Brian Cox was offered a role in Game of Thrones, but turned it down as the pay was "not all that great".
The 75-year-old actor has revealed in his new memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, that he was offered the role of Robert Baratheon but decided to turn it down.
"I'm often asked if I was offered a role in Game of Thrones - reason being that every other b**ger was - and the answer is, yes, I was supposed to be a king called Robert Baratheon, who apparently died when he was gored by a boar in the first season," the Succession star wrote in an excerpt published by GQ.
Cox admitted that he knows "very little" about the acclaimed fantasy series, which ended in 2019, so he "can't tell you whether or not he was an important character, and I'm not going to google it just in case he was, because I turned it down."
The Emmy winner wrote that although the show became a "huge success" and the cast went on to "earn an absolute fortune," the money he was offered at the time was "not all that great".
"Plus I was going to be killed off fairly early on, so I wouldn't have had any of the benefits of the long-term effects of a successful series where your wages go up with each passing season," he added. "So I passed on it, and Mark Addy was gored by the boar instead. (I lied. I did google it.)"
