Legends star Steve Coogan argues Margaret Thatcher shouldn’t be “sanctified” – and reveals how his “devil” while growing up impacted his career

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Steve Coogan plays Don, a gloomy man from Manchester who used to work undercover, and he’s explaining to a group of frustrated but driven employees at HM Revenue and Customs that there’s no help coming. As he tells them in his rundown 1990s classroom, ‘We’re on our own here – we’re not the police, and we can’t rely on anyone else.’

The filming location is actually a private school in St Albans, closed for its spring break in 2025. Here, Steve Coogan and the rest of the cast are shooting “Legends,” a six-episode true-crime thriller created by Neil Forsyth, who also wrote “The Gold” and “Guilt.”

Tom Burke’s character, along with others, has been selected to join a covert taskforce fighting drug trafficking. This taskforce was created by customs officials after Margaret Thatcher launched a major crackdown on heroin smuggling into Britain. Before starting their undercover work, Don warns the recruits they’ll need to abandon their current lives and assume entirely new identities – these fabricated personas are what the show refers to as “legends.”

One goes undercover, investigating Turkish heroin dealers in London, while the other, Don, remains at headquarters coordinating everything. Coogan mentioned during a filming break that he welcomed the part as a more mature actor.

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Coogan explains that his character, Don, is very traditional and comes from a working-class background. However, he adds that he could relate to Don because he’s met people like him. It was a role he hadn’t tackled before, and he was keen to try something new and avoid repeating himself.

He observes that some actors tend to repeat similar roles, excelling at what they do but essentially playing variations of themselves. He prefers to be more versatile, embracing a wide range of characters and styles – from broad comedy to subtle drama and everything in between.

Coogan chuckled when asked if he wished he’d done the physical scenes like Burke, who played a tough character based on a real person Forsyth interviewed for research. “It looks a little silly seeing someone over 60 fighting a fit 32-year-old,” he explained. “You just think, ‘No way!’ So I focused on what I do well. I didn’t try to do something unbelievable.”

I remember when I first met Steve Coogan on set, he was telling me about filming ‘Legends’ and how much the 90s setting resonated with him. He said it felt like yesterday! He really connected with the period, saying he clearly remembered being a normal, working person back then – having a job, a car, and a place to live. It was cool to hear him talk about it with such fondness.

The story begins in 1990, when a 24-year-old Coogan was gaining attention on the BBC’s Daytime Live, impressing Alan Titchmarsh with his impressions. Looking back, he laughs at how ambitious he was. He describes himself as doing what he calls “showbizzy” things – simply chasing the work wherever it was. He says he’s doing what he wants now, but wasn’t then. Back then, it was all about getting a foot in the door, landing any job, and figuring out the rest later. He advises not to be too picky.

John Major’s government was expected to continue the policies begun by Margaret Thatcher. However, as depicted in the series ‘Legends,’ Thatcher’s focus on this issue was, in part, a way to divert attention from a struggling economy – a tactic used near the end of her time as Prime Minister.

Coogan appreciates Neil bringing up that point. He explains that while we often celebrate individual acts of kindness and courage, we shouldn’t forget the larger political and economic factors that create the problems these people are trying to solve. If the economy were strong, issues like hunger and drug problems might not exist, or at least wouldn’t be as pressing.

Even Margaret Thatcher couldn’t solve the problem of heroin misuse, and it remains an issue today. Should we adopt a stricter approach to drugs? Or would legalizing them be a better solution? Steve Coogan believes the first step is to stop judging people who use or sell drugs. He points out the common, but inaccurate, assumption that drug use is limited to certain types of people, dismissing the idea that it doesn’t happen in ‘respectable’ communities. This judgmental attitude, often seen in the media, doesn’t help address the problem, and those who suggest legalization are often unfairly labeled as extremists.

Last year, Steve Coogan portrayed Brian Walden in the Channel 4 drama Brian and Maggie, which featured Harriet Walter as Margaret Thatcher. He wonders if his younger self would have ever imagined playing a role connected to someone he once considered a frightening figure – Walden was, in Coogan’s words, the “devil incarnate” during his childhood.

Authors

Craig McLean

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2026-04-27 21:11