HBO’s Succession star Brian Cox has trashed the Academy Awards as “absolute nonsense,” saying the Oscars focus primarily on prestige movies released during so-called awards season.
In a new interview, Brian Cox dissed Gary Oldman’s Oscar-winning performance as Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour, saying his turn in the movie Churchill was superior. He also said Kevin Spacey should be allowed to work again.
Brian Cox held back little in his conversation this week with The Hollywood Reporter.
“The Oscars are absolute nonsense because everything that’s judged in the Oscars, it’s not a year’s work. It’s just the work that comes out between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Cox told the outlet. “I think it makes those awards a fallacy quite honestly, because there’s a lot of other good work that goes on outside of what they call Oscar season.”
Cox then spoke about his 2017 movie Churchill in which he played the British prime minister.
“Our film came out in the summer, and it was a relatively independent film, so you haven’t got the power of the studios behind it,” he told THR. “So my film never even got a look, and I still think my performance is a better performance [than Oldman’s].”
On the subject of Kevin Spacey — whose career was cancelled during the #MeToo movement but who has subsequently been acquitted on assault charges in both the U.S. and the U.K. — Cox said the actor should be let out of the dog house.
“Maybe he got too out of hand, but I don’t think he should be punished endlessly for it. There should be a case of forgive and forget. Let’s move on. I think he should be given the opportunity to come back to work.”
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at
