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
Look at all those American preachers who got caught with their pants down. They say one thing and they are doing another. I try to be more honest about it, both in my thinking and my behavior.
The important thing is not to be defined by what others think of you.
I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It's more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.
I always think that, even when people behave badly, if you like something deep inside them, then there is a tiny bit of nobility - they wish they could be good.
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.
To me, I like and understand ritual and I think it is important. Things that we do that give us comfort are important. Like Christmas, I like to go into a church and hear the carols sung. There's a comfort of actually going inside of a church, I find them serene. They're unchanging.
I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.
I'm really encouraged by Pope Francis, because I think his attitude is totally laudable.
When I see friends from school I think they've all grown old and I've stayed the same.
I don't like comedy that I think is bad comedy, where people are trying to be sick for the sake of it, where there's no intellectual point behind it. I like stuff that's got an underlying point of view.
When you see a crowd of people jumping up and down at a pop concert, all gloriously in the moment, I don't think you'll ever see a comedian there. They'll all be standing at the sides, looking at how it all fits together.
Even if I screw up in my personal life, as long as I'm not destroying myself, I just think, "Okay, I screwed up." I'm not Mother Theresa.
Big comedy is good, I like things that are big, but good comedy has to be truthful I think and has to reflect some sort of reality.
I don't think I'm kind of universally known. I think in the indie world I'm probably better known than in some mainstream Hollywood terms.