Brian Cox in London, 2021.
Photo Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage, Mike Marsland. All rights reserved.
Brian Cox was supposed to play King Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones. But the actor turned down the offer. Instead, the hard-drinking ruler was embodied by Mark Addy.
Cox gives the reason for his decision in his new autobiography “Putting the Rabbit in the Hat”. Back then, the ‘Succession’ actor had never heard of the book series behind the hit TV show. In addition, the fee offered is said to have been too low.
At the time, “every sow” got an offer to take part in “Game of Thrones”.
“I get asked a lot if I was offered a role on ‘Game of Thrones’ – because every pig was asked back then – and the answer is yes,” says Cox, continuing, “I should have played a king named Robert Baratheon , who was apparently gored by a boar in the first season”.
“I know very little about ‘Game of Thrones’ so I can’t say if he was an important character and I won’t google it in case he was because I declined. How so? Well, because ‘Game of Thrones’ was a huge success and everyone involved made a fortune,” adds the actor.
At that time the fee was too low
In conclusion, Cox writes, “But when I was offered the role, the pay wasn’t great […]. Also, I would have died young anyway, so I wouldn’t have gotten the benefits of a successful show, with the pay scale increasing with each season. So I turned it down and Mark Addy got gored by a boar. (I lied. I googled it.)”.
Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is set to air later this year. The story is based on George RR Martin’s book Fire and Blood and takes place three hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones.