Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is an English actor, stand-up comedian, impressionist, writer, and producer. He began his career in the 1980s, working as a voice artist on the satirical puppet show Spitting Image and providing voiceovers for television advertisements. In the early 1990s, he began creating original comic characters, leading him to win the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 1999, he co-founded the production company Baby Cow Productions...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth14 October 1965
CityMiddleton, England
Most of all I don't want to be bored. That's why I'd rather do something that has some sort of ambition, that risks failing, rather than make safer, more comfortable choices.
I've met people who've dismissed me, and then they find out that they like my work, and suddenly their attitude changes toward me. And I think that's very funny and very human. But it's also very unattractive.
The tabloids operate in an amoral parallel universe where the bottom line is selling newspapers.
What I don't like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.
I'm really encouraged by Pope Francis, because I think his attitude is totally laudable.
The Church at its best is about empowering the disempowered and giving voice to the dispossessed and not putting a price on everything and not being about the bottom line and not worshipping the market or everything that is material.
To me, most theatre looks ridiculous. I find it very difficult to do. Personally, if I ever try to do serious stuff, I always end up looking like an asshole, so I might as well try and do comedy, because I'm good at that.
People come up to me in supermarkets and demand humour. And the less amusing I am, the more they piss themselves. So I say, "I'm doing my shopping, mate, OK?" and the guy will be on the floor in hysterics. Quite odd. Eventually I do have to say something funny so I usually go for something pathetic like, "It's a nice place to shop but I wouldn't like to live here!" and they roar again. Wet themselves. I'm lucky though that I am not massively famous, I can get the Tube without much bother. Must be awful being the Beckhams.
I never had any desire to be famous. I find people who do really sad. I genuinely feel sorry for them because there is nothing of substancein their lives. I am happy when I am writing or performing. Not when I sit there being "famous". I like recognition for my work, but not recognition for being "that bloke off the telly". It is genuinely humbling when a woman comes up to me, as someone did recently, to say she wanted to commit suicide after her husband died, and my show cheered her up and made her feel better. That's great.
The one thing that gives you faith is the fact that people can be apart physically but they can still have an emotional connection.
I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.
The fundamentalists are insistent that they know best. It's a dictatorial attitude towards personal morality, which is a modern creation that came about in the 19th century.
I like to do movies that provoke rather than reinforce conservative values.
There are conservative values where certain lifestyles are imposed and everybody should have 2.4 children and a dog and a cat and a house and you should feel like God and you should believe in God and you should be a capitalist. I don't buy any of that.