The Line Steve Coogan Cut for Being 'a Bit Too Kind'
Steve Coogan, who played Walden, told Emily Maitlis in the Radio Times that something was cut in the edit because he thought it was a bit too kind. At a press screening he placed the cut at the awkward post-interview drinks: a line in which Brian says, “She's worth 100 of them.”
The objection wasn't squeamishness about the subject. “Of course I had huge antipathy towards Thatcher. I was very anti-Thatcher.” He also said he was worried about being too compassionate, “because at the end, she was definitely a victim of sexism.”
Put those together and you have a genuinely awkward knot: the actor playing the interviewer cuts a warm line his character pays her, and part of the stated reason is that the drama was already tilting towards pity. The compassion he was trying to avoid was compassion he had already granted.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
This is the anti-hagiography problem in miniature: make a drama about someone you despise and every generous beat can read as an argument on her behalf. Trimming the kind line is quality control on the audience's sympathy.
Except the second reason points the other way. He wasn't only guarding against being soft on Thatcher; he was guarding against overdoing the sympathy the story had already extended to her as a target of sexism. That's less like propaganda control than a judgment about tone.