Creating Art to Change Your Audience

Feb. 6, 2008— -- How do you remake Shakespeare's "Hamlet," the most revered text in English, into something entirely original, critically acclaimed and incredibly lucrative?

If you're Steve Coogan, the quirky British comic and toast of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, you star in the riotously original comedy, "Hamlet 2," a risky film that made its world premiere at the festival and was immediately offered a $10 million deal from Focus Features.

In an interview with Peter Travers for ABC News Now's "Popcorn," Coogan explains that he was not dissatisfied with the Bard's work when he set out to rework it, and he even gives the English playwright some credit. "Hamlet" is a classic, obviously, and Shakespeare did a pretty good job, all things considered," he says. "I think it's wrong to say that nothing can be improved, and "Hamlet 2" is our attempt to reinvent "Hamlet" for a 21st-century, snowboarding, iPod generation."

Coogan was tapped to play Dana Marschz, a schoolteacher in a fledgling drama department who hopes to save the program by writing a sequel to "Hamlet." Coogan admits that "it's partly a satire on those inspirational teacher movies like "Mr. Holland's Opus" and "Dead Poet's Society," and that genre of inspirational teachers." But Mr. Marschz is not like those other favorite teachers. "What makes it different is that he tells everyone he's an inspirational teacher," says the comic.

Coogan describes his character concisely as "a heroic idiot" and admits that the paradox presented acting challenges for him. "The problem with playing funny, slightly stupid people," Coogan says, "is trying to make the audience laugh at him and then still root for him."

In spite of this characterization, Coogan was thrilled at the opportunity to play a heroic idiot. "I read the script and thought it was very funny, made me laugh out loud on my own. … I knew it was something I wanted to do."

Coogan then fought persistently for the role from "Hamlet 2" co-writer and director, Andrew Fleming, dishing that he "tried to beg him, tried to convince him I was right for the part." After what he describes as months of "almost stalking" Fleming, Coogan jokes that Fleming "tried all the usual things, like exclusion orders via the court, but that failed. So, in the end, he found the best course of action was to give me the part."