Braveheart is “a lie”, Brian Cox has said.
The Scottish actor, who starred in Succession, said the Mel Gibson film about William Wallace had a “crap” script and was historically inaccurate.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, he said: “The film is just bollocks. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Cox, 79, appeared in the 1995 historical epic despite initially turning the role down to appear in a film about Rob Roy, the 17th century outlaw.
Brian Cox celebrating the opening of the 2025 Edinburgh International Festival – Jane Barlow
He said Gibson pleaded with him to take a role in Braveheart.
“I said, ‘Well, there is a very good part at the beginning, a guy called Argyle but I’m wrong for him because he should be cadaverous and thin’,” Cox said.
“And he said: ‘No, you can play it’.”
Cox played Argyle Wallace, the uncle of the main character, in the film about the Scottish wars of independence in the 13th and 14th centuries.
He added: “I just didn’t want to be in a kilt. Of course they didn’t have kilts in those days but they had to have kilts [in the film] because that is what it is about.”
Braveheart, which won five Academy Awards, has been criticised for not strictly following historical fact.
It contained an invented romance between Wallace and Isabella of France, depicted Scots wearing tartan before it was invented and showed them using tactics in the set piece battle against the English army that they did not use.
Braveheart contained an invented romance between Wallace and Isabella of France
The script was based on a 15th century poem called The Wallace, written by a minstrel called Blind Harry.
“Mel is wonderful to work with,” Cox said. “He gets a bad rap but actually he is a really good man. I saw him deal with some lads [on the film] who were alcoholically inclined and he used to deal with them absolutely beautifully.”
Sharon L. Krossa, a medieval historian and Braveheart detractor, has previously said: “The events aren’t accurate, the dates aren’t accurate, the characters aren’t accurate, the names aren’t accurate, the clothes aren’t accurate – in short, just about nothing is accurate.”
The film was blamed in the run up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum for a rise in anti-British sentiment.
Stanley Baxter, the comedian, said it was “to do with these dreadful films they’ve made, anti-English films and that wretched Australian [Mel Gibson] – Braveheart – it’s not even correct historically”.
Cox appeared in Succession as Logan Roy, a foul-mouthed global media tycoon.
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