BRIAN Cox hit out at the media in an interview with the BBC on Sunday, saying “half the journalists don't know what the f*** they're talking about most of the time”.

The Scottish star made the comments as he spoke to Laura Kuenssberg alongside fellow actor Patricia Clarkson, with whom he is starring in a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

Speaking about the play, Cox and Clarkson were asked about comments from playwright Jeremy O Harris, the writer of Slave Play, who said that the theatre industry was overly reliant on casting celebrities.

Harris had argued that celebrity casting “takes away from great theatre because people treat it like a Disney World attraction, where the play is background to the amusement of seeing their favourite celebrity in front of them”.

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Cox – who is known for appearing in hit shows such as Succession – dismissed the comments, saying that celebrity was something earned by hardworking actors.

“It's a kind of nonsense in a way, you know, celebrities,” he said.

“Half the journalists don't know what the f*** they're talking about most of the time quite frankly, they really don't. They really don't.

“They just … they make it up, you know, it's like easy copy.

“Celebrity – what does that mean? They are hardworking actors who've earned the celebrity through what they've done over a number [of years].

“I've been doing this for 60 years for God's sake.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Cox said that working in the theatre allowed him to be a “truth teller”, saying that was something missing from politics.

He said: “The great thing about the theatre is what we can do in the theatre, which is happening less and less in the world – particularly in politics, is telling the truth and we are truth tellers.”

Cox and Clarkson are starring in the production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre.