Steve Coogan Quotations

I want my work to be judged, not me.

The great thing is that the funny side of getting old is fuel for my comedy.

I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.

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

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.

The best feeling in the world is performing in front of a live audience who like what you're doing. I can understand why people become dictators just because of the thrill they get making the speeches.

If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.

Even great people are always slightly disappointing, which is generally what makes them interesting.

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

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.

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

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.

I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being.

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.

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

When I see friends from school I think they've all grown old and I've stayed the same.

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.

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

I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success.

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

I don't think there's anything outside what comedy can address.

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

My father worked for IBM. My mother raised us kids. There were six of us, and a couple of extra foster kids at any given time.

I went on tour and I wouldn't say I was bored with the Perrier show but I started doing this stuff that wasn't as charming as the Perrier show.

There's something quite joyful about doing comedy which doesn't really need much analysis. I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.

It's a post-modern classic written way before there was any modernism to be post about.

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.

When Americans talks about Europeans, they are thinking Britain and the rest of Europe. When we [ Britains] talk about Europeans, we talk about everywhere else.

Look at the 18th century. There was a lot more freedom going on.

The rest of Europe tends to be very comfortable with sexuality. The British and the Americans are kind of hung up about it.

There were days when we used to say, what was in today's paper is tomorrow's fish-and-chip paper.When I became successful, I enjoyed myself a little.

Depending on which side of the fence you're on, you could argue that the sexual liberation of the late '60s, led to women being emancipated in some ways. That they found a voice during that time, with feminism. It's complicated.

When it comes to morality, I'd rather have an unfaithful president like Bill Clinton, who tried to reform welfare, than a faithful George Bush who propagated an illegal war on the rest of the world. So that is where my morality stands.

I'm getting older , so I'm quieting down a bit.

I don't apologize for my behavior anymore. Whatever I do or don't do shouldn't matter. Moral certainty is dangerous. Moral certainty is what makes people go to war unnecessarily and illegally. Morality, as any halfway intelligent human being would tell you, is a very subjective thing.

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.

What tends to happen in most movies is that strip clubs are used as a short hand for unsympathetic, sleazy people. And that's just a lazy cliché.

A woman wearing a revealing dress will always be sexier than a naked woman.

The British often shy away from any cinematic interpretation of real sex. They sometimes have what I call "subtle sex," which is really introspective and has soft music in the background. Either that or it's played for comedy. The British are kind of hung up about sex. They find it kind of titillating and they make jokes about it because they're nervous.

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.

A lot of people can be very scared about making themselves vulnerable and appearing uncool. I don't really give a damn; as long as it's funny, I'll do it [make fun of myself].

I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.

That's what gives people hope - that you can still love someone from afar and you can still have those feelings across an ocean.

The one thing that gives you faith is the fact that people can be apart physically but they can still have an emotional connection.

No one has a monopoly on wisdom, and even for people who aren't religious, you can learn things from religious people.

I'm not like a politician that goes around talking about family values. And I can't get fired from being a funny person because I did something that most people are disapproving of. I think people are just obsessed with this morality that people perceive as being the right and wrong way of doing stuff.

If you're driving your car and someone winds the window down and gives you the finger and calls you an asshole, instead of giving him the finger back and calling him an asshole back, you just pull a funny face, and he doesn't know how to react to that, because you're using different rules.

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.

I think if you try to look for something to show off as an actor, vanity can get the better of you.

I'm a single guy now and can do what I like. As my agent said, so long as it's not a live man or a dead woman, I'll be fine. And that, hand on heart, is unlikely to happen.

I'm just a good Catholic boy - I do naughty things and feel guilty about them.

I'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm not Frank Bough, either. I am getting older and a bit more sensible. I'm not going to be popping up in dungeons every six months. If you catch me preaching fidelity while I am shagging chickens then throw the book at me. Otherwise, leave me alone.

I am not a politician going around bragging about family values or putting myself on some ridiculous virtuous pedestal. I write comedy. And I am an actor. I am not going to solve the nation's problems. I don't actually spend my life in the way the tabloids like to think I do. I actually spend 95 percent of it writing comedy. Sober. Well, nearly sober anyway.

The important thing is not to be defined by what others think of you.

I enjoy comedy but it can become wearisome.

Knowing about comedy has helped me with the drama. To see people laugh, it's like there are moments of catharsis in the middle of sadness.

I like the British public. There is something in this country called tall poppy syndrome. You're good but you're not that good, pal, OK? The natural state of our nation is slightly miserable, and probably the healthier for it. In America you don't get a key down the side of your Bentley...

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'm not turned away from the church through anger, although I have criticisms of it. It's through finding affirmation of life and illumination of life through creativity and art.

I think there's as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.

The Bible, undoubtedly, is a mixed bag. I don't see myself coming back to the Church. I do like the tradition. If you come from a strong culture, you can decide what you agree with and what you don't agree with. If you're given a blank canvas, it's almost harder in life.

I like the fact that people come together who have shared values, but I don't believe that a man died 2,000 years ago and was crucified on a cross to save me from my original sin.

I knew lots of Irish ladies in my life who would say daft things and then would just say something incredibly truthful in a very simple way with simple language - a few well chosen words that would take an intellectual five minutes to express. I like that.

What terrifies me is that I might somehow endorse that view so people think they don't have to read books anymore.

I think you need to have the guts to not use comedy. Often, the people that work in comedy use a joke to avoid contemplation.

IT'S OUR IMPERFECTIONS THAT MAKE US VULNERABLE, MAKE US INTERESTING. HOW CAN I MAKE MYSELF A BIT OF AN ASSHOLE AND STILL HAVE HUMANITY ABOUT IT?

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

In my mind God made Adam and Eve, he didn't make Adam and Steve.

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'm gonna hump ya. Like Deputy Dog... Would hump ya.

Got my fungal foot powder? Ah, it's a lifesaver, you know. I'd effectively be disabled if it weren't for these.

All those people who go around saying Life begins at forty, they're notable by their absence. The nerve.

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.

I woke with a start. At first I assumed I'd trumped myself awake again.

Guide dogs for the blind. It's cruel really, isn't it? Getting a dog to lead a man round all day. Not fair on either of them.

Convoy? Michael, you're hanging around with a man who uses a collective term for a single vehicle.

When I play myself, I want to be a slightly better person. It just agrees. Everything I play about myself is kind of true, but it's amplified. We all edit, don't we? If you're self-aware, you stop yourself - you know how to behave properly.

Two fat ladies, 88! Not that you'd find these ladies at a bingo hall, of course... they're altogether a higher class of fat lady.

Sadly, I can't say the same for my Father, who is probably in a different place - Hell.

It's arguably the best newspaper in the world.

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.

That was liquid football

There's never any graffiti in the hotel. Although in the Gents a couple of weeks ago I did see someone had drawn a lady's part. Quite detailed. The guy obviously had talent.

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

I like the transience of Klimt paintings.

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

I love Sherlock Holmes. I've got all his books, leather-bound. What I thought was great about Sherlock Holmes was that not only was he a supersleuth, he was also a hard worker. Not only did he go out and solve the crimes, he came home and wrote it all down. Fantastic. That's why I admire him.

I'm really encouraged by Pope Francis, because I think his attitude is totally laudable.

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.

It is not true that sex degrades women... if it is any good.

If you got the balls to follow something through, you can end up being the coolest, smartest guy in the room, because you've literally put your ass on the line.

You really have got lots of issues! Yeah, of 'What Car Magazine'!

I'm 47, my girlfriend's 33; she's 14 years younger than me, back of the net!

I am lucky to be in a profession that is not age dependent.

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.

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 love people who are openly gay in theatre, because they have license to do what they like, and there's a kind of artistic liberal tolerance thing that goes on.