Top 100 Steve Coogan Quotes
#2. 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.
Steve Coogan
#3. 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.
Steve Coogan
#4. 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.
Steve Coogan
#5. 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.
Steve Coogan
#6. I enjoy comedy but it can become wearisome.
Steve Coogan
#7. Got my fungal foot powder? Ah, it's a lifesaver, you know. I'd effectively be disabled if it weren't for these.
Steve Coogan
#8. That's what gives people hope - that you can still love someone from afar and you can still have those feelings across an ocean.
Steve Coogan
#9. No one has a monopoly on wisdom, and even for people who aren't religious, you can learn things from religious people.
Steve Coogan
#10. 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.
Steve Coogan
#11. 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.
Steve Coogan
#12. I have never wanted to be famous, as such - fame is a by-product.
Steve Coogan
#13. 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.
Steve Coogan
#14. All those people who go around saying Life begins at forty, they're notable by their absence. The nerve.
Steve Coogan
#16. A woman wearing a revealing dress will always be sexier than a naked woman.
Steve Coogan
#17. I don't like big feet. It reminds me of gammon.
Steve Coogan
#18. I think there's as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.
Steve Coogan
#19. 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.
Steve Coogan
#20. 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.
Steve Coogan
#21. 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.
Steve Coogan
#22. 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.
Steve Coogan
#23. Even great people are always slightly disappointing, which is generally what makes them interesting.
Steve Coogan
#24. I don't want to go around making everyone else agree with me. I don't feel the need to do that.
Steve Coogan
#25. 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.
Steve Coogan
#26. I'm getting older , so I'm quieting down a bit.
Steve Coogan
#27. 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.
Steve Coogan
#28. 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.
Steve Coogan
#29. If things don't come easy to you, you have to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Steve Coogan
#30. Convoy? Michael, you're hanging around with a man who uses a collective term for a single vehicle.
Steve Coogan
#31. 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.
Steve Coogan
#32. 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 ...
Steve Coogan
#33. 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.
Steve Coogan
#34. If it was just the potatoes that were affected, at the end of the day you will pay the price if you're a fussy eater.
Steve Coogan
#35. 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.
Steve Coogan
#36. 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.
Steve Coogan
#37. 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].
Steve Coogan
#38. 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.
Steve Coogan
#39. It's arguably the best newspaper in the world.
Steve Coogan
#40. I think if you try to look for something to show off as an actor, vanity can get the better of you.
Steve Coogan
#41. If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.
Steve Coogan
#42. 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.
Steve Coogan
#43. 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.
Steve Coogan
#44. 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.
Steve Coogan
#45. I happen to have a public profile. Ditto newspaper editors. It's a result of what I do, not an end.
Steve Coogan
#46. We're all a bit of a dick. It's the human condition. Nothing to be afraid of.
Steve Coogan
#47. As soon as I see period costume, I turn off. It's like hearing drama on Radio 4.
Steve Coogan
#48. The rest of Europe tends to be very comfortable with sexuality. The British and the Americans are kind of hung up about it.
Steve Coogan
#49. You really have got lots of issues! Yeah, of 'What Car Magazine'!
Steve Coogan
#50. When you tour you become more intimate with your audience. It's like I need reassurance that they like me or at least find me relevant. And that I can still do it.
Steve Coogan
#51. 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.
Steve Coogan
#52. I'm 47, my girlfriend's 33; she's 14 years younger than me, back of the net!
Steve Coogan
#53. 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.
Steve Coogan
#54. 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.
Steve Coogan
#55. 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.
Steve Coogan
#57. In my mind God made Adam and Eve, he didn't make Adam and Steve.
Steve Coogan
#58. I am lucky to be in a profession that is not age dependent.
Steve Coogan
#59. The irony is, of course, that many of the values that I was raised with, that I think are very important, that I hold dear, are the result of a religious faith.
Steve Coogan
#60. I'm an entertainer. I don't go round saying I'm a paragon of virtue, so that is clearly not in the public interest.
Steve Coogan
#61. It may seem like improv because it flows quite naturally, and a little bit of leeway for improvisation is good, but you have to be judicious with it. So it's good, but sometimes people deify it. You can't improvise your way out of a paper hat.
Steve Coogan
#62. 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.
Steve Coogan
#63. Yeah, all drama teachers are very effusive, very demonstrative, very emotionally open, very big, and gesticulate a lot, and are very physical.
Steve Coogan
#64. 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.
Steve Coogan
#65. 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?
Steve Coogan
#66. 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.
Steve Coogan
#67. I used to do stuff at college. I could do voices. I could make some people laugh. I wasn't the class clown, but I knew I had this skill.
Steve Coogan
#68. 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.
Steve Coogan
#69. If you do something very successful, you will then be defined by it.
Steve Coogan
#70. 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.
Steve Coogan
#71. Actually the best thing I did was to get thrown out by my wife. She's living with a fitness instructor. He drinks that yellow stuff in tins. He's an idiot.
Steve Coogan
#72. 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.
Steve Coogan
#73. What terrifies me is that I might somehow endorse that view so people think they don't have to read books anymore.
Steve Coogan
#74. 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.
Steve Coogan
#75. 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.
Steve Coogan
#76. 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.
Steve Coogan
#77. 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.
Steve Coogan
#78. I don't think there's anything outside what comedy can address.
Steve Coogan
#79. 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.
Steve Coogan
#81. 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.
Steve Coogan
#82. The one thing that gives you faith is the fact that people can be apart physically but they can still have an emotional connection.
Steve Coogan
#83. 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.
Steve Coogan
#84. I'm really encouraged by Pope Francis, because I think his attitude is totally laudable.
Steve Coogan
#85. 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.
Steve Coogan
#86. Far from being this big, booming voice, the Daily Mail is just a little man behind a curtain.
Steve Coogan
#87. Two thousand years ago, the Holy family had a ramble from Nazareth to Bethlehem - in much the same way as I'm having a ramble from Norwich to Swaffham. Although I'm not comparing myself to Jesus - I don't want to get bogged down in that whole controversy again.
Steve Coogan
#88. The tabloids operate in an amoral parallel universe where the bottom line is selling newspapers.
Steve Coogan
#89. 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.
Steve Coogan
#90. I like to do movies that provoke rather than reinforce conservative values.
Steve Coogan
#91. 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.
Steve Coogan
#92. 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.
Steve Coogan
#93. I'm gonna hump ya. Like Deputy Dog ... Would hump ya.
Steve Coogan
#94. When I see friends from school I think they've all grown old and I've stayed the same.
Steve Coogan
#95. Comedy is unique in the sense that laughter is a palpable noise that everyone makes.
Steve Coogan
#96. 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.
Steve Coogan
#97. 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.
Steve Coogan
#98. The great thing is that the funny side of getting old is fuel for my comedy.
Steve Coogan
#99. I'm just a good Catholic boy - I do naughty things and feel guilty about them.
Steve Coogan
#100. I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.
Steve Coogan
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