Steve Coogan says playing Jimmy Savile “has the potential for catastrophic failure”

Steve Coogan plays longtime sex offender Jimmy Savile in a new four-part drama called The Reckoning, and the actor been talking about his trepidation in taking the role.

The Reckoning is a four-part co-production between the BBC and ITV, that tells the story of Jimmy Savile, the popular TV presenter, who was also a predator that preyed on the young.

Steve Coogan plays Savile, who started out running nightclubs in the north, before a successful radio career led to high-profile jobs on TV, as the host of Top of the Tops, and Jim’ll Fix It. All while he was abusing hundreds of victims, many of them minors.

All four episodes screened for critics at the BBC on Thursday. Followed by a Q&A in which Coogan discussed playing a monster.

Steve Coogan says playing Jimmy Savile has “the potential for catastrophic failure”

When asked about the controversial series, Coogan admits: “I had great trepidation about it, obviously. [Producer] Jeff [Pope] mentioned it to me first, and I trust Jeff as a writer and as a human being. And the caliber of everyone else involved… all those things reassured me.”

Asked why he accepted the role, Coogan says: “I knew there’s the potential for catastrophic failure if you get it wrong. But that’s not a reason not to do it. So I moved forward with it. And I remember talking to [writer/executive producer] Neil [McKay] and Jeff about the script, which has to answer the question that everyone asks, which is ‘Why are you doing it?’ And I felt comfortable that it was being made for the right reasons.”

As for playing Savile, Coogan adds: “I’ve got quite a good ear, and as an actor, I didn’t really treat Jimmy Saville different to any other role, in-so-far-as I’m a professional, I’m being hired to do a job, I’ll try to do the job as professionally as I can, and that means both not to do something that has any kind of caricature or comedic content, [or] to render him as some sort of pantomime villain, which ultimately would be a disservice to the survivors and victims of Saville.”

Bringing Jimmy Savile to life onscreen

As for how he approached the role, Coogan says: “To understand how this happened, you have to show things that perhaps initially seem counter-intuitive. Which is to show that he was charismatic, undoubtedly. Because that was part of the Trojan Horse that he created to go about his sexual assaults.

“He created over 30 years quite an elaborate machine that served him. And part of the court jester character that he created was his armour. And it was very difficult – even for very reputable journalists – to pierce that armour. It served him very well.

“It wasn’t enjoyable, but it was a professional challenge that I wanted to take on. What I did learn in watching him very closely – you started to learn these techniques he had. One of them was that he used his hands a lot, and waved them around in your field of vision, almost distracting you the way a conjurer or magician would, to make you look over here, and not over here. And that speaks to his very clever duplicity.”

Episode 1 of The Reckoning screens on the BBC this Monday, October 9, and you can read our review of the series here.