Brian Cox loves how his “Lord of the Rings ”anime movie 'closes the door on patriarchy'

Brian Cox is finally starring in a Lord of the Rings movie. If you ask him, it’s been a long time coming.

“I'm very grateful to Peter Jackson for introducing me to J.R.R. Tolkien because I wasn't a Tolkien person at all,” the actor tells Entertainment Weekly about the director of the popular 2000s blockbuster adaptations. “I knew of the books, but I'd never read them, so they meant nothing to me. And then the films came along, and I thought, ‘Well, clearly, I should be in this.’ But then I wasn't. So I thought, ‘Oh well, to hell with it, my Lord of the Rings time is over.’ And then suddenly, this humongous role comes out, and you go, 'Wow, this is really something! And it's also an anime!’”

The acclaimed actor finally enters Middle-earth in the new anime film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which dramatizes a particularly important moment in the history of Rohan. Readers of Tolkien’s books and viewers of Jackson’s movies are well-acquainted with the Battle of Helm’s Deep, and this is the story of how that fortress got its name. It was inspired by Helm Hammerhand, the king Cox voices in the film.

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By the time we meet him, Helm is an aging king, but he still packs power in his legendary fists — enough to kill rival chieftain Freca (Shaun Dooley) in a single blow after he has the temerity to propose a marriage between his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) and Helm’s daughter, Hèra (Gaia Wise).

This moment of macho triumph is short-lived, however, because Wulf eventually returns with an army at his back to wreak vengeance on Rohan. This time, Helm’s fists aren’t of much use, nor are his sons. It falls to Hèra to save the day, which turns the movie into a blistering portrait of the failures of patriarchy. Although Cox has wanted to play in Middle-earth for years, it’s this critique that he really responded to in the new film.

“It works on so many levels. It's massively allegorical for our present day,” Cox says. “The whole thing that’s happening to women in your country, where women’s rights are being set by men, not by women, is horrendous. There’s that moment at the end of The War of the Rohirrim where Helm closes the door. It’s like he closes the door on patriarchy and says it’s up to you girls to sort the world out. I love that, I think it’s so relevant today.”

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One of the earliest things we knew about War of the Rohirrim was that Cox would be in it. His vocal performance was also among the first things finished for the movie. That meant that the movie was literally built around him.

“He’s such a force of nature,” director Kenji Kamiyama tells EW via translator. “When he was recording his voiceover, we didn't actually have anything of the visual animation to refer to because it wasn't completed yet. So, he was actually just going by his own instinct. In order to show the character's strength and how formidable he is, we were asking him to exaggerate his voice. But he told us that it was not necessary to do that, and he just wanted to do his own way of performing. We were thinking, is that enough?”

Related: See Brian Cox embody 'larger-than-myth' Lord of the Rings king in behind-the-scenes video (exclusive)

Kamiyama continues, “But his voice has that vitality and charisma, you can hear it. So by the time we were mixing all this together, we were actually being influenced by his performance. It was seeping into how we were creating the animation.”

Credit Cox’s extensive experience with vocal performance, from drama school classes to working in BBC radio plays, for those instincts. “I believe in the voice,” he says.

But he also knows a lot about how fathers relate to their daughters under patriarchy. He recently played noted father of daughter Logan Roy on Succession and also has one himself.

“His performance came fully formed,” says producer Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote Jackson’s LOTR movies and directed the vocal performances here. “He is a father of a daughter, so that side of the story really did resonate with him. He loved that journey of a father learning to see his daughter in another way. Without losing any power or stature, you had this actor who was able to be this warrior king who could then say to his daughter, ‘The day you were born, I was brought to my knees.’ It was just like, ‘Oh my God, this guy knows what he's doing.’ When we were recording him, we just got the hell out of his way, and it was wonderful.”

In addition to the relationship between Helm and Hèra, War of the Rohirrim also shows the failings of patriarchy through Wulf, who becomes obsessed with vengeance after the death of his father and unleashes a wave of bloody violence across the land.

“It's always a problem when you have a deeply ugly father,” Cox says of Wulf and Freca. “Wulf hasn't been helped by having the ugliest father imaginable, who he clearly loves, and we all go, ‘Really?’ There’s a very tragic element to Wulf in that he should have been somebody else, but because of his circumstances and because of being bound up in the patriarchy game, he can't shake it off.”

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is in theaters now.

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