Scottish actor Brian Cox called former President Donald Trump a "monster" hours before the Republican became the clear winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Trump was declared the winner of the presidency by The Associated Press (AP) early Wednesday morning when he pushed over the required threshold of 270 Electoral College votes.
So far, he beat Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina and 22 Republican-leaning states. He also secured four of the five electoral votes in Nebraska and one in Maine, bringing his total to 292 Electoral College votes.
Meanwhile, Trump is on track to win the popular vote as well with roughly 71.86 million votes to Harris' 66.99 million votes as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the AP.
Cox, who stared as Logan Roy in the HBO hit series Succession, criticized Trump on Channel 4, a U.K. broadcaster, saying that the Republican "wants to be a dictator."
Cox's comments reflect a concern shared by many Americans, according to a new survey. AP VoteCast, a survey of over 120,000 U.S. voters conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for several publications including the AP, found that almost half of American voters said they were "very concerned" that a second Trump term would bring the U.S. closer to authoritarianism. But about 1 in 10 of these "very concerned" voters voted for him anyway.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, via email for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
Cox also called Trump "insane" and "crazy."
"I think he's lost it. He's deeply mentally unstable, and I think he has been for some time," Cox said. "This is not a man who should be the President of the United States. I'm horrified."
Cox, who plays the patriarch of the Roy family and the founder of the world's biggest media and entertainment company in Succession, said he would never portray Trump in an acting role.
"Nobody would want to play Donald Trump because it's such a terrible role. How do you find any redeeming feature in the human being?" he said.
Meanwhile, a film about Trump's young life as a New York real estate businessman in the 1970s and '80s called The Apprentice was released earlier this year.
The film starred Marvel actor Sebastian Stan, who told The Hollywood Reporter days before the U.S. presidential election that Trump is a "paranoid, scared little man" who "ain't caring about your situation."
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