With only a few days until the final season of Succession begins, Logan Roy actor Brian Cox is giving us a brief glimpse at where his no-nonsense character ends up.
The fourth season of Jesse Armstrong’s award-winning HBO drama is nearing to an end, and no doubt there will be even more backstabbing and cruelty from the Roys as the survival of Waystar RoyCo remains in risk.
So, as the beloved programme nears its finale, what does Cox think of Logan?
‘Logan’s not that bad,’ he insists. ‘I actually have a lot of sympathy for Logan… It’s always said that a cynic is a disillusioned romantic.
‘I think that’s true and the root of who Logan was as a young man. He sees that life doesn’t operate the way one would like it to, but in a more mercenary way.
‘His children, however, don’t realise that if they don’t work, that if they don’t commit some kind of integrity to what they do, that they can’t succeed, and he can’t do anything about that. It’s just the nature of the beast.’
Cox uses the word “stuck” to characterise Logan’s current situation in the world.
‘I think that’s his tragedy, in a way,’ he adds to Haute Living. ‘There’s a certain misanthropy there, and we haven’t been given clues as to where that misanthropy comes from.
‘That’s why the writers are so gifted, because they don’t dwell on that. They know that human nature is much more complicated. And so, Logan is full of little clues, but there’s not a resolution to him because the writers don’t want that resolution.’
Armstrong previously acknowledged his choice to stop Succession after season four, revealing that several options were contemplated behind the scenes.
He told New Yorker magazine: ‘I got together with a few of my fellow-writers before we started the writing of season four, in about November, December, 2021, and I sort of said, “Look, I think this maybe should be it. But what do you think?”
‘And we played out various scenarios: We could do a couple of short seasons, or two more seasons. Or we could go on for ages and turn the show into something rather different, and be a more rangy, freewheeling kind of fun show, where there would be good weeks and bad weeks.
‘Or we could do something a bit more muscular and complete and go out sort of strong. And that was definitely always my preference. I went into the writing room for season four sort of saying, “I think this is what we’re doing, but let’s also keep it open.”
He added: ‘I feel deeply conflicted. I quite enjoy this period when we’re editing – where the whole season is there – but we haven’t put it out yet. I like the interregnum.
‘And I also quite liked the period when my close collaborators and I knew that this was probably it, or this was it, but hadn’t had to face up to it in the world.’
Succession season four begins on March 26 on HBO Max.