‘Tropic Thunder’ Star Banned From Driving After 97 MPH Speeding Ticket: Latest on Steve Coogan

Tropic Thunder star Steve Coogan was caught going 97 MPH in a Range Rover—27 miles over the speed limit—while traveling on the M6 motorway in the Staffordshire area of the United Kingdom last July. He pleaded with the judge to reduce his sentence to two months instead of six, after declaring that a lengthier ban would negatively affect the filming of his comedy series The Trip.

The 59-year-old requested the court give him five penalty points on his license instead of six, which would mean he would be unable to film the next season of The Trip, and his request was granted. He was forced to pay a £2,500 fine, plus a £1,000 victim surcharge and £90 additional costs.

In his letter to the court, Coogan highlighted that a punishment would not only affect him, but “the many individuals dependent on these productions for work” with The Trip, including numerous industry professionals involved in camera, sound and lighting. “I am due to appear in a well-established TV series called The Trip which as the title suggests requires me to drive. This starts filming towards the end of June 2025 and if I were unable to drive, the production would likely be unable to proceed.”

Coogan is best known stateside for his roles in Tropic Thunder and the Night at the Museum trilogy with Ben Stiller and Robin Williams. The Trip is directed by Michael Winterbottom, and is a mostly-improv sitcom that stars Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictional versions of themselves while taking food-focused road trips around the UK, Spain, Italy and Greece. Coogan won a BAFTA TV Award for his performance in season 1. Most recently, he won a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for playing Jimmy Savile in BBC’s 2023 drama The Reckoning.