The Paradox of Steve Coogan: Performing Class in British Film Acting

Abstract

“there shoulD Be a Cull on Posh aCtors.” This is an idea put forward by the English actor Steve Coogan, or to be more accurate, “Steve”: the fictionalized version of himself that he plays in Michael Winterbottom’s television series The Trip to Spain (Sky Atlantic 2017). Steve is listing, grudgingly, the number of old Etonians—former pupils of the exclusive and ancient English private school— taking lead roles in British and Hollywood film and television. Steve’s list includes actors such as Eddie Redmayne, Damien Lewis, and Tom Hiddleston and could also include, among others, Hugh Laurie and Dominic West. (Another British A-lister, Benedict Cumberbatch, attended Eton’s rival school, Harrow.) At a later point in the same series, Steve, speaking on the phone to his agent, rails against the idea that some other actor might take the role in a new film he has written for himself: for example, “Tom Hoddleston [sic]” or, as Steve then puts it, “some other posh twat.” While this outburst is technically coming from Steve, Coogan himself offers similar opinions in his 2015 autobiography, Easily Distracted. Here, one finds frequent references to the types of actors from whom Coogan distinguishes himself and whom he also perceives as having an unfair advantage in the screen-acting marketplace. Early on in his career, Coogan tells us, he came “into contact with an endless stream of people who were uber-confident and educated at Britain’s finest universities,” while Coogan himself was a “kid from a Manchester suburb who had failed English O-level not once, but twice” (18). Coogan’s self-narrative paints a picture of failed access to prestigious London drama schools such as the Central School of Speech and Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, both breeding grounds for future stage and screen stars. Although he secured a place in the theater course at what was then Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester Metropolitan University), Coogan still claims to have been out of place, given that he did not “know anyone at the BBC,” and adds that he had not “been to fucking finishing school” but was “state-educated” (238–39). Despite this apparent adversity, Coogan has gone on to achieve household-name status in the UK and a degree of international celebrity as a movie actor, starring in films such as Around the World in 80 Days (Frank Coraci, 2004), Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller, 2008), and, in his recent critically praised turn as Stan Laurel, Stan and Ollie (Jon S. Baird, 2018). Like the latter film, his various collaborations elsewhere with Michael Winterbottom have been characterized by performances of real-life figures: from Factory Records founder Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People (2002) to London erotica The Paradox of Steve Coogan: Performing Class in British Film Acting