Free-ads - Forum News and columns Features & Interviews Film links Calendar dates for festivals Contact details Statistical Info Funding Info
site web
About Netribution Contact Netribution Search Netribution
latest news / northern exposure / industry buzz / festivals, events & awards / euro film news
netribution > news > northern exposure >
 

by james macgregor | August 10th, 2001 | contact: james@netribution.co.uk

Scots Actor Slams Labour's Schools

He was a vociferous champion of Labour in the late 1970s but Hollywood actor Brian Cox has little faith in the Blair government's promises on education, education, education.

The actor, who was born in Dundee, is due to become a father again ... but he told the Sunday Herald that the child would not be going to school in Britain. 'I wouldn't send children to school here, the system is horrendous,' he said.

Mobile

He said that education should have been nationalised after the war. 'If that had been done in 1947, the world would have changed in a much more discernible way now. You wouldn't have had the educational mafias that have sprung up. I think we're rife with it in this country, and it's something that I would be very, very wary about bringing a child into.'

Cox lives in London, but he is about to move to Los Angeles to play the lead in a TV series called The Court. He will be joined in LA by 31-year-old German girlfriend Nicole Ansari, who is expecting their child.

Cox, who won Hollywood fame after roles in Braveheart, Rob Roy and the Boxer, was dumped from a Labour party broadcast after a 1999 interview with the Sunday Herald.

European Capital

Labour officials, who had planned to use him in the promotional film, told the actor his services were no longer required after he spoke publicly about his hopes for an independent Scotland. 'I'd like Scotland and England both to have their own states,' said Cox at the time. 'I'm quite heartened by the way Scottish politics is developing and Edinburgh is feeling more and more like a real European capital. But I'm more worried about the English. They're having the worst time of anyone. No-one wants to be English nowadays.'

Despite the rebuff, Cox said at the time that he would continue to support Labour. But the party's efforts to reform education have left him unimpressed.

His grown-up children from a previous marriage, Alan and Margaret, both went to British private schools. Margaret was boarding at Cheltenham during Cox's split with her mother and he described it as a difficult period for her.

'I think the most important thing is the accessibility of parents,' said Cox. 'And I think that's probably the thing that I need to be this time: more accessible.'

Pederast Premiere

Cox plays the lead role, a supreme court judge, in his new US series. His forthcoming film, L.I.E., in which he plays a pederast, will have its premier at the Edinburgh International Film Festival later this month. The film provoked a storm of protest in America, despite critical plaudits garnered at the Sundance film festival. It flopped at the US box-office thanks to an NC-17 certificate, which made it out of bounds for children under 17, major cinema chains and the Blockbuster video store chain.


This week...
o
Scottish Screen in Shetland Film Controversy >>>
o Scotland’s Mansions put on the Movie Map >>>
o Edinburgh Conservatives decry refugee video diary project >>>
o Who Dressed Harry Potter? >>>
archive >>>

Copyright © Netribution Ltd 1999-2002
searchhomeabout usprivacy policy