Meet Succession star Brian Cox’s third wife, Nicole Ansari: a former child actress in her native Germany, she’s also a producer and climate activist – and even appeared as Cox’s ex in Succession

Jan 30 , 2025

Brian Cox’s wife Nicole Ansari is ready to shine. Photos: EPA-EFE; @nicole_ansari/Instagram

After taking a back seat to her husband’s career, the mother of two is now entering the spotlight, acting in Shireen Khaled’s In the Night – as well as Cox’s forthcoming directorial debut, Glenrothan

There has hardly been a bigger star on American television lately than Brian Cox, who plays media mogul Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession. The 78-year-old Scottish actor, who has been in the industry for decades, found mainstream fame with the show but regrets losing his anonymity, says the Daily Mail. Naturally, there is now more attention paid to his personal life than ever, but his wife, Nicole Ansari, is ready for the spotlight. In an interview last year with The Times, the 56-year-old said, “I’ve supported him for 25 years. Now it’s my time.”

Nicole Ansari is Brian Cox’s third wife. Photo: @nicole_ansari/Instagram

Indeed, Ansari is booked and busy. Per Variety, she has recently acted in the films Under the Stars, from Michelle Danner, Kat Rohrer’s What a Feeling and Shireen Khaled’s In the Night; now she’s set to appear in her husband’s directorial debut, Glenrothan. She is also collaborating with Khaled on her first feature film. Fun fact: she played Logan Roy’s former mistress Sally Anne in one of the late episodes of Succession.

What else do we know about the woman who stole Brian Cox’s heart?

Ansari was a child actress

Nicole Ansari started acting when she was nine years old. Photo: @nicole_ansari/Instagram

Nicole Ansari has been acting since she was nine years old, per IMDB. She rose to prominence with the German television show Tatort, after which she received her formal education at New York’s famed HB Studio and Actors Studio and at the Stage School of Dance and Drama in Hamburg. Today, she is a producer as well as an actress, credited with co-producing the films Blumenthal (2014) and As Good as Dead (2010), both starring her and Cox, as well as the award-winning web series Messy.

She describes herself as an ‘actor-vist’

Nicole Ansari is a staunch climate activist. Photo: @nicole_ansari/Instagram

Ansari is a climate change activist and an advocate of human rights. She also takes pride in having turned Cox into a feminist, according to the Daily Mail. Her Emmy-winning husband admits she made him “aware of the discrepancies and the gaps between men and women” and that he had to “relearn everything” about feminism and the patriarchy. Ansari has also received The Vanya Exerjian Award for empowering women and girls and has supported Iran’s “Women, Life, Freedom” movement.