Brian Cox

Brian Cox (b. June 1st, 1946)

Brian Cox Talks About Playing the Villain, with a Difference
From his brilliant portrayal of serial killer Hannibal Lector in Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter (five years before Anthony Hopkins played the character -- renamed Lecter -- in The Silence of the Lambs) to his recent portrayal of Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering in TNT's Nuremberg, Scottish-born actor Brian Cox has won accolades for playing bad guys. In Michael Cuesta's controversial L.I.E., Cox plumbs the depths again, playing an ex-Marine who preys sexually on an aimless Long Island teen. Cox talked to Barnes & Noble.com contributor Gregory Baird about his approach to bad-guy roles, about the human face of evil, and about his comedian's soul.

Barnes & Noble.com: As an actor, how do you approach playing an evil character?

Brian Cox: I don't judge characters. In society we judge people all the time. We're always saying this person is evil; that person is not. We've got a great example of it today with the Father Shanley situation and what's been going on in Boston with those priests accused of sexual abuse. You see that 70-year old man being arrested and you look at the guy and you think, First and foremost, he's a human being, whatever he's done -- and one isn't condoning or forgiving. All human beings have certain things in common. And then you find those things that make for the differences -- the predilections, the weaknesses, the shadows in people, the darknesses. I think that most actions that are of a dark nature usually come from a form of weakness, something in a person that is underdeveloped or stunted. What interests me as an actor is that when you're playing a role, those private weaknesses are a given. But what's not a given is the other side of it, what the person does in terms of his or her own well-being, does in terms of their day-to-day dealing with society. That has nothing to do with who they really are, just how they get through the day.

B&N.com: Your character in L.I.E. functions well in day-to-day life.

BC: Yes. In the film, everybody loves him; everybody respects him. It's the same with some of these priests. It's very interesting that another priest commented about how everybody liked Shanley. He was someone who people trusted. And he took monstrous advantage of that trust. But there was something that inspired that trust to start with. And that comes from the opposite place as his monstrosity. That's what you have to find as an actor, but without trying to seek sympathy. You have to present both sides, and just say, "Here are all the factors; here's how a human being ticks."

B&N.com: Does that frustrate the audience's desire to judge a character?

BC: People who are watching you make their judgments, but they find it disconcerting. When L.I.E. was shown to these 18 ladies in Orange County, they gave it an NC-17 rather than R rating because they were genuinely disturbed by the subject. But they were also very disturbed by my character, because they found themselves liking him. And their own censorious nature kept saying, "But we cannot like somebody like this; we have to condemn the film." And, of course, that's true about life, true about all these kids who are Palestinian bombers -- we say their acts of terrorism are evil. But they are done by our fellow human beings, and not by some alien force. Their makeup is our makeup. But it's distorted; it's bent in some way. I think that is important for me to look at as an actor

B&N.com: Do you want to bring the audience to a place where they're realizing something, not just cerebrally, but viscerally?

BC: Yes, it has to work viscerally more than anything else. It's not something that is intellectual. It's a feeling where people sense something and go, "Oh my god! That's around us. It's what we all contain." My view of man as we enter the 21st century is that we still have only a nodding acquaintance with civilization. We look at things in a censorious way instead of looking at them in a way of understanding. We aren't truthful with our own motivations. And the work that it requires to go beyond that is huge work that a marketing, industrial, commercial world does not encourage. Politics doesn't encourage it; religions don't encourage it; nothing encourages that.

B&N.com: Do you think it's easier to see evil outside of oneself?

BC: Oh, absolutely. It's very reassuring. There's something very reassuring when you see the priest handcuffed and you go "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" But then you look at the man's face, and you say, "This is a very handsome, elderly, rather noble-looking man. A man with enormous dignity." And that nobility and dignity doesn't get into a face without reason.

B&N.com: Do you think it's these insights that make you so good at playing bad guys?

BC: Yes, I suppose so. I do get a wee bit concerned about being conceived as the bad guy too often. I do play good guys, but audiences never remember the good guys. They only remember the bad guys. It's a little bit limiting, because I think that I'm much more of an all-rounder than that. In fact, I've just done the season finale of Frasier, where I played Daphne's father. It was one of the best jobs ever. They are consummately gifted comic actors on that show, Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, Jane Leeves, and Millicent Martin, who played my wife. They're just the most wonderful bunch of people to work with. It was a great, great time. I love comedy. I've always seen myself as more of a comedian.

B&N.com: I've heard that you played the clown when you were growing up.

BC: I did. When I was a kid, I found that playing the clown was the one thing that got me through. Childhood is one of the cruelest times of your life. And I don't care what anybody says, children have no charm for me -- I mean apart from my own baby. Of course, he's kind of innocent; he's only three months old. But the monstrosity of what children do to one another amazes me. It gets quite brutal and quite offensive. Children can be the quintessence of greed sometimes. And I found my childhood very rough in that way. I grew up in the East Coast of Scotland. I had some very good friends when I was growing up, but still it was very, very rough. Kids were monstrous to one another. But one had to survive, and you either became the leader of the pack or you played your role, and my role was the clown. That's one of the reasons that my acting is the way it is, because I always look for the humor in what I do.

B&N.com: Would you like to do more comedy?

BC: Absolutely. I haven't done nearly enough for my own liking. Working on something like Frasier was like a cherry on a cake. So as long as I'm also able to do that kind of work, which is so opposite from something like L.I.E., then I have the best job.

June 4, 2002