Emmy winner Brian Cox will serve as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society's newest patron this year.

Joining alumni patron Eddie Izzard and honorary President of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Cox will serve as an ambassador for the festival, supporting its continued international expansion.

Performing on-stage since the 1960s, Cox has forged a career filled to the brim with iconic screen roles, including the first incarnation of Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter, the sinister CIA chief Ward Abbott in the Bourne franchise, and recently, the billionaire patriarch Logan Roy in the multi-award-winning Succession. He's currently starring opposite Patricia Clarkson in a new West End revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Days Journey Into Night.

Said Cox, “the culture of the performing arts in Scotland is embedded firmly in my DNA, and it’s impossible to talk about Scotland’s performing arts culture without talking about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I’m delighted to come aboard as an ambassador for this incredible event, and to champion its well-earned reputation as a springboard and a proving ground for generations of performing artists past, present and future.”

In addition to Cox's new work on behalf of the Fringe, he is a patron of the Scottish Youth Theatre in Glasgow, The Old Rep in Birmingham, the British American Drama Academy in London and The Space in his native Dundee. In 1965, he was among the founding members of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company in Edinburgh, and was most recently named an honorary patron of the campaign to modernise the city’s historic King's Theatre.