process’, but ‘due process’ itself feels
harmful to women. Women have suf-
fered under our legislative system, and
that needs looking at.”
What Coogan is more vocal about is
the capacity of #MeToo to impinge on
everyday flirtation between men and
women. “How do you not throw the
baby out with the bathwater?” he won-
ders. “By that I mean, throw out the
horrible old bathwater, but how do you
keep the baby of romantic love? How
do you keep the Romeo and Juliet of
it?” Not, he clarifies, the joint suicide,
but “all the stuff before that”.
Chivalry is a model for gender rela-
tions after #MeToo. The sparring on-
screen chemistry between Solemani as
Bobby and Coogan as Cameron is, I say,
genuinely hot. “That’s the best thing
you can say to me,” Solemani says.
“One of the fears of any feminist move-ment is that it cannot exist alongside a
powerful, pleasurable sexuality. You
should have both. And it’s more sex,
it’s better sex, because engaged dia-
logue and proper consent is a conversa-
tion about pleasure.”
The show feels fresh, but it’s also
reminiscent of the classic screwball
comedies of the Thirties and Forties,
where the female characters have their
own careers and can give as good as
they get. “His Girl Friday was one of the
references,” Coogan says. “It’s funny
how those roles for women subsided
quite a lot in the late Fifties.”
Part of the reason for that was the
postwar backlash, intent on pushing
women out of the workforce and back
into the home. It’s a choice that Sole-
mani, in her offscreen activism, is deter-
mined shouldn’t be forced on women in
the industry today. “The numbers are
just terrifying, not just in front of the
camera, but behind the camera — they
just drop out at entry level because they
become mothers,” Solemani says, her-
self a mother of two young children.
Raising Films is lobbying Pinewood Stu-
dios, where parts of Chivalry were shot,
to provide a crèche. “They’ve got a mas-
sive deal with Disney, and they still
don’t have a permanent nursery facility
on their set.”
It’s a tension that feeds into Bobby’s
character, who at one point has to break
off from work to take a phone call so she
can coax her toddler through having a
poo. “It was important for us to mine
as much comedy as we could from a
woman who’s trying to juggle it all. And
weirdly, Cameron becomes almost a
seductress, because he has this money
and he has this power,” Solemani says.
Cameron is a step up in likeability
for Coogan, who has recently played a
Philip Greenesque predatory capitalist
in Greed and next up is The Reckoning,
in which he plays Jimmy Savile.
“That was an incredible experience,
but also upsetting and disturbing.
Just a very dark place to go to. I think
I understand why there was lots of
antipathy towards it, when it was
announced. But I think when it comes
out, it will vindicate itself.”
There’s an unpleasant modern ten-
dency for artworks to be judged — and
condemned — on social media before
they’re even available to the public.
Was that a worry in making Chivalry?
“You have to risk failure to do things
that are interesting and things that are
worthwhile,” Coogan says, adamantly.
“Also the fact that I was doing it with
Sarah. I could never do anything like
this on my own.”
The argument that Chivalry startedwith continued through the writing pro-
cess, and produced several exchanges
that went directly into the script. “I can
be quite didactic, and Sarah really
fought with me,” Coogan says. “It would
be a tussle sometimes, and it was really
good.” The argument sometimes turned
into genuine fights. “The best one was
when he called me Priti Patel, and then
we had a 20-minute cool-off, where we
left our Zooms and paced around and
had cigarettes,” Solemani says.
But, she says, he’s easy to forgive
because he’s funny. “It’s my para-
chute,” he agrees. That ability of
laughter to sweeten the pill goes back
to the reason Chivalry is a comedy-
drama, and not just a drama, Coogan
explains. “If men and women are both
laughing at the same thing, then you’ve
built a little bridge in that moment
where you can both meet in the mid-
dle.” Chivalry isn’t going to end the
battle of the sexes, but it is a delicious
pause in hostilities. cChivalry starts on Channel 4 on Apr 21As a man you
rewind and lookat your behaviour
Gender agenda Steve Coogan
and Sarah SolemaniPromising Young
Woman (2020)
Carey Mulligan is
alternately sweet
and savage as a
woman seeking
revenge on men
in this smart and stylish satire by
Emerald Fennell. It sparked lively
debate about consent and won best
British film at last year’s Baftas.
Now and available to rent on AmazonBombshell
(2019)
The true story of
how a Fox News
boss was brought
down by a torrent
of allegations
of sexual harassment in 2016. Nicole
Kidman is commanding as Gretchen
Carlson, who started the saga when
she was dropped
by the network and filed a lawsuit,
alongside Charlize Theron and
Margot Robbie as presenters.
Available to rent on AmazonThe Assistant
(2019)
Kitty Green
intended to make
a documentary
inspired by the
real-life stories of
women working in TV and film. But
she switched to drama and cast
Julia Garner as an assistant to a
predatory media mogul. It’s a
powerful story and a call for change.
Available to rent on BFI Player and
to buy on Amazon#METOO IN FILM
ATION FOR ME’
MATT CROCKETT10 April 2022 9