A Saucy Tale

"Religious fundamentalism, Puritanism, feminism, the exploitation of women, changing social mores: all these things were in the air in the '70s, and Paul Raymond was a lightning rod for them,” says Steve Coogan. Coogan is talking about Paul Raymond, the one-time 'King of Soho', who presided over a property and soft-porn empire —gentlemen's clubs and magazines— that found him as England's wealthiest man in the 1970s, and whom the English comedian and actor portrays in the biopic The Look Of Love.

“I'd say anyone under 40 in Britain would have no idea who he was,” says Coogan. “He was the subject of tabloid fodder in the '70s, so unless you've got a long memory, or you're old, you wouldn't remember.”

Now 47, the icon of English comedy has a long enough memory – or is, indeed, old enough – to remember a boyhood peering at “top-of-the-shelf soft-porn magazines” at the newsagent. “His photograph was often on the back of those magazines, so he was always this very curious figure for young lads,” says Coogan. “Looking at him now, his life seemed very colourful and surreal, and it was dealing with sex and sexuality.  It seemed in some ways uncomfortable subject-matter, which meant that, paradoxically, I knew it'd be interesting to Michael and interesting for me.”

'Michael' is Michael Winterbottom, the workaholic English director whom Coogan has now worked for, as leading man, four times over; The Look Of Love following 2002's 24 Hour Party People, 2005's Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story, and 2010's The Trip. “Working with anyone else, I feel more in control, but with Michael I feel less in control,” says Coogan. “With Michael I tend not to over think things, and instead just throw myself into whatever he's suggesting. I feel like I get fresher results. Michael taught me how to act unselfconsciously. He also helped liberate me from comedy, and let me explore more subtle modes of performance. For that, I'm forever grateful to him.”

Coogan is at pains to point out a distinction between the pair's last biopic of a smart-mouthed entrepreneur, 24 Hour Party People, and this one; seeing essential differences between Paul Raymond and his prior subject, Factory Records founder Tony Wilson. “Tony Wilson was more a champion of the artist more than a businessman. Paul Raymond was the opposite, he was a businessman first; anything he did that was creative was wholly accidental,” he says. “Tony Wilson was someone who affected a lot of people's lives, someone who was beloved by a lot of artists, especially in Manchester. Paul Raymond is someone remembered by very few people, and whose life was questionable in a lot of ways.”

For all its obligatory T&A, and Boogie Nights-esque evocations of pornography in a time long, long before it was anything resembling an 'industry', the film never buys into the myth or mystique of its 'high-life'. “It's about creating a fantasy world around you and trying to convince yourself it's reality,” Coogan says. “We created this exact version of Paul Raymond's luxurious house, but then when you walked behind the set, it was all plywood. To me that serves as the perfect metaphor for his own life, because beyond all the glitz and the tinsel there was nothing of substance. He was a triumph of style-over-substance. He was almost like a living experiment: the way he lived his life was almost like a man who'd picked up GQ, and bought everything that was in the magazine, and tried to live his life by the articles in the magazine. It was as if by accessorising his life, he thought he could make himself happy. And, of course, he couldn't.”

There's a whole sub-genre of the sex-industry that plays on the soft-and-friendly nostalgia of old-timey titillation – see: the burlesque revival – but Coogan cautions on seeing any past era as either being worse or better. “Some people see what they perceive to be a glamorous decade with retrospective chic, retrospective charm, but any simple reading of that time, whether it's of it being stylish and libertine, or repressive and sordid, is too simple,” he says. “This is, really, a conversation about changing social attitudes. To modern perspectives, it really looks like it's exploiting women, and perhaps it is; but what I really like about the film is that it's not some politically correct piece, out to make itself likable to contemporary sensibilities. It's about portraying the zeitgeist of that time, not pandering to the current zeitgeist.”

The Look Of Love isn't Coogan's only top-billing film performance in 2013: he'll soon be seen in full serious-thesp mode, in Scott McGehee and David Siegel's much-acclaimed divorce drama What Maisie Knew; and, thereafter, in full comedy-superstar mode, in the long-awaited feature-film debut of Coogan's most beloved comic creation, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. “It's in the middle of being edited. It's being chopped up and assembled, and it's definitely coming out this year,” Coogan confirms.

“A lot of hot air has been expelled over the years,” he laughs, when talking of the big-screen translation, which was first rumoured to be on its way in 2002. Of course, getting Coogan, writer Peter Baynham (“I couldn't afford to pay him what Sacha Baron-Cohen pays him”), and satirist Armando Iannucci (“always too busy to call me back”) in the same room proved an “impossible task.” Yet, when brothers Neil and Rob Gibbons turned a cash-grab faux-biography into something more sterling with 2011's I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan, they then set about writing the film “with a refreshing energy”.

Coogan holds no resentment against the ongoing cult of Partridge; each time he slips on the Conrad Knight socks and dons the Sports Casual wear being by choice. “I've always been more enthusiastic about Alan than any other character I've done,” he says. “Whenever I have revisited him, it's because I've wanted to, not because I had to; if it was the only thing I did, I'd find it quite frustrating, but I'm glad it's not.”

When I suggest it's like a band performing the Classic Album as a choice, Coogan whoops with delight: “It's like I'm doing an '80s revival tour!” Yet, as glad as he is to think of himself as Primal Scream, Coogan sees rock'n'roll as a different racket. “Bands can play the same stuff, and people like it, but with comedy, even when you return to the character, you have to do new material,” he sighs. “Those shows where bands go out and play the old album in order, I'd compare that to me going out and literally doing the exact same thing that I did on TV years ago. If I went and did the same material, people would say: 'What the fuck are you doing? We want new stuff!' It's the reverse for musicians: people hate new stuff, and they only want to hear the old hits. The curse of being in comedy is that you constantly have to invent new material. Whereas musicians will get a huge cheer just for playing that same song they've played a thousand times before; they'll be commended for that repetition! That's a pretty big distinction to make.”