Brian Cox Says Logan Roy Died ‘Too Early’ in ‘Succession’ Final Season
Brian Cox thinks Succession viewers should have lived with Logan Roy a little longer. In an interview with the BBC, the actor said he felt killing off Roy in the third episode of the HBO show’s final season was “too early.”
In the episode, the Waystar CEO died while on a private jet flying to Norway, to the surprise of his children (as well as the audience). Cox said writer Jesse Armstrong handled the storyline “brilliantly,” despite the actor having mixed feelings about the decision.
“[Armstrong] decided to make Logan die, I think ultimately too early,” Cox said. “I mean, he’d made him die in the third episode. And it was a great scene. That’s why I didn’t watch it, because I have no interest in watching. My own death will come soon enough. But I just thought, ‘Wow,’ you know, he did it brilliantly. It was a brilliant scene, the whole act.”
When asked if he thought about suggesting to Armstrong that his character was being killed off too soon, Cox said no. “There’s no point going down that road, especially with somebody like Jesse, because he’s already made a plan,” the actor noted.
Cox also said portraying Logan’s death, which has sent his children into a spiraling power struggle, was an “odd feeling.”
“I looked on it, wrongly, as a form of rejection,” he admitted. “I was fine with it ultimately, but I did feel a little bit rejected. I felt a little bit, ‘Oh, all the work I’ve done. And finally I’m going to end up as a New Yorker on a carpet of a plane.’”
The death of the character created a massive Internet furor, especially when some outlets revealed the spoiler before the episode had even aired. Cox told the BBC that some viewers have reached out to him to say they are less interested in the series now that Logan is gone.
“They said, ‘No, I’m not going to watch anymore. You’ve gone, I’m not watching,’” Cox said. “Which I think is unfortunate and unnecessary because the show is about the succession. So you need to see what’s happening in in the wake of his demise. But, you know, I’m not the writer.”
Keeping Logan’s death a secret after production wrapped was apparently a challenge for Cox, who confirmed, “I’ve never been able to keep a secret in my life.”
“It was bold of Jesse,” he added. “And that’s where Jesse’s great. I mean, he’s a genius. There’s no question he’s a writing genius.”
Despite Logan’s death and subsequent fall-out, Cox has a theory that the patriarch may still be alive. “I still believe this, maybe Logan isn’t dead,” Cox said. “Well, if you think about it, from Logan’s point of view, he has to find out, how are his children going to behave when he dies, what will then happen? And the only way to do that is to fake his death and actually, at some distant point he’s observing the chaos that is following.”
Asked if he thinks Logan will come back from the dead in the finale, Cox said, “No… I’m just saying that could have been a supposition.”
