Steve Coogan Said Yes to “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” Without a Completed Script: Coogan laughed when asked to confirm that rumor’s true and explained he did so because he’s “a little crazy.” He then went on to confess the real reason for saying yes so quickly. The truth is he agreed because it meant he’d be working with Michael Winterbottom. “I worked with Michael Winterbottom before and had it been any other director, I probably would not have done it. But I’ve worked with Michael before when the script has not quite been there,” explained Coogan. “He does a little bit of improvisation when he shoots his movies and I know that he can get there in the end. So it wasn’t a complete blind leap of faith.”
Asked what it was about his “24 Hour Party People” experience with director Winterbottom that helped instill that sort of faith, Coogan said, “I just kind of trust his instinct. He doesn’t overanalyze it. He just has a kind of a gut instinct that I trust. And he’s a friend, too, so I know he wouldn’t make me look an idiot! But there’s always a risk - not all films work.
I think that you’ve got to do something that’s creative and interesting. I think good work kind of scares you a little. If you’re going to try and do something that’s different, there’s always an element of risk. If you play it safe you just end up doing stuff that’s kind of dull.”
Steve Coogan on Starring in a Movie Everyone Said was Basically Unfilmable: Coogan said he wasn’t that familiar with the book so he didn’t have that preconceived notion going into the production. “I know Michael and I know that he kind of… If somebody says something can’t be done, that’s kind of like a red rag to a bull. He always likes to make life difficult for himself. If something’s too easy, he’ll throw a problem in his way so he’s got something to grapple with. Like people that climb mountains – why don’t they get a helicopter to the top?”
Coogan said he’s also a bit of a risk-taker. “I don’t want life to be too hard but I think it’s interesting grappling with something that’s problematic. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’ that’s kind of a phrase that explains it. It’s like sometimes with low-budget movies. You can’t just write a check for every single thing. It means you have to be more creative, the way you go about it. So I think a little difficulty is a good thing.”
Steve Coogan on the Special Challenge of Playing Three Characters: Coogan admitted that on occasion he did have a little difficulty remembering exactly who he was supposed to be. “I did a little bit because originally what I set out to do – I’m playing three characters and I wanted to make them all very distinct. And Michael said he didn’t want that because he wanted me to blur the edges, so the characters were kind of different but not too different. There was a kind of similarity between the three. He didn’t want them to be too wildly different and so that was a little difficult.
I’ll tell you what was hard was because it was a film within a film, you’ve got like a real film crew and a fake film crew. The film crew that’s being filmed - so it looks like you’re watching a film crew making a movie. So one of the film crew’s is fake – there’s no film in the camera because that camera is being filmed by a real camera. That was kind of odd because sometimes I’d think, ‘Where’s the camera? Oh, it’s over there.’ And I’d think, ‘No, that’s not a real camera, that’s a fake camera. Where’s the real camera?’ That was kind of confusing. There were two film crews, a dummy film crew and a real one - so that was pretty confusing.
I kind of see it as a privilege to me. I kind of felt a bit greedy playing three parts, really.
Steve Coogan on How Close the Fake Behind-the-Scenes Moments in the Movie are to What Really Happens on a Film Set: “I think that it is pretty realistic. Sometimes for comedy you kind of exaggerate. There’s a scene in the movie where I’m complaining the heels of my shoes aren’t high enough because I want to look taller on screen. I think those are the kind of conversations actors have with wardrobe. They want to look taller; they want to look better. You kind of exaggerate that.
I play myself - in a very neurotic way - on the screen. I am a little neurotic, but not quite as neurotic as I portray myself. But I think it is quite realistic. It’s a funny film and when you’re playing comedy, sometimes you tweak reality a little bit.”
