Brian Cox hasn't found time for 'Succession' finale

Veteran Scottish actor Brian Cox on Sunday praised striking Hollywood writers as entertainment's "prime forces" - and revealed he has yet to watch the gripping finale of Succession.

Cox, who has grumbled about the early demise of his tyrannical character Logan Roy in the HBO drama's last series, told BBC Television he preferred not to go back over past projects.

The fictional media tycoon's children were all "hateful people", and Roy was justified in refusing to hand power to them, Cox said as he prepares to return to the theatre stage in London. "I gather -- I haven't seen the end of the show -- but I gather... my character's been proven right because he knew this was all going to happen," the actor said.

Cox, a lifelong socialist, has been following more closely the industrial unrest now roiling the US entertainment industry. The strike kicked off on May 3 after talks broke down between the Writers Guild of America and major US studios.

The writers want better compensation after the industry disruption caused by streaming and fears over the increasing use of artificial intelligence. "They are... very clearly the prime forces of what we do," Cox said, praising Succession's British creator Jesse Armstrong as a "genius". "And they should get their just rewards for it," he added.

"Unfortunately, producers are the ones who behave rather badly. You know, they're the ones who are kind of the manipulators and sometimes the writers get pushed to the tap end of the bath."

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