Brian Cox’s Post-​ Succession ​ Turn Has Been a Real Sight to Behold

On Tuesday, the Japanese gaming publisher Bandai Namco released a new video recapping the 30-year history of Tekken, the series of popular fighting video games available on PlayStation and Xbox. “Every single fight, no matter how big or small, has a story behind it,” a familiar voice intones, stately and baritone. A figure slowly turns to the camera: It’s Brian Cox. Yes, that Brian Cox, articulating the nature of anime-ish MacGuffins like “the Devil Gene,” a satanic chromosome that turns men into beasts, all as part of the run-up to the forthcoming installment Tekken 8.

At 77, Cox is in the midst of an unprecedented late-career apex. The classically trained actor played the demonic and iconic Rupert Murdoch–inspired media empire CEO Logan Roy across four seasons of Succession, for which he earned a Golden Globe and multiple Emmy nominations. Now, as that show enjoys a final toast on the awards circuit, it would certainly seem like Cox has a blank check to pursue any project, of any size, that he desires. So why have his most notable moves since ascending to—and departing from—the offices of Waystar Royco been to hawk video games and fast food, lend his talents to what can only be described as the most random of shows and films, and host an Amazon-backed reality competition show based on the IP of James Bond?

At the risk of sounding elitist, an actor of Cox’s caliber showing up, at the peak of his powers and fame, to recount the travails of Tekken Tag Tournament and to croon a haunting “ba-duh-ba-ba-bahh” for McDonald’s certainly seems like a step down in prestige. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but the video game promotional circuit tends to be the terrain of the washed-up and the has-beens, and there was a time when Hollywood’s A-listers would rather decamp overseas for their commercials than have to shill for grubby pedestrian products on American soil.

That’s not to speak of Cox’s turn as the central villain in Prime Video’s strained and unwieldy James Bond–themed reality show 007: Road to a Million, a program that seems to exist solely because Amazon is determined to exploit its newly purchased superspy license in every way possible. As for other acting projects, well, in the past couple of years, Cox has also appeared in a handful of mediocre films that nobody saw, as well as on the newly revived stoner-comedy staple Aqua Teen Hunger Force, where he voices a psychopathic interpolation of the Egyptian god of death, Anubis. (“It wasn’t like the Brian Cox camp reached out to us and said, ‘We want Aqua Teen to be our next project after Succession.’ But he was great,” said the show’s co-creator Dave Willis, per the New York Post. “I think his last words as he was leaving the [recording] studio were, ‘Well, good luck with that.’ ”)

And, like the true hustler he is, Cox has even made his considerable talents accessible to the masses on a freelance basis. He is, without question, one of the most famous actors taking bookings on Cameo, the website where you can pay D-list reality-TV stars, internet-famous cats, and George Santos for a personalized video message. Yes, Cox will give you the full Logan Roy treatment for birthdays and anniversaries, so long as you’re willing to put up the $689 fee.

I could deliver an elaborate treatise about selling out, but honestly … I’m fine with all of this. It’s honestly kind of refreshing to watch someone chase the money with reckless abandon. Actors usually leverage a huge amount of commercial and critical acclaim into vainglorious ambitions—Ben Affleck believing he had the juice to be Batman, Ashton Kutcher fashioning himself as a fugazi Steve Jobs, Judd Apatow producing increasingly unwatchable three-hour comedies on the back of Superbad and The 40-Year-Old Virgin—but here’s Brian Cox, deep in his golden years, eager to take a check from absolutely anyone: the Tekken multiverse, the Bezos estate, even you and me. Perhaps a little bit of Logan Roy’s avaricious DNA melded with his own.

Or perhaps he’s always been this way: a hugely lauded Shakespearean thespian, but also a pragmatic working performer who knows to never turn down an opportunity, whether that’s voice-acting the Green Dragon in the direct-to-DVD film Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword, embodying General Mikhail Kutuzov in a BBC adaptation of War & Peace, or throwing a tantrum in a beer commercial. Say what you want, but at least the man approaches all his endeavors with an equal measure of gravitas and diligence. He is excellent in the Tekken video, meeting the material with a professional solemnity that makes me think he’s partially in on the joke. And his Cameo rating is an impressive 4.8 out of 5, suggesting that he takes random fans’ video requests as seriously as he does the grander displays of his craft.

It requires humility to understand that you’ve already made the work that will be printed on your tombstone. Even before Succession, Cox was regarded as one of the greatest character actors of all time. Logan Roy was a once-in-a-generation comet that permanently burnished his legacy, and he knows full well that it’s never getting better than this. So yes, Cox could rage against the dying of the light. He could knock on all the doors in Hollywood eager to secure that elusive Oscar, perhaps on the back of a regal King Lear adaptation or some such thing. Or he could revel in the limitless opportunities, big and small, available to him after exiting the prestige crucible—gloriously cashing out one last time. Brian Cox is at peace, and he’d like to tell you a thing or two about Jin Kazama.