Top 100 Steve Coogan Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Yeah, all drama teachers are very effusive, very demonstrative, very emotionally open, very big, and gesticulate a lot, and are very physical.”

— Steve Coogan

52. “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

53. “I want my work to be judged, not me.”

— Steve Coogan

54. “Sadly, I can’t say the same for my Father, who is probably in a different place – Hell.”

— Steve Coogan

55. “I wasn’t a naturally confident, extravert, outgoing person.”

— Steve Coogan

56. “I don’t want to go around making everyone else agree with me. I don’t feel the need to do that.”

— Steve Coogan

57. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

59. “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

60. “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

61. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

63. “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.”

— Steve Coogan

64. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

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

— Steve Coogan

67. “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

68. “I find impressionists slightly annoying, really.”

— Steve Coogan

69. “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

70. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

72. “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

73. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

75. “Far from being this big, booming voice, the Daily Mail is just a little man behind a curtain.”

— Steve Coogan

76. “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

77. “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.”

— Steve Coogan

78. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

80. “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

81. “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

82. “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.”

— Steve Coogan

83. “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.”

— Steve Coogan

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

— Steve Coogan

85. “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

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

— Steve Coogan

87. “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

88. “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

89. “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

90. “I enjoy comedy but it can become wearisome.”

— Steve Coogan

91. “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

92. “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

93. “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

94. “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.”

— Steve Coogan

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

— Steve Coogan

96. “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.”

— Steve Coogan

97. “I like the transience of Klimt paintings.”

— Steve Coogan

98. “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

99. “I don’t think there’s anything outside what comedy can address.”

— Steve Coogan

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

— Steve Coogan