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.
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