I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare. When I was at school, I was in Hamlet. I played Claudius, who's supposed to be a 60-year-old man, and I was like 18. It's inherently ridiculous seeing 18-year-old boys with gray beards. That's always funny.

Steve Coogan

Categorized in : School Kids Boys

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

balls lines guy

I don't like big feet. It reminds me of gammon.

Steve Coogan

bigs feet funny

If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.

Steve Coogan

elude-you elude-us elude

I do like to make people cringe. That discomfort, tension, embarrassment, pain - all of those things interest me, and not through some sort of masochistic or sadistic impulse. It illuminates what being a human being is. It taps into what it is to be human more incisively than stuff that's just very pedestrian.

Steve Coogan

sadistic pain people

If things don't come easy to you, you have to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Steve Coogan

hats easy rabbits

The truth is somewhere in the middle of funny and serious.

Steve Coogan

truth-is middle serious

People come up to me in supermarkets and demand humour. And the less amusing I am, the more they piss themselves. So I say, "I'm doing my shopping, mate, OK?" and the guy will be on the floor in hysterics. Quite odd. Eventually I do have to say something funny so I usually go for something pathetic like, "It's a nice place to shop but I wouldn't like to live here!" and they roar again. Wet themselves. I'm lucky though that I am not massively famous, I can get the Tube without much bother. Must be awful being the Beckhams.

Steve Coogan

shopping nice people

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

church strong culture

It's like aversion therapy. You keep doing scenes over and over again with three women in the bed with you, and we had to do them all in one week. Three girls would step out and another three girls would step into the bed. It sounds like a fantasy but by the end of it, I just wanted to go for a hike on my own in the north of England, in the hills. Because it became a sort of "be careful what you wish for" kinda thing.

Steve Coogan

bed girl wish

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

wife yellow funny

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

Steve Coogan

deputies dog funny

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

Steve Coogan

profundity facts thinking

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

pay-the-price the-end-of-the-day funny

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

bored choices ambition

I like the transience of Klimt paintings.

Steve Coogan

transience painting

To me, most theatre looks ridiculous. I find it very difficult to do. Personally, if I ever try to do serious stuff, I always end up looking like an asshole, so I might as well try and do comedy, because I'm good at that.

Steve Coogan

theatre trying looks

That was liquid football

Steve Coogan

liquid football funny

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

dog men funny

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

tragedy real giving

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

christmas years jesus