Brian Cox thinks the UK is "still as feudal as it ever was"

Brian - who was born in Dundee, Scotland - reflected: "It's a feudal society, and it's everybody in their place, and the great thing about the '60s was that anything was possible. You were encouraged to be who you were. You were encouraged to be able to talk in your own accent.

"Ironically, the Scottish thing didn't kick in until later. So actually, I started out playing a lot of Liverpool people or [people from] Yorkshire.

"So that was the sense of social mobility.

"The other great influence, of course, at the time was what was happening in music, because it was the time of The Beatles. It was the time of The Rolling Stones. It was the time of The Who, The Kinks. So the music thing had burgeoned."

The acclaimed actor - who has won numerous awards during his career - claims to have seen a regression to "feudal" attitudes since the 60s.

Brian believes that such attitudes are part of the "fabric" of British society.

He told NPR: "When I watched that wonderful documentary with Paul McCartney, 'Get Back', from those days when they recorded the last album, it moved me to tears, because that was the energy that was so in the atmosphere that anything was possible, that we could do it.

"Subsequently it dissipated horribly because of everybody saying, 'Oh, just remember who you are!' And it's still as feudal as it ever was and the people won't even see it, because it's kind of hidden. It's in the fabric of society."