Brian Cox promotes his directorial debut and criticizes actors' choice to shoot their own movies

“There are a lot of people who talk nonsense about cinema,” actor Brian Cox concluded angrily this afternoon at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Veteran Scottish actor, now known for his lead role in the HBO series successionHe was a surprise guest at an industry talk at the revamped Scottish Festival, where he featured his own piece on business.

During the well-attended lecture, chaired by Edinburgh Television Festival director Rowan Woods, Cox said he believed cinema was “in a very bad state” at the moment, and had been largely outdone by work being created on television.

“TV is doing what cinema used to do,” Cox said. “Cinema has lost its place partly because of all the big ticket stuff like Marvel and DC. Cinema has started to fall apart, so you kind of lose the plot. And TV has really stolen the mark. Look at incredible stuff like Ripley and succession“There are many.”

Cox has acknowledged that he played a role in what he called the decline of cinema through his appearances in films such as 20th Century Fox's “Spider-Man.” X-MenBut he focused on other artists who became recurring faces in the superhero scene.

“It’s time for some actors to do their thing. You know, Hugh Jackman could do more, Ryan Reynolds could do more if he wanted to,” he said. “But that’s because they’re on this path and it’s all about the box office. They’re making a lot of money off of it. You can’t ignore that.”

Cox's critical assessment of the industry did not stop there. succession The actor went on to raise the point of what he called the “disgusting” act of self-recording auditions. The practice of casting has been a controversial topic of discussion across the industry for many years, especially after it became the dominant form of casting following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What’s hard for actors these days is the lack of familiarity with the casting director. Now they want every young actor or actress to do their own filming. And they have to do it without actually meeting anyone,” Cox says.

“In the old days, you would meet Marion Dougherty or any of the casting directors, and you would become friends, so you had a sense of where you were going. Now, young actors are in limbo, and they're designed to stay there. It's frankly disgusting and it has to stop.”

Elsewhere during the session, Cox said he is currently preparing for his directorial debut with a project he described as a “love letter” to Scotland.

“We don’t have our own artistic status,” he said of his country’s international reputation. “We’ve created the Edinburgh Festival and the Fringe Festival, which is probably the greatest Fringe event ever. So we do that kind of thing. But for local stuff, it’s very difficult. It’s almost impossible. So I felt it was time to come back and honour not just the country but also the people who work here.”

Cox, who is joined on the panel by WME's Alex Walton, producer Afolabi Kuti and artist Nina Conte, said the project is set to begin filming in two weeks and will include elements shot in black and white.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival runs until August 21.