SCREEN ROMANCE
STEVE COOGAN AND SARAH SOLEMANI are chalk-and-cheese film-makers who fall in love
Chivalry
Thursday, 10pm & 10.30pm, C4 (box set, All 4)
STEVE COOGAN AND Sarah Solemani play two very different film-makers in new C4 comedy drama Chivalry, which they co-wrote together.
The six-parter, which starts with a double bill, features
Coogan as ladies’ man Cameron O’neill, an out-of-touch
Hollywood producer who is making a sexually controversial movie called
A Little Death.
But with the #Metoo movement gathering force, shrewd studio executive Jean Shrill (Wanda Sykes) decides the film needs a revamp and hires feminist film-maker Bobby Sohrabi (Solemani) to take over as director. Not surprisingly, Cameron and Bobby are soon butting heads. But despite their very different outlooks on life, they find themselves attracted to each other… ‘Steve and I were filming the movie Greed when #Metoo began. We started arguing and making each other furious – but also laughing,’ says Solemani, who’s starred in Him & Her and No Offence.
‘We thought, what if we put two opposing characters together and romance stems from that?’
In the opening episode,
Cameron is dumped by his twentysomething girlfriend, and finds himself on the back foot when Bobby rebuffs his charms, challenges his behaviour, and hires an intimacy coach to reshoot the film’s sex scenes.
However, Bobby’s own beliefs are tested when the unlikely romance develops, confusing the film-maker who has a partner and a child back home.
‘In the beginning, Cameron’s pretty unreconstructed. But he’s not a villain and Bobby’s not an angel,’ says Coogan. ‘Your sympathies shift. Cameron starts to awaken, partly through falling in love with Bobby, while Bobby’s principles bump into her feelings. To me, that conflict is funny, dramatic and truthful.’
The starry cast includes Sienna Miller as the film’s leading actress, Lark; Ghosts star Lolly Adefope as Cameron’s ambitious new PA, Ama; and Aisling Bea as Tatiana, the film’s intimacy coach. Meanwhile, there are cameos from Hollywood stars
Paul Rudd, John C Reilly, Peter Mullan and Amy Landecker.
‘The idea with the cameos was basically, who did we know who would do it for nothing?’ jokes Coogan. ‘I love this show. It’s not cynical. It’s acerbic at times, but ultimately it’s about love.’