Top 30 Steve Coogan Quotes

What I don’t like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.

If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.

If the person who can effectively sanction ill-conceived wars can play the electric guitar, which is a symbol of rebellion, then that whole worldview becomes confused.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don’t know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it’s a simple premise. If it’s funny, people laugh. If it’s not, they don’t.

There is a strong ethical dimension to the best comedy. Not only does it avoid reinforcing prejudices, it actively challenges them.

If you do something very successful, you will then be defined by it.

When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth.

I like the transience of Klimt paintings.

I happen to have a public profile. Ditto newspaper editors. It’s a result of what I do, not an end.

Actually, bizarrely, in America, I get more appreciation from the odd, unusual stuff I’ve done, almost because I’m not, if you like, famous in America as I am in England.

I have never wanted to be famous, as such – fame is a by-product.

I try to not make safe choices, but I also like to do stuff which is interesting and is sort of exciting in some way and accessible.

Yeah, all drama teachers are very effusive, very demonstrative, very emotionally open, very big, and gesticulate a lot, and are very physical.

Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do.

I’ve always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy. Making people laugh one moment and the next making them feel really uncomfortable.

But with comedy it’s a simple premise. If it’s funny, people laugh. If it’s not, they don’t.

I don’t like new bands. I don’t want to be one of those pathetic old men in their forties who knows exactly what 18-year-olds are into.

I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It’s a more subtle kind of challenge.

Actors say they do their own stunts for the integrity of the film but I did them because they looked like a lot of fun.

Hacking into a victim of crime’s phone is a sort of poetically elegant manifestation of a modus operandi the tabloids have.

London audiences are tricky, too. They don’t laugh as much as the Northern audiences because, and I hate to say this, they are a bit cleverer normally, and they are picking up on all the little details and listening more carefully.

People regurgitate the same old cliches and it becomes like a photocopy of a photocopy of something that’s vaguely interesting.

As soon as I see period costume, I turn off. It’s like hearing drama on Radio 4.

Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.

I’ve always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy.

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.

Comedy is unique in the sense that laughter is a palpable noise that everyone makes.

The tabloids operate in an amoral parallel universe where the bottom line is selling newspapers.

I’m just attracted to playing people who are ostensible unlikable. That’s not to say that there’s something in there that makes you care. It might be that you just find them so awful that you just can’t stop watching, like a car crash.

I am of the very last generation who didn’t have computers at school. As we grow old we’ll become something of an aberration.