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Brian Denis Cox, CBE (born June 1, 1946) is a Scottish actor. He is notable for being the first actor to play Hannibal Lecter, a role he took in the Michael Mann film Manhunter.
Early life
Cox was born in Dundee, Scotland. His mother, Mary Ann Guillerline, was a Roman Catholic spinner who worked in the mills and suffered several nervous breakdowns during Cox's childhood. His father, Charles McArdle Campbell Cox, was a weaver who died when Cox was nine years old. Cox's ancestors were 19th century Irish immigrants to Scotland. Cox joined the Dundee Repertory Theatre at the age of fourteen and spent a season with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1966.
Career
Cox was trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He made his first television appearance as an extra in several episodes of The Prisoner in 1967 before taking a lead role in The Year of the Sex Olympics the next year. In 1978, he played King Henry II of England in the acclaimed BBC2 drama serial, The Devil's Crown, following which he starred in many other television dramas. His first film appearance was as Leon Trotsky in Nicholas and Alexandra in 1971. During the production of Manhunter, while he was playing Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins was playing King Lear on stage at the National Theatre. Years later, during the production of The Silence of the Lambs, when Hopkins took over as Hannibal Lecter, Cox was playing King Lear at the National Theatre.
In 1995, he appeared in both Rob Roy and Braveheart. His notable recent films include The Ring, X2, Troy and The Bourne Supremacy. He usually plays villains, such as a rogue colonel in X2, the tyrannical Agamemnon in Troy, Pariah Dark in the Danny Phantom television movie Reign Storm, and devious CIA officials in the Bourne films and Chain Reaction. He even lent his voice for the role of a snuff film director in the video game Manhunt. He has on occasion played more sympathetic characters, such as Edward Norton's father in 25th Hour, a fatherly police superior in Super Troopers and Rachel McAdams' father in Red Eye. Cox has also been involved in the video game industry, one of his best roles was the in title Killzone where he plays the ruthless Scolar Visari.
Cox garnered critical acclaim for his performance in 2001's L.I.E., in which he played a pedophile who grows to genuinely (and platonically) care about a boy he had initially intended to molest. He won an Emmy Award that year for his portrayal of Hermann Göring in the television mini-series Nuremberg, which starred Alec Baldwin as former Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert H. Jackson. In 2002, he appeared in Spike Jonze's Charlie Kaufman-scripted Adaptation as the real-life screenwriting teacher, Robert McKee, giving advice to Nicolas Cage in both his roles, as Charlie Kaufman and Charlie's fictional twin-brother Donald. Cox provided the voice for the prophetic 'Director' in the popular 2003 cross platform video-game Manhunt. Cox was to play the lion Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but was replaced by Liam Neeson. He appeared on a 2006 episode of the British car programme Top Gear.
Cox stars in a supporting role as Jack Langrishe in the HBO series Deadwood. He is also filming Red, based on Jack Ketchum's novel and directed by Lucky McKee. It also stars Tom Sizemore, Amanda Plummer, and Angela Bettis.
Personal life
His son, Alan Cox, is also an actor, best known for his role in Young Sherlock Holmes. Cox is a diabetic and has worked to promote a diabetes research facility in his home town of Dundee. The producers of Super Troopers found this out the hard way, as one scene called for Cox to eat a white chocolate prop that resembled a bar of soap. Production was halted until a sugar-free substitute could be found.
Cox never views or watches his own work. He is a patron of "THE SPACE", a training facility for actors and dancers in his native Dundee.
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