Brian Cox and Brian Cox share hilarious hotel mishap as actor and professor finally meet | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

The pair – one a leading actor and the other a physicist and presenter – were guests yesterday on BBC Breakfast and had been provided with hotel rooms on Thursday night.

Breakfast presenter Charlie Stayt asked them about any confusion from sharing a name.

Scottish actor Brian, 76, who plays Logan Roy in Succession, said: “Well, last night was very confusing because (Prof) Brian arrived at the hotel and the hotel said, ‘we can’t have two Brian Coxes’.”

Prof Cox, 54, who found fame presenting the BBC’s Wonders of the Solar System, chimed in: “They wouldn’t check me in!”

The Succession star added: “So he had to use his assistant’s name.”

Prof Cox said: “I had to change my name. They could not do it on their computer. They didn’t believe me!

“And I got a picture up on my phone and said: ‘Look, this is Brian Cox, he’ll be coming later, and then this one but (the hotel worker) said: ‘I don’t watch television’.”

The actor, who first gained recognition for his extensive work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, revealed earlier this year he was initially “irked” to find he had a namesake after the pair were almost mixed up on a restaurant reservation.

The actor said: “It annoyed me initially. But it has been such a great lesson, to find someone extraordinarily successful with the same name as me.

“It irked me at first, then I thought, it’s not important.”