, you know?”
Meanwhile, Cox didn’t say whether or not he’d finally watched that bombshell Succession capper.
