20 Actors Who Had To Wait DECADES Before Hitting Big

11. Brian Cox

Brian Cox is yet another actor who had quite the celebrated career on stage before finally breaking through into film with his marvelously chilling performance as Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann's 1986 thriller Manhunter, lending him the distinction of being the first actor to play the iconic cannibal on screen.

This propelled Cox into a fruitful career as an ever-in-demand character actor, and more recently he won himself a whole new generation of fans through his sublime work on the HBO series Succession.

Yet Cox actually began his acting career in 1961 at the mere age of 14, working in local Scottish theater alongside periodic TV bit-parts. 

By the 1980s he had a regular tenure with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, and in 1984 won his first Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in Rat in the Skull.

This is all to say that Cox was an incredibly seasoned performer by the time Hollywood took any interest in him, and he's racked up one hell of a prolific filmography ever since.