Who is Steve Coogan? You may not know the name but you know the face. And if you DO know the name, you're probably a huge fan. Coogan became a household name in the U.K. with a series of TV roles including the legendary Alan Partridge and then broke through in the States with his brilliant performance in Michael Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People". Since then, Coogan has given great performances in big movies ("A Night at the Museum", "Marie Antoinette") and small ones ("Coffee and Cigarettes", "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story"). This month alone sees one of each for Coogan with a small role in the #1 movie in the country, "Tropic Thunder", and a huge one in the Sundance smash comedy "Hamlet 2", opening this Friday. Coogan recently made his way through Chicago and The Deadbolt was there to listen to the talented comedian speak on experimental comedy, who inspired him, and what fascinates him about Americans

When did you first get interested in performing and who or what were the things that helped to inspire you?

STEVE COOGAN: The first time that I became interested in it was as a kid. I was growing up in Manchester and before cable and VCR's, there were television shows that I would watch and I would record with audiocassette recorders. I would point the microphone at the TV just to get the audio and that was exciting enough by itself, especially when it was one of your favorite shows and you could relive some of those moments. There was also a lot of comedy on vinyl in those days and I would listen to stuff like that--Monty Python would be one of the obvious things but there were also older British comedy like Tony Hancock and the Goons and some more modern comedy like the TV show "Not the Nine O'Clock News." There was also some American stuff that was before my time but that my father had like Shelly Berman and Bob Newhart and Mel Brooks & Carl Reiner--that kind of stuff. I was kind of like a comedy nerd and that is what got me interested.

I came from a big family and while we weren't like couch potatoes, we would have some appointment viewing. If it was a good comedy show, the whole family would sit down and watch it and it would be like an event because if you didn't watch the show then, you were never going to get another chance to see it, so you had to watch it when it was broadcast. I have fond memories of comedy being like this event that brought people together--it was like this celebration of sorts--and I really liked that laughter. Oftentimes, people would be trying to describe the show that had been on TV the night before and I would mimic my favorite parts--they would try to describe the show and I would get annoyed because they were getting the details wrong in their descriptions. I would try to give an accurate rendition of what I had seen the night before. While I was doing this, I would enjoy watching a third party laughing at something for the first time at something that I was very familiar with--I would get a kick out of that because it was like reliving it vicariously.

I was never interested in sports and I was never that competitive. I was into creating and escaping into my own head and comedy was a part of that.

I don't know a lot about your early beginnings of what you were doing, comedy-wise, and in the film, Dana has his struggles with bit parts and commercials and he has to struggle the idea of if you are making art and it is just for a couple of kids in a high school class, what is the value of that? Unless I am getting too philosophical, was that an attraction to the role for you?

COOGAN: I was fortunate in that I was in a theater group before I went to drama school where we performed in front of next to nobody and I have been to festivals with my comedy shows where there were very small audiences but it has never happened that frequently. I have been pretty lucky but it isn't a good feeling when you experience that. What attracted me to the part is that it was just a funny character who was vulnerable. In the past, I have played very dislikable characters because I have been attracted to playing dysfunctional people because they were more interesting--it is more of a challenge to play someone who is dysfunctional and odd and different and still make the audience care about them. This character was quite naïve and foolish and I was attracted to the idea of doing a character that the audience really has to root for and care about what happens to him--not the kind of goofball funny stuff.

To me, it was about making the emotional truth work through all of the gags so that this guy is trying to do something that the audience can invest in. There is a kind of serious point to it, that arts and creativity are important even thought they are usually a poor third relation to sports and science in schools. People who aren't creative often don't understand what art is or what the point of it is--you can't point to a spreadsheet that tells you why art is important--and so people don't get it. It is important and it is unquantifiable in a world where everything has to be quantifiable. It doesn't always get the kind of profile or priority that it should and while this is a comedy, it does have a kind of serious point that is about arts funding and fostering a society that values people being creative.

You said at a screening last night that playing Dana as an American was more freeing because a Brit wouldn't have been that demonstrative. What is it about Americans that fascinates you and how did you incorporate that into the freedom of Dana?

COOGAN: I don't think it is necessarily all Americans, although I think that as a generalization, Americans are less repressed than British people because most Americans came from somewhere else not so long ago--there is this kind of inherent adventurousness to them while Brits have been there for about a thousand years and are naturally more reserved. On the West Coast of California, you have therapy junkies with the constant desire to deconstruct themselves and I think they take it to a level that makes people insane while the British could stand to do more of that because they don't talk about anything. There is something about that kind of wearing your heart on your sleeve and being emotionally open which is funny and recognizable and interesting to play because it is more interesting for an actor to play someone who is concealing the way that they feel.

Someone who is very literal in what they say and out there and open--it is difficult to make that interesting and it can be quite irritating--how do you make that interesting or make a character who is that big and demonstrative without making it look like an over-the-top performance. I don't think that it is an over-the-top performance because I have met people like him and they are real but it can look like that. I wanted to make sure that it worked well with the other characters in the movie that are more grounded. It was a challenge and I don't think that you could play a character like that as British.

Despite those underpinnings, this is a very broad kind of part in terms of the comedy and it is very different from the stuff you have done in the past like Coffee and Cigarettes or your collaborations with Michael Winterbottom, where the humor is more subtle and esoteric. Do you approach the two forms in different ways and do you have a preference for one particular approach over the other in general?

COOGAN: I like it all. I like variety. If there is one thing that I like, it is not repeating myself and in some ways, it is not a very good way to advance your career. If you keep moving around too much, the media doesn't like it because they don't know who the fuck you are or what you are trying to represent and so they can't pigeonhole you. The studios don't like it because they can't sell you as the guy who does this thing. I like to do different things just because it satisfies me and I like it creatively. I am doing a live tour in the fall in Britain where I do a bunch of different characters and it will be broad and I will have to jettison a lot of the little nuances because I'm performing in front of 2000 people and if I raise my eyebrow, that is not going to register.

I have to make 2000 people laugh at the same time and so I have to make the characters I do less subtle and more caricatured so that it becomes more like vaudeville. That is a very conscious thing I am doing--it isn't that I have suddenly lost my subtlety because I am doing these broad gags--and I appreciate that craftsmanship as much as anything. When I was growing up, I liked esoteric comedy and I liked the big and broad kind of traditional workingman's club comedy that we had as well--as long as it was funny, it didn't matter to me if it was accessible or not. There is dumb accessible comedy and intelligent broad comedy and I want to do the intelligent broad comedy.

In terms of doing different stuff, I love the stuff I have done with Michael Winterbottom--I'm doing another movie with him soon--and I love the fact that we really push the envelope in doing stuff that is unorthodox. I did a series in England called The Day Today that was this cult underground TV show that that didn't get many viewers but which was absolutely loved by a lot of the cult-type audience. I really liked being a part of that but I don't underestimate the skill required to do a big and broad show. With 2000 people who have varying tastes--my audience has frat boys with cans of beer in their hand and has what I call the "chin-scratchers"--the broadsheet newspaper readers who are looking to get their brains challenged--and I move around so much that I manage to spin both those plates. Sometimes I'll do a joke that I know only 20% of the audience is going to get--I'll throw them that bone and in a way, it is like I am doing that for myself to say "I'm still here--now for some more broad stuff that we can all laugh at that is dumb but fun."

Sometimes it cuts both ways. I did this series called "Saxondale" on the BBC that I was very proud of--it was very subtle and it was saying something and there was an intention behind it that was making a statement about disillusionment in baby boomers with the modern world. For some of the people who like my broader comedy, the show irritated them and it irritated them that I was trying to be funny and intellectual and conversely, the people who loved that stuff would see my stage show and wonder "Why is he doing these broad characters instead of the subtle stuff that we liked on the radio?" If you do subtle stuff in front of 2000 people, you will hear a lot of shuffling of feet and the occasional nod of approval. 2000 people nodding sagely is not going to help me do a live comedy show, so it can be kind of a struggle.

It seems that a lot of the film work that I have seen from you has a sort of fascination with layers of reality, whether it is stripping them away or adding them on--"24 Hour Party People" was about a real person and your bit in Coffee & Cigarettes had the feel of cinema verite.

COOGAN: That is the stuff that I would put under experimental but I like doing it. I think that when you do stuff that is properly creative like that and you are really trying to do something different, you have to do things where you are really risking falling on your face and making a fool of yourself. You have to genuinely risk that because just playing yourself in some kind of narrative can look very self-indulgent if done badly--"Hey, look at me--I'm laughing at myself. I must be really cool"--and I don't want to do that.

I want to do something where I am really playing with the audience and doing something so unpleasant that I am almost daring them not to care. I think there is something valid and interesting in doing that because the audience is then thinking "Is this supposed to be who he really is?" It has to have some resonance with other people because an abstract self-portrait might be pretty meaningless to a lot of people. If you feel that there is an inherent risk in doing something, that can be a good sign and if you do it right, it can be quite interesting.

There was one thing that I wasn't sure about in the movie and I wanted to know your take. In regards to the writing of the play, do you think that Dana gets it? For example, the idea that Jesus actually has to be sexy in order to market himself in the modern age--that is actually a good point.

COOGAN: I don't think he gets it. I think he is someone who is purely instinctive and not greatly intellectual. It is the kids that pull meaning out of it and I think that is entirely plausible. Look at a really raw rock band who are not particularly talented at playing their instruments but who manage to pump out some song that becomes iconic that everyone loves. The melody might not be very strong but it is done with a certain chutzpah and it is executed in such a way that people think "What a good song" even though they don't know why. That doesn't make it invalid or unbelievable and therefore, I just about buy the play that he writes.

I wanted to ask you about the other movie coming out this summer that you appear in, the Ben Stiller Hollywood satire "Tropic Thunder," in which you play the director of a big-budget war film whose authority is constantly being undermined by the spoiled actors that have been hired. The film is actually a good example of the kind of smart broad comedy that we discussed earlier and I was wondering if you could talk about the approach that you took on that one.

COOGAN: There are a lot of people in the industry from England who have paid for their education and who have a certain sense of confidence--they can talk the talk but they can't walk the walk. As such, they can sometimes make some headway in America because they know how to sort of bamboozle Americans until it is too late and they have already been given the money. That to me was a very real way of doing that character--someone who had talked his way into a situation where he was out of his depth--and that was how I played it. He was someone who was trying to maintain a sense of British dignity but who was dealing with bottom-line money men from another planet.

Tropic Thunder is in theaters now and Hamlet 2 opens this Friday.