The Trip To Italy: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon Q&A

Let’s talk about the impressions… Watching the Michael Buble scene back there’s a massive amount of laughter and that kind of scene is gold, isn’t it? When you were filming it did you think that?

Brydon: Yes! Sometimes you know something is good, but often you’re not aware – but in that one, yeah. I felt like things were landing. It was a great joy making Steve laugh.

Coogan: When I find something funny I laugh, so…

Brydon: [In the voice of Parkinson] I will say that about Steve; when he finds something he funny he will laugh. He’s very strange in that way.

The impressions are almost a fine art…

Brydon: [Laughs] Not really, no!

There are three different impressions of Al Pacino in there – it’s almost like a forensic. Do you spend a lot of time doing them?

Coogan: I don’t. I used to work on Spitting Image and part of me thought it was very Micky Mouse at the time. I wanted to being taken seriously and I was just doing funny voices – but it was a way into the business and it was a very quick way of impressing someone.

If you’re good it only takes twenty seconds for someone to say, ‘Wow, that’s really good’. But I wanted to move away from all that and 20 years ago I went to Edinburgh with a show that was just characters. I wanted to nail that coffin lid down on being an impressionist.

Then 20 years later people didn’t know I’d done Spitting Image so at parties I used to say, ‘I can’t do impressions.’ I like doing it recreationally but I never thought there’d be a way I’d do it on TV again. This is the most post-modern, avant–garde way of doing funny voices.

We’ve got some questions via Twitter… Who does the best impression of the other – Rob doing Steve or Steve doing Rob?

Brydon: He doesn’t do one of me – he said it’s never occurred to him…

Coogan: It’s like saying, ‘Do the bloke next door.’

Did you ever get genuinely annoyed with each other while filming?

Coogan: I got very annoyed with Rob in the car once and I feel a bit guilty about it. Very annoyed, to the point where it wasn’t funny, it was just me being very annoyed. I thought it might be interesting as well with me being nasty to him, but it did just come across as me being nasty. I was in a very serious mood and I thought he was just looking for the joke, and there isn’t anything wrong with that but at the time I was thinking, ‘There’s more than life to comedy.’

Brydon: There isn’t. I think it’s important we remember that. I was cross with him in that Parkinson scene. The reason I go at him so hard is because he called me on something – I’d forgotten to say something, which is so rich coming him because he has the memory of a man with no memory. He sat there and in front of all the crew said something that I thought was a little demeaning – and that was what fuelled that [scene].

Quite seriously, because we’re sort of pushing each other’s buttons, there’s a danger where each of us think, ‘Ooh, did he mean that?’

Coogan: You have to sail close to the wind in order to get something spikier, and if you’re constantly thinking, ‘Don’t say anything he might take offence at’ then you’ll end up with something very bland.

Brydon: I think the second one [The Trip To Italy] was a lot more convivial.

Coogan: In the evening we’d go and have dinner with each other, after we’d had dinner during the day. In the evening the conversation was much more pleasant because we weren’t trying to push each other’s buttons deliberately. It’s like putting two dogs in a confined space and goading them.

I think in The Trip To Italy there are times when you’re having a go at each other – making jokes about being gay – but there’s a bit of love going on there.

Brydon: As it progresses to the end, particularly in the last meal, Michael wanted it to go this way, but I think we’re friendlier than we were in the first one. I think it’s part of getting older and just accepting each other.

Coogan: It’s true – you just get comfortable in your own skin, don’t you? At this age you’re more liberated with who you are. When you’re young you want people to like you all the time.

I’m very comfortable with 20% of people thinking I’m a see you next Tuesday. And being comfortable with who you are – and not trying to people please – means you can be more honest with what you do and you don’t have to tick all those boxes.

Steve; I wanted to ask about the bit in the car where you’re driving quite dangerously…

Coogan: We are. The policemen took me to one side and said, ‘Hey, we’re escorting you and you’re not supposed to be doing stunt driving’. But I thought, ‘Well, by the time they told me off it’d be in the can so it doesn’t really matter, so it did do a bit.

It was like when we did 24 Hour Party People and we shot a scene in Manchester Airport – we didn’t ask for permission. We just got the cast to kick over tables and filmed the security throwing us out – and then put it in the film. It’s kind of guerrilla filming.

If you did do another Trip, where would you go?

Brydon: Sometimes I fluctuate between [another series] being really appealing and thinking, ‘I’d hate people to tire of it.’ But I do think there is some sort of logic to revisiting it.

Coogan: I’m sort of the same as you – also that thing about not caring is… If we did do another, and it did get tiring, that wouldn’t bother me. As long as we’ve got something else to say or it’s got some sort of resonance. I must admit I’m surprised at how well received [The Trip] is. I mean, I like it, it always surprises me how much people like it. It’s quite good. People seem to think it’s really good.

Brydon: When it’s your own stuff, though… I’m always wary of artists’ opinions of their own work. I know so many of my comedian/comic/actor friends who’ve said the thing they’ve done is the best thing they’ve ever done and it’s patently not.

We’re viewing it so differently. We watch a scene, and we know what we were trying to achieve, and how close we got to it – but the people that watch it assume that’s what we wanted to do and it’s exactly what we wanted to do. That’s often not the case, so you have a very odd perspective. So I think when you’ve done [a show] you just have to hand it over and thank God that people like it.

The Trip To Italy is out now on DVD, priced £16.99. Click to buy from Amazon for £12.99.

With thanks to the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle.

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