Interview from GQ Magazine.

October 1995.

COUPLE OF YEARS ago, Steve was booked into a hotel with this girl," says John Thomson, actor, aka Fat Bob, aka Bernard Right-On. "I rang up pretending to be the duty manager of the hotel, and said company policy was to pay for your guest: I've taken the money off your credit card, but if you make sure the girl leaves in the next hour, we will refund you. Steve blew a fuse and went down to give the bemused duty manager an earful." After ten minutes of this, one of the hotel staff handed Steve a fax. It had one word on it, "sucker". The fax was sent by Patrick Marber. "You hear stories of birds and coke and stuff. But Steve's not a rock'n'roll type of comic," says Marber, playwright, comedian and co-creator of Alan Partridge, one bfCoogan's best-known comedy personae. And on first meeting him, you'd probably agree.

"What's the weakest lager you do?" Coogan asks the drinks waiter. He gets his drink and settles down. A sip later and he's back on his feet, striding towards the bar. Having sorted out the waiter, he returns with a mineral water. "That was 5.1 per cent," he says, outraged. But then it's been a tough day -indeed a tough year. Things are happening quickly for Coogan. He's recently gone through a traumatic change of agents. He's moved in to a London flat with his solicitor girl- friend Anna, after a protracted and stress-ridden period ofindecision- "Erm. I just kept having affairs." Today he's been casting extras for his new series, Coogans Run. Then there are scripts to be read from the five other writers involved (Coogan likes to edit all the scripts). There are budgets. There are wardrobe details to sort out ("He's got a lot to say on set; he can't stand an OTT comedy wardrobe," says a set hand). Details, details. Perhaps it's not surprising that Coogan likes to remain in control- of everything.

Actually, some people are getting a bit worried about him. "The pressure he's under. ..he's doing awfully well to keep his head together," says Andy Harries, con- troller of entertainment and comedy at Granada TV: "He's going to be the Peter Sellers of the Nineties. But he's better than Sellers 'cos he writes -Sellers didn't."

Harries should know. He owns the rights to An Evening with Gary Lineker, "found" Lee Evans, pro- duced Rik Mayall Presents and The Mrs Merton Show, and was one of the first people to spot Coogan's talent. He produced his first TV pilot, The Dead Good Show. It didn't get picked up and Coogan eventually went to the BBC. "There aren't many nusery slopes at ITV for comics. I had him and he slipped through my hands. I couldn't believe my luck though: I had three of todays most talented comedy people gathered together. The other two were Caroline Hook (who played elderly chat show host Mrs Merton and is married to Peter Hook, New Orders Viking rock - god bass player) and John Thomson, who appears in two shows of the new series. "I think you'll find Steve a bit sullen at the moment. A bit. ..morose," says Thomson, a friend of Coogan's since drama school at Manchester Poly. "He's a workaholic, a driven man." Coogan's Run is his most ambitious project to date. Each show is a short film shot on location. Alan Partridge is "resting" at the moment, although there are plans for a Christmas special: Knowing Me, Knowing Yule. (Ah-hah.) Paul Calf and his super-slapper of a sister, Pauline, are the only tried-and-tested characters in the series, back in Get Ca{f; in which professional Northern film baddie George Costigan is out to get Paul. The rest are new, and form a fascinating window into Coogan & Co's view of little England. Pub singer Mike Crystal and slimy salesman Gareth Cheeseman are written by Linehan and Mathews, the duo behind the bog-Irish humour of Father Ted. There's Stuart and Guy, a pair of trivia quiz dorks. Then there's Ernest Moss, handyman, and his silent son Robin ("strong as an ox: mind of a child"), played by John Thomson. Finally, there's The Curator, a strange creation ofMarber's. He lives with his mother and runs the museum in Little Ottle -"Not the big museum in Ottle, you understand, but the little museum in Little Ottle - Little Ottle Museum."

Coogan is in a unique position. He is one of Britain's most successful young comedians, yet he can walk through Piccadilly Circus and into London's Atlantic Bar & Grill without stopping traffic or anyone doing a double-take. His face could be anyone of a number of characters, depending on the angle you catch him at, and his voice fluctuates from Received Pronunciation to Mancunian (when he gets excited, it veers towards the white-stiletto staccato of Pauline Calf). The only attempt at disguise he admits to is "wearing my glasses rather more often than I should. I really only need them for watching TV and driving. Success is hard to control, however, as Coogan has found to his cost. After certain dalliances with the press, he's ended up burnt: "1 was trying to cook up stories and it kind of worked, but now I mistrust the tabloids. A while ago, I was seeing this girl, and they door stepped her. I resented the fact that someone else was being intruded upon. Now I try and keep my distance. In December 1994, the Sun ran a feature -"20 Things Worth Knowing About Alan Partridge Star" .I try a quick run-through. How about number fourteen? "Steve's student-hating character Paul Calf was banned from drinking Heineken lager. ..because they didn't want to be associated with the drunken yob image he portrays:'
"Cobblers," says Coogan. "That was cooked up by the PR. They rang up Heineken and said, 'What do you think about Paul Calf being drunk on your stuff?' They sd, 'Well, we're not pleased:"
OK, try number fifteen: "He was so convincing as Paul Calf. ..that a police officer stopped and breath-tested him as he drove home from the studio. ..Luckily, Steve saw the funny side:'
"Yeah, that was a complete invention too," Coogan admits - although as Thomson says: "He's always getting done for speeding:' "It's a peculiarly British thing, to build people up and chisel them down again," says Coogan. "I'm up for four BAFTAs. If l get any of , em, it's gonna be a bit of a red rag to a bull:' (Actually, Coogan's camp only won one, for the David Tyler/Geoff Posner-produced Three Fights, Two Weddings and a Funeral.) "It was a bit of a BAFTA-free evening," Coogan later comments in his best Alan Partridge tones.

"Steve hasn't rushed into doing work just because he can," Patrick Marber says. "He could become a media personality -a lot of people want a piece of him -but he doesn't want to appear on panel shows:' Coogan isn't a Frank Skinner or a Lee Evans, or any comedian whose act is loosely based upon themselves. In fact, Coogan isn't

really a comedian. He's a character actor. He doesn't tell jokes: his characters are the jokes. " Actually, I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that;' he says. "I want to be taken seriously as an actor. I think most people see comedy as less worthy than straight drama. Because it's funny, and you're laughing at it, people think it's therefore trivial.
"I hate lazy comedy. I hate the fact that Del Boy drives a Reliant Robin. That irritates me, the obvious comedy choice. That dickheads drive three-wheelers. That square, unhip people come from Milton Keynes. Obvious choices aren't funny. They're just. ..not. ..funny."

Coogan spends his life wrapped up in wigs, latex and make-up. His characters have become the celebrities. He says they "occupy his body" and they can even fool people who know him. Harries remembers going up to see Coogan doing a small benefit in a Manchester pub. He hadn't seen Paul Calf before. "Steve and I had a few beers, then he just dis- appeared. I was feeling a real spare part in this pub, a real Southern softy. Suddenly this guy careers into me and knocks beer all over me. Just my luck, I thought, a real Manchester drunk. This went on for ten minutes, he was threatening and mumbling something about a bag 0' shite. Yes, it was Steve, and no, I didn't have a clue:'
Coogan picks up a music magazine at the bar. As a gin1mick, it has devoted its centre pages to eight life-size faces of celebrities for its readers to cut out and wear as masks. Among Michael Stipe, PJ Harvey and Snoop Doggy Dog beams Alan Partridge. "Hummm. .." Coogan analyses it closely. "Shit, look at that." He's been pointing out the latex wrinkles which transform him from boyish 29-year-old into 40-year-old Alan Partridge. Suddenly he notices the remains of a poorly-shaved goatee which bristles from I below his or Alan's -lower lip. Alan Partridge doesn't have a goatee. "And you can see the glue from the wig." He's not happy. For Coogan, details are everything.

When Steve Coogan was very young, he used to record Montypython, Fawlty Towers and Ripping Yarns with a hand-held microphone, placed close to the family Tv: He says he was "obsessed with comedy, and seeing how it worked". He analysed how sketches were put together. He didn't actually learn the lines, but they sunk in, and he'd repeat them, performing for his family and friends. "I can still quote python better than the last Paul Calf I did." What really pissed him off was when someone else tried to do it and they missed a line, a nuance. ..a detail.
He was accepted by Manchester Polytechnic after being short-listed and getting the knock-back from three London drama schools ("My dad was so proud of my RADA rejection letter he copied it to show to his mates"). At Manchester, he met John Thomson, who says of the time: "I was in my first year, Steve was in his third. I heard he did impressions, and so did I. Eventually we met up, and there was a kind of 'who-do-you-do'stand-off'."
Thomson and Coogan are both able to fool each other with their impressionist ability. "I was oh Radio 5's Hit the North, taking off Anthony H Wilson," says Thomson. "I said something like, 'There's no drug problem at the Hacienda (SNIFFFF)'. Then Steve phoned up the programme as Tony Wilson and said, 'That's libellous -I'm going to sue'." I was really worried. I was talking to Steve about it later, and he just grinned at me and said, 'Hmmmm. How many impressionists do you know?"' The Parrs' Wood pub opposite their college was the inspiration for Paul Calf. " Although students drank in there with their long coats and scarves, it was full of all these tough, anti-student men;' remembers Thomson. Coogan watched them and thought, 'One day, I'll take this character and dress him up, put a wig on him and do him as a stand-up.'
"I started doing impressions to get an Equity card," explains Coogan. "I started getting offered a lot of work. I got offered television shows when I was still at drama school and I thought, 'I'll go for this comic thing, pursue it to the nth degree and try and get back into acting'."
"Steve has always had a strong instinct about what's right for him;' says Andy Harries. "That's why he switched out of impressions -where he could make a lot of money -to something with more of a future."
And it was a lot of money, especially to an ex-drama student fresh from college. "I was getting £1,000 a night, doing stand-up and impressions -corporate work." Coogan even did the observation rounds on the Krypton Factor, where he would impersonate Bob 2'40