Steve Coogan Quotes

I really like to play these complicated characters, and I really like to transform.

As an actor, my job is not to always play characters who make everybody happy. That's not interesting.

I love trying to play the not-confident guy, the guy against my normal character, because that's when real acting comes into play.

I need to react to a script, to feel strongly about it in some way. And I need it to be a complex character for sure. And also, I think a lot about what kind of audience there is for the film, what they're looking for and ways to connect with them in the playing of a character.

Actors put ourselves in awkward positions all the time.

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.

You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.

I continue to be known as a guy that plays really complex, three-dimensional characters.

Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays.

In a drama, you don't make a fool of yourself.

Yeah, I've always been accused of having a sense of mischief and I'm very flattered that you say you can see it in the roles I play, because I think that's important, even if I do play intense characters, like especially Christine Cagney.

The good and wonderful thing about my whole career is that I've always felt that the audience, if I do it well, will track wherever I go, whether it's President or a lawyer or bad guy or good.

There's something about being any kind of entertainer that is acting. You have to put on a show. Things you wouldn't do in your life, you do on stage. You have to let go. And that's extra hard for rappers. We have a tendency to, quote unquote, keep it real. As an actor, you have to be able to humiliate yourself. Do whatever it takes.

I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.

It's easier to play a dim character, for me, because I have a natural bent for comedy. It's not intrinsic for me to be crafty, so I would have to go outside for a source of origin. I think of myself as pretty dim.

As an actor, you don't want to play a one-dimensional character.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

A lot of the characters I end up playing have a certain degree of glamour or sexiness, but I like it when you can have some other element that makes it much more interesting.

I love playing really strung out characters, and characters that are really pushed to their limits and losing their mind. I think that's wonderful. To be able to lose it, in many ways, is just great fun to do.

That's what acting is - it's about... having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.

I've always played different kinds of roles, and I probably played more vulnerable parts when I was really young.

I can usually play polarizing characters.

I'm always just drawn to those roles that present one way and have many other things going on underneath. It's just more fun to play as an actor.

I think playing a negative character is more difficult and challenging, since you have a lot to work on, and you have to put a lot of efforts.

Every character is challenging because, at the end of the day, you have to make something out of it.