How ’Hot Fuzz’ Changed the Trajectory of Olivia Colman’s Career

It would be a stretch to say that Edgar Wright’s 2007 buddy cop comedy Hot Fuzz is the most pivotal movie of Olivia Colman’s career, but after listening to Colman on this week’s Good Hang with Amy Poehler, I’m willing to make that leap. Real ones know that Hot Fuzz is the best of the Cornetto Trilogy and a near-perfect film, a marvel of plotting and callback with a joke ratio nigh unmatched. Colman, of course, played DC Doris Thatcher, a bit part made memorable by Colman’s unforgettable cackle.

Sadly, Poehler and Colman don’t spend a lot of time discussing Hot Fuzz during the podcast, which seems like a real missed opportunity to me, but hey, what do I know about doing podcasts, amiright? [Reminder: New Podjiba episode drops tomorrow! Everybody’s mic is working this time, probably, I think!] What Poehler does spend a lot of time on is Colman’s impressive range as an actor. “What I love about your career, and you,” Poehler says, “is that you are the ultimate proof to me that when someone can do comedy really well, they can do anything.” She then asks about how Colman was able to shift toward drama, highlighting a film I’d never heard of before called Tyrannosaur.

“It felt like there were two lists of actors; there’s Funny Ones and Not Funny Ones, and you can’t cross over,” Colman explains. The problem is you can’t really make the leap on your own. You need someone “to really put their neck on the line” and cast you outside of your niche. For Colman, that person was Paddy Considine (!), whom she met on the set of — yup, you guessed it! — Hot Fuzz. “I was so excited to meet him, and I opened the door and grinned at him, and he decided in that moment. ‘Oh, she’d be right for my film.’ So always open the door for people, always be nice, you never know!”

Considine wrote and directed a short film called Dog Altogether (2007), in which he cast Colman as the female lead. He later expanded the story into an independent feature film called Tyrannosaur in 2011, and it went on to great acclaim — including a Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performance at Sundance for Colman. In the film, Colman plays a devout woman who lends a helping hand to a man in crisis, despite her own turmoil at home. And then things get … dark. Like I said, I haven’t seen the film, but based on the synopsis, Tyrannosaur sounds about as far from funny as you could get.

OK, so fine: Tyrannosaur is really the movie that changed the trajectory of Olivia Colman’s career. Without it, we might never have seen her in Broadchurch or The Crown. We might never have gotten her wonderful Oscar acceptance speech for The Favourite if Paddy Considine hadn’t given her a chance to prove her dramatic chops. But then again, Paddy Considine would never have met Colman if it weren’t for Hot Fuzz so … I’m gonna count that as another reason it’s the best Edgar Wright movie.

Elsewhere in the episode, Colman discusses talking to David Tennant through the bathroom wall on the set of Broadchurch, eating a cigarette butt in an audition, and more. Her co-star in The Roses, Benedict Cumberbatch, is on deck with the special friend question — he wants to know if there’s anything she’s afraid of, acting-wise, and Colman goes on a lovely tangent about sex scenes and faking orgasms on set. The episode ends with Poehler and Colman huddled around a laptop watching America’s Funniest Home Videos, which is not good podcast material but still proves that Olivia Colman can make anything worth watching. I don’t even need her to read the phone book, she can just stare at a computer screen I can’t see and I’ll still be entertained.

Source: Good Hang with Amy Poehler