Steve Coogan

If you do something very successful, you will then be defined by it.

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.

I used to do stuff at college. I could do voices. I could make some people laugh. I wasn't the class clown, but I knew I had this skill.

I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being 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.

I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy. Making people laugh one moment and the next making them feel really uncomfortable.

I don't think there's anything outside what comedy can address.

I don't like comedy that I think is bad comedy, where people are trying to be sick for the sake of it, where there's no intellectual point behind it. I like stuff that's got an underlying point of view.

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.

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

There's something quite joyful about doing comedy which doesn't really need much analysis. I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.