Steve Coogan features

[Miguel Wilkins]

'The Penguin Lessons' Offers a Chance To Extol the Many Virtues of Steve Coogan
The comedian and actor was nominated for an Oscar as a screenwriter on Stephen Frears's 'Philomena,' but to this critic's lights he has been conspicuously overlooked by the Academy.
Mar. 25, 2025
nysun.com

On the release of Peter Cattaneo's "The Penguin Lessons," let me take a moment to extol the virtues of a comedian and actor, Steve Coogan. Mr. Coogan's career continues full bore, and he was nominated for an Oscar as a screenwriter on Stephen Frears's "Philomena" (2013), but to this critic's lights he was, if not forever snubbed by the Academy, then conspicuously overlooked.

How on earth did its members miss Mr. Coogan's turn as Stan Laurel in John S. Baird's "Stan and Ollie" (2018)? The movie was, in many regards, a boilerplate biopic, but Mr. Coogan did more than exact an impersonation of a beloved comedian. He embodied Laurel with an uncanny, almost scarifying verisimilitude. Retrospect will be kinder to Mr. Coogan than were the panjandrums of Hollywood. It was a great performance.

Mr. Coogan is splendid and sometimes moving in "The Penguin Lessons," though his performance isn't as ambitious. Playing a middle-aged Englishman for whom cynicism is a default mode, the actor coasts on the readymade strength of tart comedic chops. We recognize Mr. Coogan the performer even as he plays a fictional character, in this case Tom Michel, a bedragged teacher of English at a ritzy Buenos Aires boarding school.

Mr. Coogan's character is a cinematic version of a real-life Tom Michel, the author of a 2016 memoir, "The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned From A Remarkable Bird." The book detailed the time Mr. Michel spent in a country beset by political turmoil — the early 1970s and the so-called Dirty War. A military coup and its subsequent abuses serve as a backdrop for a feel-good dramedy about a wise-cracking Briton who rediscovers his moral center and, with that, an enthusiasm for life. It is an ill-fitting congruence.

"The Penguin Lessons" is unapologetic hokum crafted with workmanlike diligence. Mr. Cattaneo is likely best known for directing "The Full Monty" (1997), and there's a similar strain of emotional button-pushing at the core of "The Penguin Lessons." After the Argentinian government has been overturned by the military, our hero goes to Uruguay in the hopes of bedding a comely señorita or two. Instead, he ends up saving a penguin from the debris left behind from an oil spill. Through a series of we-saw-it-coming plot developments, Michel regains his humanity thanks to a cute little bird.

And, damn it, penguins are cute: Even the most hard-hearted among us will cede our standards when the so-called Juan Salvador waddles across the screen. Mr. Cattaneo and editors Robin Peters and Tariq Anwar shamelessly tweak the tricks-of-their-trade in order to anthropomorphize a penguin.

Walt Disney couldn't have done it better, but Uncle Walt would've known that there are better backdrops for a light-hearted morality tale than a country turned asunder by duplicity, kidnapping, torture, and murder. As it is, "The Penguin Lessons" is either a children's movie employing inappropriate means or an adult movie of rank sentimentality.

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The Penguin Lessons review – the bird's the best bit

Carsten Knox via Halifax Bloggers

This is one of those sweet stories aimed at an older audience where its curmudgeonly lead character has to face up to an unresolved trauma and troubling current affairs. It's all going to make him a better person, which is underlined further by his kindness to an unorthodox pet.

In this case, it's a penguin. It's hard to believe this is based on a true story, or even that anyone thought this would make a truly satisfying movie, but here it is — existing. Holding it entirely on his shoulders is Steve Coogan, delivering yet another charming misanthrope/aging lothario to add to his collection.

He's Tom Michell, an English teacher arriving in troubled Argentina in the mid-1970s. The country's on the verge of a brutal military coup and he's just arrived to teach English to local toffee-nosed brats, under the aegis of Jonathan Pryce's schoolmaster.

Michell's not particularly interested in his job anyway, and instead takes a few days off out of the country, avoiding the military violence and going to a nightclub in Uruguay with a Finnish colleague (Björn Gustafsson). He comes back to Argentina with the flightless waterfowl in tow, having rescued it from an oil slick on the beach.

What up to that point had felt like a listless historical dramedy suddenly becomes an unorthodox funny-animal movie — and that's easily the best part. The bird is inexpressive but cute. It has a gift for seducing everyone it comes into contact with, not something you could say about Michell.

What doesn't work is any attempt to plumb Michell's tragic history or the country's socio-political stakes. Not much about this film convinces as the mid-1970s, nor does it succeed in delivering the kind of dread anyone would feel living under a military junta. Michell becomes friendly with his maid and her daughter (Vivian El Jaber and Alfonsina Carrocio), but their cross-cultural emotional connection doesn't convince, either.

The Penguin Lessons has the bad luck of coming out within recent memory of I'm Still Here, with which it shares an era and a setting — a South American country under right wing oppression in the '70s. The earlier film simply does everything so much better than this one. Not to mention, the last thing we need is another story of a white dude dealing with his bullshit while local activists are "disappeared." This isn't The Year of Living Dangerously or Salvador, not even close to as good, nor is it as nuanced as the recent Red Island and its examination of the colonial hangover.

In conclusion, the stuff with the bird is charming, and Coogan can play this kind of character in his sleep — if you need to see one movie this year about a man and his friendship with a penguin, this should be it. Everything else is dire.

[SteveCooganFan]

More 'Penguin' promotion

Coogan chatting about 'The Penguin Lessons'

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Stroking your penguin is NOT, I repeat NOT, a euphemism.

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Steve Coogan Shines in Uplifting Dramedy 'The Penguin Lessons'

Director Peter Cattaneo's cinematic adaptation of the Tom Michell memoir, The Penguin Lessons, is a fluffy-yet-fun meditation on the power of relationships ... human and otherwise.  

Based on Michell's actual experiences while teaching English at an Argentinian boarding school in the 1970s, the picture begins by establishing him as a naïve and troubled man. Michell (played deliciously by Steve Coogan) enters Argentina apparently unaware of the nation's significant political turmoil. He is introduced to his job by the sound of a distant explosion and an armed guard mistaking him for a political dissident. Once he extracts himself from the dicey situation, Michell is informed by the school headmaster (Jonathan Pryce) that the nation is on the verge of a military coup.

Michell is concerned, but the headmaster assures him that the school steers clear of politics because its students come from some of the nation's most affluent families. The rocky beginning would have derailed some, but Michell is packing a good deal of self-loathing, so he plans to ride out the job, doing as little as possible with a difficult group of students. Alas, a weekend trip to Uruguay changes everything.

Hoping to impress a local woman, he rescues a penguin from an oil slick. Michell doesn't get the girl, but the freshly cleaned penguin refuses to leave his side when they return to the beach, so he reluctantly brings the bird to his school, despite the fact that teachers are not allowed pets.

At first, Michell keeps the penguin secret, but it isn't long before others in the community discover its presence. These include a friend and fellow teacher (Björn Gustafsson), the school caretaker (Vivian El Jaber), and her daughter Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio). They all love the penguin, and – grudgingly – Michell finds himself doing the same, naming it Juan Salvador.

As the characters and animal bond, director Peter Cattaneo skilfully weaves the political turmoil of Argentina into the plot, which boils over when a key figure is unfairly arrested by the militarized government. The film then dances between politics, Michell's efforts in the classroom, and his increasingly close relationship with Juan Salvador. As one might expect given the film's title, the penguin's loyalty and love slowly transforms Michell's outlook on life.

Coogan is particularly good playing grumpy-but-lovable oafs, and he is wonderful throughout. The strong supporting cast doesn't get nearly as much time as Coogan, and it's disappointing to see Pryce so painfully underutilized. But The Penguin Lessons isn't the headmaster's story, so the artistic choice makes sense.

This is a charming film that feels at home next to The Full Monty, which remains Cattaneo's best-known work. I don't expect ThePenguin Lessons to supplant that effort, but its sweet, simple nature should make it a favorite for those who appreciate understated dramedies that pack an uplifting message.

Considering how straightforward the picture is, the 110-minute run is excessive, and there are sequences that Cattaneo could have cut in favor of better establishing the film's background characters. Still, the strengths outweigh the flaws, and The Penguin Lessons reminds us that kindness and love can be found even in dark places, a message that's always worth embracing.

Forrest Hartman is Highbrow Magazine's chief film critic.

via Highbrow Magazine

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Steve Coogan talks The Penguin Lessons, Judi Dench and Alan Partridge
Steve Coogan is hoping audiences lose some of their cynicism after seeing The Penguin Lessons.

The upcoming film, set in 1976 Argentina and based on a true story, stars Steve as Tom Michell – a disillusioned English teacher who rescues an oil-covered Magellanic penguin.

And amidst the country's political upheaval, the penguin sparks a transformative journey for Tom...

Ultimately, The Penguin Lessons is like Dead Poets Society meets Mr Popper's Penguins meets Rojo.

Directed by Peter Cattaneo and based on Tom Michell's 2015 memoir of the same name, The Penguin Lessons hits Australian cinemas on April 17, 2025.

But ahead of its release, The Weekly sat down with Steve to chat about all things penguins, Judi Dench and Alan Partridge.

Read our full interview with Steve Coogan, star of The Penguin Lessons, below.

The Weekly: The memoir subtly touches on Argentina's political turmoil in the 1970s. How did you and Peter Cattaneo go about balancing this historical backdrop with the lighter, more personal elements of Tom's story in the film?
Steve:  Well, there are lighter touches to this film, but it is dealing with this difficult subject matter. And in actual fact, that was the challenge: to get the tone right.

You know, penguins are very cute and cuddly and make you laugh because they walk in a funny way... So, obviously that makes everything a lot of fun. But there is a serious backdrop to the story.

And so, the challenge for us was when to make things humorous and when to let them breathe, and let people think about things and let them contemplate the sort of poignancy and sadness of the situation in Argentina at that time.

But in some ways, the penguin is what makes it easy to talk about those things. It's sort of a paradox.

The penguin is cute and cuddly. Fascism is quite spiky. But the two together I think, help each other... The penguin is sort of a lightning rod for all these different issues.

Of course, we had to make sure we weren't trivialising this difficult period by having a penguin story in it.

But the fact of the matter is the real Tom Michell did rescue a penguin from an oil slick in 1976, just at the time of the military coup in Argentina – that led to lots of human rights violations, lots of murders, people disappearing, [people being] tortured, and [an] incredibly repressive, wicked regime in Argentina.

We felt that we needed to incorporate that story more into the film. And tell people a little bit about it; this is not just a cuddly penguin film.

There are cuddly penguin elements to it. But it's really about a real world situation with real people who are affected by real events.

It is also about a man who is selfish and narcissistic, [and] disengaged with the world. He doesn't like penguins, doesn't like children, and he is a teacher!

He's a cynic, and it is quite easy to be cynical about the world; certainly at the moment, with what's going on.

We wanted to [tell the story] of someone who rediscovers engaging with the world and that trying to find the good in people is a worthwhile endeavour.

Did you read the memoir in preparation for the role? If so, were there any key scenes that you felt were particularly important to preserve in the film?
I did read the book after [screenwriter] Jeff Pope told me about it.

He'd written the screenplay – I've worked a lot with Jeff in the past; we wrote several films together. This though, he wrote on his own – and he showed it to me and asked me if I might be interested in playing Tom Michell. So, I familiarised myself with [the memoir].

We kept a lot of Tom's story in it. Of him rescuing the penguin and rehabilitating it, and not being quite sure what to do about it and not quite sure where to take it.

Essentially, he accidentally adopted the penguin, which is what we portrayed in the film.

And in terms of the story of the penguin at the school, it was fairly faithful to Tom's story.

But the political situation in Argentina at that time, we sort of brought that to the fore, made that part fold, made that part of the drama. Because it was such a significant event, or series of events in Argentina's history that it felt wrong to ignore it and not make it part of the story.

Also, in reality, Tom Michell is a very decent bloke and he was [a decent bloke] when he rescued the penguin; right through that whole period, he didn't change really.

He was affected by his time with the penguin, and it opened his eyes to better ways to teach and relate to people; relate to the pupils. But he didn't have any kind of an epiphany, in the way the film [version of] Tom Michell does.

In the film, we made Tom far less sympathetic than the real Tom Michell; we made him a cynic. Someone who was disillusioned and disengaged. Because we wanted him to go on a journey where the penguin opens his eyes and he loses that cynicism.

We also invented a backstory about his past that describes and mitigates his behaviour, and [explains] why he is so disengaged from the world.

So, yeah, there's a lot of artistic license in it. There's no doubt about that.

But Jeff does that; when you turn something into a story, something that's based on reality, it becomes a hybrid, where you introduce fiction to make the story more dynamic and more interesting. It's not a documentary.

Did you meet the real Tom Michell at all while preparing to play him?
 No, I didn't meet the real Tom Michell.

He came along when we were shooting it, and we met and talked, um, but it wasn't – I've played about 12 real people in my career on screen and on television.

And, if someone who is public and the audience have a very fixed idea of who that person is in their head, then, of course, I need to faithfully adhere to that as much as possible; I need to sort of acknowledge those people who do know the person I'm portraying.

But with Tom Michell, there is no public perception on who Tom is; apart from his book, he's not a well-known figure. So, we didn't feel like we were encumbered by some towering presence that was fixed in an audience's mind, so, we made him like me.

So, did I meet him beforehand? Uh, no. Simple answer.

What was it like acting alongside a penguin? Were there any unexpected challenges or memorable moments during filming?
 Well, in actual fact, the whole experience of working with penguins was very different from how I imagined it would be.

There's an old adage in show business; WC Fields said, 'Don't work with children or animals.'

But I worked with both of them, as did Peter, and Jonathan Pryce, and everyone else in the film.

So, I anticipated that it might be a little chaotic, and would require application and concentration and all those things.

But the reverse was true because an inadvertent consequence of animal welfare is that, when you're on set, you have to be very quiet and not make loud noises that will cause distress to the penguin.

Everything has to be calm and no antagonism or arguments or things that are notice of negativity, if you like. It meant that people were quiet, and therefore, the atmosphere on set became very serene and calm.

The penguin wouldn't always do what you wanted, but you just had to have patience.

So yeah, it was far more zen than I'd expected it to be.

And funny moments, well, you know, penguins go to the toilet a lot. And so, someone has to follow around the penguin, just basically cleaning up his shit. But you just get used to it.

And people think penguins smell, they don't actually smell at all! They're quite interesting to watch and be alongside.

Every morning I'd go up to them, with my coffee, and talk to them so they could hear my voice. I picked them up, petted them and made them familiar with me, so that they feel comfortable around me and I feel comfortable around them.

So, the entire process was quite enjoyable for me. I'm not squeamish but the penguin only went to the toilet on me once in two months. Which I think is testament to how much respect the penguin had for me as a professional.

While known for your comedic work, you've taken on more dramatic roles in recent years. What motivated this genre swap, and how do you shift between comedic and dramatic roles?

 It was deliberate. I didn't want to just do comedy. I trained as an actor years ago, 35 or more, crikey, uh, nearly 40 years ago; I went to drama school and I got sort of sidetracked into comedy because that's where the work was.

So, I started doing stand up comedy and thought, 'Well, one day I'll try and try and get back to doing what I originally wanted to do.'

And I've just been sort of spending the last 30+ years, slowly weaving my way, circuitously back to being able to just play characters and disappear into roles.

I became a writer as well. I mean, the first dramatic role I did was a role opposite Judi Dench, in a film called Philomena, that I wrote with Jeff Pope. And I didn't particularly want to be a writer, but I thought, 'Well, no one's gonna give me a dramatic role. I'll have to write one for myself and cast myself.'

And, you know, fortunately for me, Judi Dench liked the script and me enough to act opposite me.

So, I did shift things then, and since then I have played more and more dramatic roles and I love it. I love doing comedy; I like the kind of symbiotic relationship between doing drama and comedy.

Sometimes there's an overlap; that's always interesting when you can find really humane, truthful comedy in real situations. And there's a complementary nature of tragedy and comedy that coexist in certain dramas, which I love; it's a real sweet spot.

But there's also things that are very straight down the line and things that are very overtly comical that I do.

I like all of it.

I've just finished a comedy TV series for the BBC – I love to still do that. It makes me laugh. It's enjoyable, it's like a bit of light relief for me when I've been doing things that are more heavy.

For instance, I played the sexual predator Jimmy Savile for the BBC. And that was a very heavy drama.

There was no light relief in that at all. It was pretty difficult to make. It was rewarding professionally, but very difficult.

And, of course, after I'd done that, it was good to go back to comedy because it felt like I could breathe out again after doing such a demanding, dark role. Um, so I'll never not do comedy but I like to move around.

I like the fact that I'm not pigeonholed and that I have some sort of flexibility. I don't want to get bored, so I like to do different things. I'd hate to be stuck in a TV series, doing the same thing over and over.

In a slight pivot, can you tell us anything about How Are You? It's Alan Partridge?
Yes, it's going to be a new series on the BBC this year.

I can't get into too much detail about it because otherwise people won't want to talk about it when it comes out.

Um, but I'm really excited about it. I think it's funny. It's up there with the best stuff we've done. It takes us a long time to make these things. We've spent a long time editing, cutting it together, making sure it's as good as it can be.

And I'm really excited for people to see it... It's really enjoyable; Alan is out and about meeting lots of different people around the country, and he's sort of the barometer of what's going on in Britain at the moment.

Yeah, it's Alan not in the studio [but] out amongst the people.

And finally, the film is obviously titled The Penguin Lessons — but what do you think are the key lessons the film conveys?
 Well, you know, any film has to have a specific lesson. I do hope that people draw something from [The Penguin Lessons].

The idea that engaging in politics, or engaging in the wider world, I should say, and caring about what happens to other people is important. And that cynicism only gets you so far. It's not the answer to everything.

What I like about Tom Michell's journey in this story is that he does re-engage with the world, and he does see some optimism.

I think the only hope really for the future of humankind is for people to try and be kind, or constructive; be kind and useful to the people around them. Human beings are social animals. We are interdependent; we're not lone wolves.

And so, I think Tom Michell is sort of a lone wolf in the beginning; just out for himself. [But] by the end he realises he needs people and some people might need him.

However you read that, I hope people leave the cinema slightly less cynical. It's a lesson in positivity.

The Penguin Lessons will be released in Australian cinemas on April 17, 2025.

Author: Bec Milligan via Women's Weekly

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Steve Coogan interview on Heart FM (2025)