Q&A: After 10 years, it’s (probably) the end of ‘The Trip’

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Q&A: After 10 years, it’s (probably) the end of ‘The Trip’

2020-05-21 05:02 Last Updated At：05:10

There was never supposed to be more than one “Trip” for Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and director Michael Winterbottom. But, however improbably, the band came back together for a second, third and, now, a fourth excursion of food, wine, impressions and mid-life crises. This time, their semi-fictionalized versions of themselves travel to Turkey and Greece to retrace Odysseus’s 10-year journey home in six days.

The Associated Press spoke to Coogan and Brydon recently from their respective quarantines, about “ The Trip to Greece,” available on demand and in some theaters Friday, and calling it quits. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Is this really the end?

BRYDON: I think so. Personally, I have every comedians' instinct to get off the stage.

COOGAN: It’s always a fight for every performer because you want approbation and adulation, but at the same time, you don’t want to overstay your welcome. Long term survival means getting off the stage before it’s demanded of you.

BRYDON: That’s not to say that in 10 years’ time when we’ve aged more visibly...

COOGAN: When we’ve MATURED so beautifully.

BRYDON: Yes, matured. That’s a much better word than aged.

COOGAN: Like fine wines, we’ll need to be uncorked.

AP: Did you feel any pressure to read The Odyssey and The Aeneid to prepare?

BRYDON: I never do. I said to myself this time I’m going to read these books, I’m going to be different this time, I’m going to learn this. And I simply didn’t.

COOGAN: At one point we were planning on working out so we had the bodies of Greek Adonises. That went by the wayside too.

AP: You were worried about having to improvise for hours on end for the first film. Has it gotten easier or more difficult with the subsequent films?

COOGAN: The first one was an experiment. Rob and I were very against it and Michael lobbied us for a while. I thought it would be too thin, the material would be self-indulgent and just pointless. But Michael had the form and we knew he didn’t do crappy stuff. At the worst, Michael makes noble failures. I said look let’s just do it so we can stop having these conversations about it. In the subsequent ones we sort of felt like we sort of knew what we were doing.

AP: Do you ever feel like you’ve crossed the line and hurt the other's feelings while improvising?

COOGAN: Yes definitely. We had a gentleman’s agreement that we were allowed to look for each other’s Achilles' heels and prod those more vulnerable parts and say, look, we’re not to take offense. But even having made that agreement sometimes I got pissed off with Rob. But if we hadn’t risked offending each other and sometimes crossed the line, we wouldn’t have got the other stuff that was so good.

AP: Does the current state of things make you more wistful for the travel?

BRYDON: It makes the film even more escapist. It’s already almost a year since we did it but it seems like another lifetime ago. But it won’t last forever. Probably just for our natural lifetime.

AP: Do you ever travel together when you’re not being paid for it?

COOGAN: No, we don’t. And we don’t really socialize outside. I run into Rob at awards ceremonies.

BRYDON: I run into him and I say, “Would you like red or white?”

COOGAN: Rob’s jesting, but there is some truth to what he said. But the fact that we don’t socialize in between helps. When we do go on these trips we have a bank of things we want to say to each other.

BRYDON: We really are living in each other’s pockets for 4-5 weeks. We’ll always stay in the same hotel and often the crew won’t be there because it’s too nice. We have breakfast together, just the two of us, we film all day, and then we have dinner together.

COOGAN: It does become a bit like a strange marriage. Sometimes it is a little annoying but I mostly accept him for what he is.

AP: Do you think you’ll find an occasion to work together again?

COOGAN: I think we’ll find something different.

BRYDON: Just by the wave of your hand you decree that we’ll work together again?

COOGAN: Something different, I’ve decided. And I won’t leave Rob sitting by the phone for too long.

BRYDON: I’d like to do a remake of that Alfonso Cuaron film “Gravity.” I think that’s a natural fit. But a musical version.

COOGAN: With me as Sandra Bullock and Rob as George Clooney.

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

Affable comedy acting legend Dick Van Dyke turns 100 years old

Comedy icon Dick Van Dyke celebrated his 100th birthday on Saturday, hitting the century mark some six decades after he sang and danced with Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins” and starred in his self-titled sitcom.

“The funniest thing is, it’s not enough,” Van Dyke said in an interview with ABC News at his Malibu, California home. “A hundred years is not enough. You want to live more, which I plan to.”

As part of the celebration of Van Dyke's birthday this weekend, theaters around the country are showing a new documentary about his life, “Dick Van Dyke: 100th Celebration."

Van Dyke became one of the biggest actors of his era with “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which ran from 1961-66 on CBS; appeared with Andrews as a chimney sweep with a Cockney accent in the 1964 Disney classic “Mary Poppins” and, in his 70s, played a physician-sleuth on “Diagnosis: Murder.”

Also a Broadway star, Van Dyke won a Tony Award for “Bye Bye Birdie” to go with a Grammy and four Primetime Emmys. In 1963, he starred in the film version of “Bye Bye Birdie.”

Just last year, he became the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy, for a guest role on the soap “Days of Our Lives.”

In the 1970s, he found sobriety after battling alcoholism, and spoke out about it at a time when that was uncommon to do.

Now that he has hit triple digits, Van Dyke said he's gotten some perspective on how he used to play older characters.

“You know, I played old men a lot, and I always played them as angry and cantankerous,” he told ABC News. "It's not really that way. I don't know any other 100-year-olds, but I can speak for myself."

He recently imparted wisdom about reaching the century mark in his book, “100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life.” He credited his wife, 54-year-old makeup artist and producer Arlene Silver, with keeping him young.

“She gives me energy. She gives me humor, and all kinds of support,” he told ABC News.

Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Missouri, in 1925, and grew up “the class clown” in Danville, Illinois, while admiring and imitating the silent film comedians.

He told ABC News he started acting when he was about 4 or 5 years old in a Christmas pageant. He said he was the baby Jesus.

“I made some kind of crack, I don't know what I said, but it broke the congregation up," he said. "And I liked the sound of that laughter.”

And what's hard about being 100?

“I miss movement,” he told ABC News. “I've got one game leg from I don't know what."

"I still try to dance,” he said with a laugh.