Steve Coogan

“I find impressionists slightly annoying, really.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“I don't go to premieres, unless I'm contractually bound to.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 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.”