Steve Coogan is an English comedian-comic actor-writer-producer multi-talented smartypants. I’m not very familiar with him but I gather he’s pretty funny and possibly also a party-hearty wild man. But when Owen Wilson apparently tried to kill himself, I heard that Coogan was the guy who got him started using drugs and that everybody who cares about Owen Wilson says Coogan is evil personified. Huh? Truth? Rumor? Data?
I think a lot of his earlier TV stuff is really funny. He has had a lot of crappy movie roles in the last 10 or so years.
Apparently he has a reputation for being a jerk, to the extent that he did a musical number about it called “Everybody’s a Bit of a Cunt Sometimes”
The story that Coogan introducing Wilson to cocaine caused his suicide attempt is unimpressive to me even if true. This is not a child actor we’re talking about.
I don’t know or care anything about his personal life, but I think he’s a funny guy and I perk up whenever I see him in anything. Some favorite roles are as the beleaguered director Damien Cockburn in Tropic Thunder, as Tristam/Walter Shandy in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and again with Rob Brydon most recently in The Trip. I haven’t seen everything he’s done, and none of his television work, but I’d probably like him in anything.
If you like Steve Coogan, you simply have to see Hamlet 2. Screamingly funny.
I became a fan when I studied abroad in London and my friends there got me hooked on the tv show “Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge” (Alan is played by Coogan if you are unfamiliar). I fell in love with that show and recently re-watched the series since it’s come out here on Netflix. I also saw him live - he did a few of his characters, from what I recall - and the show was great. I haven’t loved him in movies as much. Although I did enjoy him in Tropic Thunder.
To me he will always be Alan Partridge.
Anyone who can do something this funny can’t be all bad:
There’s a scene in Alan Partridge which makes me laugh so hard I have to pause the DVD. I’ve not laughed so hard at any other show. (It involves him pretending to his gf that a National Trust property is Bono’s house.)
I have no trouble believing he’s a bit of a cunt, but damn I really want to watch some Partridge after reading this thread.
I’d have to add the marvelous 24-Hour Party People, the first thing I can recall him in, and his brief bit with Alfred Molina in the anthology film Coffee and Cigarettes. Both very good, I’m dying to see The Trip.
I know nothing at all about his personal life, but in The Trip, he plays at least a version of himself. He’s shown as trying to deal with the ramifications of his past drug use, and the effect it’s had on his family. I have no idea how true-to-life that is, but it’s certainly implied that it’s true.
I’ve liked some of his stuff that I’ve seen, but not others (Saxondale bored me stiff).
I loved the various Alan Partridge shows. He and whoever else was involved really developed a farcical character into something more poignant.
He’s really funny in The Trip. I haven’t a clue what he’s like in real life but he indicates in The Trip that he’s a bit of a shit.
Alan is also alive and well and making a living for himself on North-Norfolk’s premier digital station.
Muppets and Bill Oddie, what’s not to like?
Oh yes, there’s a bit where they’re talking about all the outpouring of love that would happen when Brydon dies, and what a great eulogy Coogan will give Brydon. When they switch the subjects, it gets awkward because you get the feeling no one will mourn Coogan, and there won’t be much to say on him. It’s played for laughs but it’s a bit poignant too, and I felt that way as someone who knows nothing of his TV work & reputation, only via a few movies.
I haven’t seen 24-Hour Party People yet, a sorry state of affairs considering I like him so much, but I did see Hamlet 2, which TheBoltEater mentioned. I haven’t seen Coffee and Cigarettes either.
He’s pretty much bulletproof over here. Alan Partridge is up there with Hancock, Fawlty Towers, Morecambe and Wise etc in the pantheon of tv comedy. It’s sort of an impossible character for him to escape from, which is a problem - even given that he’s a natural comedian who is funny in a range of roles.
This sounds as if I were convinced that no one would mourn Coogan and there wouldn’t be much to say about him, but I should have clarified. I should add that even as an ignorant American, I did get that Coogan and Brydon aren’t 100% playing themselves in The Trip. In other words, I understood that while The Trip is not a fictional movie, it’s not exactly a documentary either. From what I understand the movie itself is a distillation of a television show. I don’t know enough about either of them to say how close to the truth the characterizations were. Brydon I only know from one viewing of Tristram Shandy, though I’d seen a few other movies he was in but didn’t make note of him, such as Mirrormask, Shaun of the Dead and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. My exposure to Coogan is limited to a few movies as I’ve said.
The Trip seems like an exaggerated version of both, unless Coogan really is a philandering horndog. But, could Brydon be any less nice? I hope not. I liked him a lot. He’s very funny and does great impressions. Brits, is he known as the Really Nice Guy while Coogan is the Selfish Prat? I know Brydon does a better Michael Caine (a 3rd character in the movie because they do so many impressions of him throughout the film). They’re both pretty good at impressions and quips, but Brydon seems to be the better one at impressions, while Coogan seems to be the better one at quips. They complement each other very well. Seems like I’ve been missing out on this generation’s Abbott/Costello, Martin/Lewis, Cook/Moore.
Ok, now I’m wasting time watching clips of The Trip on YouTube. It’s a movie that would drive some people nuts. If scenes like this or scenes like this makes you crazy, you’ll hate it. If it’s funny, you’ll love it, because the whole movie’s like that.
I liked it no matter what, but it really had my heart when they sing Kate Bush! (which just now led me to discover this in the Related Videos! My first exposure to Coogan’s “Alan Partridge” and it’s a parody of Kate. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.)
Worth it for Partridge alone!
As we live in Dundee, we quite often threaten to return home driving barefoot and eating Toblerone.
Saxondale, while similar, just didn’t reach the same heights.
do you drive Lexi?
I’m sorry for your troubles. 
The Japanese Mercedes
I like Coogan. He’s just the right balance of awkward and funny.
I liked the bits from The Trip but I often find his stuff too cringey. I hate cringe comedy. Don’t like Fawlty Towers much for that reason.