Steve Coogan on new Netflix drama Legends - and the stress of going undercover
Inspired by an untold true story
Steve Coogan joined Greatest Hits Radio’s Simon Mayo to talk Legends - a new Netflix crime drama set at the tail end of the Margaret Thatcher era. The pair discussed what drew Steve into playing a quiet but steely customs boss, and why ordinary civil servants make such nerve‑shredding undercover agents.
Along the way they also touched on ’90s nostalgia, sharp soundtrack choices and Steve’s next stop - a summer with The White Lotus – plus the inevitable question about Alan Partridge.
What is Legends about?
Legends - which landed on Netflix on 7th May 2026 - is a six-part crime drama starring Steve and Tom Burke. Steve described as: “Loosely based on a true story, which is in the early 90s at the tail end of the Thatcher administration, the big declaration of war on drugs.” With the authorities lacking police resources, “they basically used the customs service and gave them enough leeway to do whatever they wanted to stop this influx of drugs and this social problem and these deaths that were occurring.”
That meant men who had been “inspecting baggage at various airports around the country and at docksides and all the rest of it” suddenly “had to go undercover as agents and had to be sort of trained up from scratch.” Steve explained his role in that setup saying: “I play the head of customs at the time who has to train up these people. I’ve become the mentor to these young ingenues who have to put their lives in danger to save the country from heroin.”
He has played many real‑life figures before, but this time his character is “based on an amalgam of different people for storytelling reasons”, still drawn from very recognisable types. “There are some people who do work in the public sector who are very diligent and quiet and get on with it," he reveals.
Watch the official trailer below ⤵️.
The cost of going undercover
One of the details that fascinates both Simon and Steve is the wording on the recruitment poster that goes up for these civil servants, asking in big letters, “could you offer more?” Steve finds it “an ambiguous question” and “perhaps left‑handed in its nature,” tapping into the feeling that many people in those jobs suspect they are capable of more than routine bank‑checking or baggage‑scanning.
He stressed however, that Legends is first and foremost “an entertainment series… kinetics, high energy, it’s procedural” – but says there is more going on beneath the surface, noting: “There’s a lot of wit to the dialogue, it’s what attracted me.” What really hooks him is the cost of going undercover: “There is that whole thing of examining the pressures of being someone else and subsume yourself in an alter ego for such a long time that it can affect your mental health.”
The “legends” of the title are the personas these officers build; as Steve puts it: “These officers have to go undercover and they call themselves legend… they have to invent a backstory and really submerge themselves in it so fully that the security of their new identity becomes impregnable.”
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How to be successful undercover
That blurring between role and reality isn’t just a plot device – it’s something Steve recognises from acting. Tom Burke’s character, effectively the lead, “sort of disappears into his legend very, very easily,” and Steve said his own character Don is “hinted” to have gone through something similar, explaining: “It’s hinted at that I have a background where I also was undercover and became damaged by it because almost as a sort of an equation, the better you are at your job, probably the more unhealthy it is for your mentality.”
He added the mindset required to be successful undercover is "you have to almost believe the story, the lies that you’re telling. If you believe your own lies, then no one else will think you’re lying, as it were.”
Simon highlighted a moment in the show where Don offers Tom’s character a new car – “the best you can afford,” as Simon notes – and it’s rejected because the fictional alter ego “wouldn’t drive that.”
Asked if that kind of granular debate happens in his own work, Steve says: “If you’re taking it seriously, yeah, a lot of the time they’ll say, that’s not right, that he wouldn’t wear that, he wouldn’t do that.” It comes down to instinct and detail: “When it feels right, it feels right, but you can get granular about those things… if you’re a particular kind of person who pays attention, your character pays attention to his sartorial elegance, then obviously you must pay attention to it.”
Why Legends hits different
Simon suggested one reason the series feels so tense is that we usually associate undercover work with elite police teams, not ordinary civil servants, so “we spend the whole show kind of petrified on their behalf.” Steve thinks that’s exactly why it lands, adding: “Unlike when you watch certain dramas, you enjoy things vicariously… when you watch Jason Bourne or Liam Neeson in one of his action films, you think, God, he’s really good at that. I’m not.”
With Legends, he said, the feeling is different, noting: “I think you think, good, that could be me… that could be me undercover because they weren't trained, they were sort of semi‑amateur really. So the audience feels very… connected with them because you feel like the stakes will be the same stakes that would be for you.”
What songs were used in the soundtrack?
Although the series tackles heavy themes, it’s also a period piece steeped in the early ’90s. Steve notes the oddity of that era being labelled “history”: “You and I are of an age where it doesn’t really seem like history, it just seems like a little bit ago… for younger people, it’s definitely history. But for us, it’s just a little trip down memory lane.”
On set, the thing that really dates it is the hardware, as Steve noted: “It’s only when you get on set and you see the cars… you see, oh, the cars are different.” The soundtrack does the rest, with Inspiral Carpets, Stone Roses, Alison Limerick, Depeche Mode and Adamski and Seal’s ‘Killer’ all woven through the episodes.
What’s next for Steve?
As for what comes after Legends, Steve is heading straight into another high‑profile project. “I’m off to shoot White Lotus in… France,” he said, adding that he will be there “over the summer” before dryly summing it up as “the burden of being an actor.”
Before he leaves, Simon squeezes in the question every radio host wonders about: “When you’re doing radio interviews like this, do presenters clearly try not to be Partridge in front of you?" Steve’s answer is as quick as you’d expect, commenting: "Yeah… and you’ve done quite well… today,” he teased, to which a grateful Simon laughs: "Thank you. I’m working very hard."
Listen to the full interview with Steve Coogan below:
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