VIDEO: Brian Cox on his autobiography and the hit TV show Succession

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Brian Cox, your memoir is the very best kind of memoir to read because it's written with a kind of brutal honesty that reads like you don't really give a toss what anyone thinks of you. Is that the case?

BRIAN COX, ACTOR: I had to. You have to be truthful and honest and you can't, I mean I try be compassionate in it, I try to be understanding in it, you know, and not judging in the wrong way, but it's tough.

If I am going to be hard on somebody, I have to be equally hard on myself. I wasn't brought up, I had to bring myself up and so that is a tough thing and, of course, that has left me, I have anger issues, and I didn't even know where they were based, but I realise they were based on the fact that I had, it was nobody's fault but it was a rough childhood one way or the other.

I didn't think so at the time, but I think I was enduring more than I imagined, therefore the residue of that was to leave a little bit of anger going on now.

LEIGH SALES: You write in your memoir that we are living through an age of entitlement as you see it and you say that Succession is a show that helps illuminate the nature of entitlement. Logan Roy is not entitled because he has worked for everything that he has, but his children are entitled.

BRIAN COX: Yeah, and that is the dilemma on the show and there's nothing he can do about that. As Jessie Armstrong very rightly said to me right at the beginning, and he loves his children and, of course, that's his motivating factor. He doesn't express it but he does love them and they are continuously comically disappointing.

So yes, he has to deal with that on a regular basis and, of course, he gets all the flak. People go, "Oh, this nasty man, horrid man who is like this." I don't think he is horrid at all. I understand the Logan, the problems, the difference between Logan and I, is that he's a pessimist, and I'm an optimist. I believe that we can get better and I believe that we can improve.

He thinks it's a badly done deal and it's a done deal.

LEIGH SALES: Logan Roy, you write, is a complex character and that is what makes him so interesting. You are often asked, "Is he Rupert Murdoch, is he Conrad Black, is he some combination of that?" and I've heard you say that he's actually more complex than those people.

BRIAN COX: Yeah, he probably is because he's, there is an element of him that's circumspect and I'm sure there is an element in Rupert Murdoch which is circumspect as well. He's done what he's done and he's done an extraordinary thing and you know, and some things which are also less extraordinary but you know, he is driven and he has his roots.

What his conditions are is what he's become and who he is and you can't deny people's conditions.

LEIGH SALES: You are very famous as a Shakespearean actor and there's a wonderful clip that's gone viral of you teaching a two-year-old how to say "to be or not to be."

(Extract from video clip)

BRIAN COX: And there's a moment in that video, where he does, we talk about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes, and he does this gesture which is completely his own. There was no influence in me. There might have been a slight element of something that I did, because I tried to keep it as straight as possible but when he does it, he does this. He does this gesture and it says it all and you go, this is something innate in a little soul.

LEIGH SALES: With a line like 'to be or not be' as you point out a child does it instinctively but for an adult playing that part, the line is so famous, that I can only assume the weight of it coming along in the script is quite hard to bear. I saw an interview recently with Daniel Craig and he was talking about the difficulty of having to say the line, "The name's Bond, James Bond" just because of the weight of it being so famous. How to you deal with a line that is that well-known?

BRIAN COX: Well, you have to have an attitude. You just have to develop an attitude, you have to develop your own point of view about the line, what you feel it means, what the reverberation of the line is.

The English language is so extraordinary in that way in terms of what it sums up, the reverberations of a phrase - my name's Bond, James Bond. You know, you go, "Well Daniel just think about the attitude, think about, I know Sean Connery said it, Pierce Brosnan said it, Roger Moore has said it but Daniel, it's yours, it's not theirs".

I know you just have to think ‘My name is Bond, James Bond’. You can say it sorry; you can say what a curse it is to be James Bond or you can say it I'm really rather proud of the fact that I'm James Bond or you can say it as I don't really understand why but my name is Bond, James Bond. You see what I mean?

DANIEL CRAIG: The name's Bond, James Bond.

BRIAN COX: It's your attitude, it's your link what it means to you. Even though if it's a child-like thing, even if it is something that used to amuse you even when you saw Sean Connery as a five-year-old. My name's Bond, James Bond.

The permutations are enormous.

LEIGH SALES: It's been lovely to talk to you, Brian, thank you very much.

BRIAN COX: Nice to talk to you, take care.