‘Succession’ Star Brian Cox Reveals He Still Showed Up To Set To “Throw People Off” Of Logan’s Death

Brian Cox revealed he went to great lengths to ensure Logan Roy’s death in Succession didn’t leak when they were filming.

In an interview with Deadline, the 76-year-old actor said he was “very proud” of himself for keeping his character’s death a secret. But, with paparazzi swarming their sets as they filmed in New York City, the cast and crew had to go a different route to make sure the news didn’t break before the season aired.

“I did actually turn up for the funeral,” Cox said. “On my funeral day, they were going to do a scene with me, a fake scene with me at the church, so, just to throw people off the scent.”

But, Cox explained, filming in the church was already “very difficult” so they scrapped their plans to film the fake scene.

“Then they called me and said, ‘You don’t need to come in now.’ And I said, ‘I do.’ And they said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I’m coming in.’ They said, ‘Yeah, but we’re not doing the scene.’ I said, ‘Look, I’m coming in, because I know there’s going to be a whole lot of paparazzi there, and they’re going to be wondering what that funeral is. I am coming in,'” he recounted.

Cox recalled that there were paparazzi taking photos of him from all sides when he got out of the car. “They thought, ‘Logan’s at the funeral, what is he doing?'”

“You see, and if I hadn’t done that, if I hadn’t come, they would’ve gone, it’s Logan’s funeral. And I was the one who took that responsibility. They didn’t even think of it,” he said.

He later admitted that showing up to set anyways that day was a very Logan Roy move. “I never thought about it that way. Yeah, so, I was still in character,” he said.

Cox said series creator Jesse Armstrong warned him about Logan’s death before they started working on Season 4. To Cox, Armstrong’s decision to do so made sense, but he felt Armstrong had his work cut out for him by doing it so early in the season.

“When Jesse decided that he said, look, I think we’re going to kill him off in episode three. I just thought, okay, and then I thought, you’re making a tough job for yourself, because you’ve created this role for three seasons, and we all know it’s about succession, and you’ve got seven episodes to fill out after he goes,” he said.

According to Cox, the reason for Logan’s death “was obvious.” As he told Vulture, “It’s about succession. You need a corpse.”

He later admitted that he doesn’t know how the series ends or who ends up at the head of the company because he doesn’t read the scripts he’s not included in.

“I’ve got enough to be getting on with,” the actor said.