Steve Coogan has shared details on co-star Helena Bonham Carter’s sudden White Lotus exit at the BAFTA TV Awards at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.
The comedian, 60, shared an insight into the surprise departure ahead of his BAFTA win for Actor In A Comedy for his performance in How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge).
Helena abruptly left the fourth series of the HBO show after three days of filming because of disagreements over her character, which has now been rewritten for Laura Dern, 59.
But a source has suggested the star’s departure may have had more to do with a ‘clash’ with one of her co-stars.
Speaking on the red carpet to Deadline, Steve said: ‘It just went in a different direction. It was like, sometimes you find that something isn’t working the way you want it to, in terms of, like, the character and the dynamic of the whole story’.
Before adding: ‘So that was just a mutual decision … The whole part was rewritten from scratch.’
Steve Coogan has shared details on co-star Helena Bonham Carter’s sudden White Lotus exit at the BAFTA TV Awards at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday
The comedian, 60, shared an insight into the surprise departure ahead of his BAFTA win for Actor In A Comedy for his performance in How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge)
Taking to the stage to collect his BAFTA, Steve said in his speech: ‘If anyone wants to know when Alan Partridge is going to die, it’s probably about the same time as I am going to die – I will keep doing it.
‘Doing comedy in times like this is so important and it’s a privilege to make people laugh. I’m not going to be very funny because my comedy writers haven’t written anything funny for me to say.’
It comes after a White Lotus source said: ‘The word is Helena left because of a clash with Sandra Bernhard.’
However, Helena’s camp denied the claim, insisting the pair had never even met, though they declined to say what had happened.
The hit HBO show follows the antics of a group of disparate characters in a luxury holiday resort, with each series set in a different location and boasting a new cast of characters. The latest series is mainly set at the Airelles Chateau de la Messardiere in Saint-Tropez in the South of France.
Sunday’s ceremony saw Owen Cooper continue his award winning streak at the British Academy Television Awards.
The actor, 16, who has made history by becoming the youngest winner of the Best Supporting Actor award at both the Golden Globes and the Emmy Awards, took home the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor.
Steve said: ‘It just went in a different direction. It was like, sometimes you find that something isn’t working the way you want it to, in terms of, like, the character and the dynamic’
Taking to the stage to collect his BAFTA, Steve said in his speech: ‘If anyone wants to know when Alan Partridge is going to die, it’s probably about the same time as I am going to die’
Pictured as Alan Partridge
Meanwhile, his onscreen mum Christine Tremarco won Best Supporting Actress in a surprise result beating co-star Erin Doherty, who previously took home the Golden Globe and Emmy Award.
Nominations were announced in March with Stephen Graham leading the way with a total of 11 nominations for his drama, Adolescence and seven for his Disney+ series, A Thousand Blows – for which he is an executive producer.
Adolescence, which was created by actor Stephen, 52, and writer Jack Thorne, tells the story of British teenager Jamie Miller, who is found guilty of murdering a female classmate after being sucked in by the manosphere online.
Each episode is filmed in one continuous shot and has been widely praised for addressing topics such as online radicalisation and misogyny.
It also won in the Limited Drama category, beating the shows; Fought The Law (ITV), Trespasses (Channel 4) and What It Feels Like For A Girl (BBC Three).
Producer Mark Herbert of Warp films said: ‘Big thanks to Stephen Graham for bringing this gang together. The script ripped our hearts and it punched us in the guts’. He also thanked Netflix boss Anne Mensah who had picked up the project after Amazon Prime Video had passed on it.
Amandaland starring Lucy Punch won the BAFTA for scripted comedy.
Writer Holly Walsh said she loved when people said they watched the show with their children.
She said: ‘We can all enjoy watching a posh woman from Chiswick getting hit in the face with a football.’
However, Lucy missed out on the Actress In A Comedy gong, which went to Katherine Parkinson for her performance in BBC One’s Here We Go.
