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Does Simon Pegg Know His Lines?
Variety
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5/28/2025
British actor Simon Pegg tries to guess lines from the Mission: Impossible's, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and more.
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00:00
I recognize it.
00:01
I'm not totally senile.
00:14
All right.
00:16
Never taken a shortcut before.
00:18
Well, that's actually two movies.
00:19
That's Shaun of the Dead, where it first appeared.
00:23
And then we decided to carry it over into Hot Fuzz.
00:26
You never taken a shortcut before?
00:30
That's become one of those lines that's quoted back at me quite a lot.
00:35
The first time Shaun does it, he crashes through the fence.
00:38
The second time, Nicholas Angel does this incredibly energetic, athletic sort of...
00:43
I actually didn't do the last one.
00:44
I jump, jump, and then a stunt guy took over, an acrobat,
00:48
who did like this sideways somersault.
00:50
So there you go. That's blowing that myth.
00:52
That was before I met Tom Cruise.
00:53
After that, I did all my own somersault.
00:55
Those three films are kind of about the individual versus the collective.
00:58
So you have Shaun versus Zombies, Nicholas Angel versus the NWA,
01:03
the Neighborhood Watch Association, and Gary versus the Blanks,
01:06
which are these sort of alien invaders.
01:08
None of those films were ever or will ever be sequelized.
01:12
It just felt like, let's make three films that take on a genre,
01:16
put a uniquely British spin on that genre,
01:18
and then, you know, do something different.
01:20
So that was always our plan.
01:23
Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft.
01:30
That was Spaced Us sitcom that we did 1999 to 2001.
01:35
Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft.
01:38
There's a lot of talk in the initial, in the first season,
01:41
about how much my character, Tim, loved Star Wars,
01:44
which was basically me.
01:45
And I apologized to all of the millennials out there who loved these films,
01:50
but I was so disappointed.
01:52
They even got the opening of it wrong,
01:55
and the projector on wherever I saw the film.
01:58
So it said, Wars Star.
01:59
Like, that first blam after 16 years,
02:02
when I was expecting to feel completely ruined.
02:06
And I was walking back up the road with a couple of British people that had been in the movies,
02:10
and we were kind of walking in silence.
02:13
And I said to these guys who I'd never met, I said,
02:15
was that shit?
02:18
And they went, yeah, I think it was.
02:21
So I went to see it again the next morning, just to make sure.
02:24
And then for me, at least, I didn't like it.
02:27
And then I went to see The Matrix.
02:28
And that was like, oh, this is how I wanted to feel watching Star Wars.
02:31
So when I made the second season of Spaced,
02:33
I put all of my kind of disappointment and disillusionment into my character, Tim.
02:38
He burns his Star Wars toys.
02:40
In a way, I was making fun of myself as an adult,
02:43
getting so upset about something as ephemeral as a kind of movie.
02:47
Now, whenever I see people getting upset about what is essentially children's entertainment,
02:51
it's like, grow the fuck up.
02:53
Do you know what I mean?
02:54
It's not important.
02:55
And I slightly regret the kind of Jar Jar hate as well,
02:58
because there was a person on the end of all that, you know?
03:01
But it's still kind of funny.
03:04
I love throwing these.
03:07
What you've brought...
03:11
How appropriate.
03:12
What you've brought me today is worth one quarter portion.
03:16
That was my cameo in The Force Awakens.
03:19
What you've brought me today is worth...
03:21
One quarter portion.
03:28
Making that movie felt to me like the apotheosis of my Star Wars love.
03:34
Because, you know, J.J. Abrams was using a lot of practical effects.
03:37
You know, there were gonk droids and Jawas and stormtroopers.
03:41
I was in the desert.
03:42
And I enjoyed making the film more than I enjoyed watching it even, you know?
03:46
Because I was on set on the Millennium Falcon when Harrison Ford and Chewbacca...
03:52
I say Chewbacca because he's like a really living, breathing thing when you meet Chewbacca.
03:57
I walked into this room and there he was, this icon of my youth.
04:02
My favorite character just stood there, living and breathing.
04:06
And Jonas went,
04:06
Oh, hey Simon, how are you going?
04:08
And I was like, shut up!
04:10
Be quiet.
04:11
Just do the roar and cuddle me.
04:15
I will consider that an apology.
04:17
And I will consider that apology.
04:23
I don't know.
04:24
Is it Benji?
04:25
No, it's not Benji.
04:26
I recognize it.
04:28
I'm not totally senile.
04:30
Give me a clue.
04:31
Ah, it's Scotty.
04:33
Yes, of course.
04:34
Of course it is.
04:35
I didn't read it in the correct accent.
04:37
Was that Star Trek Into Darkness?
04:38
Yes, of course.
04:40
I will consider that an apology.
04:42
And I will consider that apology.
04:44
I'd love to do a fourth movie.
04:46
There's always kind of mutterings about it.
04:48
I've not heard anything to suggest we're going to do one.
04:50
But these days everything becomes very gritty.
04:54
And I think it's this weird kind of justification of how do we make this thing which is essentially,
05:01
you know, quite youthful.
05:02
Although I would argue that the original Star Trek series wasn't childish.
05:06
It was actually quite sophisticated.
05:08
Things don't have to be gritty and dark to be for adults.
05:11
You know, science fiction doesn't have to be full of death and swearing and,
05:16
you know, questionable morals to be consumed by adults.
05:20
It just has to be thoughtful and imaginative.
05:22
And I'd like to see Star Trek kind of get back to the spirit of the original series a little bit.
05:27
And, you know, get out there on that five-year mission.
05:30
Although we've completed our five-year mission.
05:32
So if we did another one, it would be interesting to see what we do next.
05:35
What the fuck does WTF mean?
05:42
That's the world's end.
05:43
WTF?
05:45
What the fuck does WTF mean?
05:47
That was Edgar's joke.
05:49
And I remember high-fiving him on that day.
05:52
That was a film where Edgar and I kind of decided to change things up.
05:58
Usually with Sean and with Hot Fuzz, Nick was the kind of funny, chaotic one.
06:02
And I was the straighter character.
06:04
With this, Gary King was the chaotic force of the movie.
06:07
And we wanted to make a darker, more adult movie than the last two.
06:12
We thought, let's write a comedy about a suicidal alcoholic.
06:16
And that ended up being The World's End.
06:18
And I really do.
06:19
I love The World's End.
06:20
It doesn't get as much love as the other two.
06:22
But I think the reason for that is because we decided not to try and get that.
06:26
We wanted to make something that was dark, about being middle-aged.
06:30
I'd recently got sober.
06:32
And so a lot of Gary, there's a lot of me in Gary.
06:35
A lot of Gary's more chaotic sort of behavior is based on my own behavior at the time.
06:42
Because when you're in that situation, it is the most important thing.
06:46
You grow a new personality.
06:48
And that personality's only desire is to obtain that thing.
06:51
We took that to the extreme.
06:53
You know, Gary risks the world for his final pint.
06:57
And that's kind of what you do.
06:58
That's what you do as an alcoholic.
07:00
It becomes the personality that leads you everywhere.
07:03
You remember I told you one day you were going to take things too far?
07:09
This is me speaking, by the way, not him.
07:12
That is from Mission Impossible Rogue Nation.
07:16
You remember I told you one day you were going to take things too far?
07:19
This is me speaking, by the way.
07:20
It's not him.
07:21
Rogue Nation was really fun because it was like a buddy movie with Ethan and Benji.
07:24
And there's a whole scene where I shout at Ethan.
07:28
You know, I'm your friend.
07:29
We always laugh about the fact that Benji's the only person that can shout at Ethan.
07:34
Is it allowed to shout at Ethan?
07:36
And would shout at Ethan.
07:38
And their relationship is very sweet in that regard, you know.
07:40
My relationship with Tom is similar to Benji's.
07:42
In that I was like, you know, I'd never been to Hollywood when I made Mission Impossible 3.
07:47
I'd never worked in the Hollywood system before.
07:49
And the first time I got to work there, I was working with the biggest movie star in the world.
07:54
In the same way that Benji, when he starts to work as a field agent in the IMF,
07:59
is working with the IMF's top agent.
08:01
I can talk to Tom in ways that other people can't, you know,
08:03
because just because our relationship is like that, he responds to irreverence.
08:08
You know, I think he appreciates it because everyone's always careful about what they say around him.
08:13
I'm not.
08:14
This scene actually got me the role in Ready Player One.
08:16
I got a call from Steven Spielberg, as you do, and he said,
08:23
I'd love you to come in and play this character in Ready Player One.
08:26
I really enjoyed that scene where you were bomb-laden.
08:30
I woke up one morning married to a pineapple, an ugly pineapple, but I loved her.
08:35
That's Buck from Ice Age.
08:37
I woke up one morning married to a pineapple, an ugly pineapple, but I loved her.
08:44
We tried lots of different voices for Buck.
08:46
It was sort of a swashbuckling kind of type voice at first, like this,
08:50
and then they wanted him a bit more sort of, you know, he's got a bit more cockney.
08:53
So then, then, but, appeared just like that.
08:56
As soon as we got that, it was like we hit the ground running.
08:58
I love, love doing Buck sessions because they're just always outrageous.
09:04
You know, the weird thing is I've never, I've only met Dennis Leary and John Leguizamo of the cast.
09:08
I've never met Ray Romano, never met Queen Latifah, never met the Possums or anybody, you know.
09:14
I really hope we have some sort of premiere this time so I can meet everybody.
09:18
I'm part of their herd and we've never met. It's crazy.
09:21
On the contrary, it was childishly simple. Simply childish, I agree.
09:25
That is from Tintin.
09:28
On the contrary, it was childishly simple.
09:32
Simply childish, I agree.
09:34
That was the first time we worked with Stephen and for Nick and I it was a big deal because
09:38
we'd bonded on movies when we became friends and Spielberg's movies were among them in, you know,
09:44
their droves, particularly Close Encounters, which we both loved.
09:46
So to get to work with Stephen and kind of ask him questions about his career and
09:51
he talks very freely about stuff. He loves movies, so he loves talking about movies.
09:55
It was like a bit of a dream come true, really.
09:57
We were on the set of Tintin and we said, oh, we're making this movie called Paul.
10:00
It's about an alien who's been on earth for like 50 years and he's been secretly kind of
10:05
influencing popular culture. And we had this idea that, you know, when you were writing ET,
10:10
you called Paul for a few ideas. And so we wrote this little scene where Paul kind of gives him
10:14
the idea for ET's healing ability. But Stephen is the one that likes the idea of it being his finger.
10:20
And then he says, trust me, which is Indiana Jones. And Stephen was like, yep, sure, I'll do it.
10:24
Maybe it's not a code word. Maybe it's just a really expensive bunny appendage. That is from
10:31
Mission Impossible 3. Maybe it's not a code word. Maybe it's just a really,
10:34
really expensive bunny appendage. JJ is the king of the back channel. If he can,
10:39
he'll go straight to you rather than like send an offer out to representatives and then it gets back
10:43
to you. And then there's all this kind of middlemaning. And he just sort of said, hey,
10:46
Simon, this is JJ Abrams. Listen, do you want to come and be in Mission Impossible 3?
10:50
I kind of went, um, yeah, okay, sure. And then he did that with everything.
10:55
Subsequently, Star Trek was an email that said, do you want to play Scotty? One sentence.
11:00
And then Star Wars, he took me out to dinner one night to just have a chat and said,
11:06
do you want to play a blobfish in Star Wars? And I was like, sure. And it was so exciting for me
11:11
for my first and, you know, potentially last Mission Impossible to be talking about that thing.
11:17
I expand the legend of the rabbit's foot, which is this unknown piece of tech which could spell
11:24
the end for humankind. In the classic JJ Abrams style, it's this sort of mystery that you never
11:30
quite understand. When you go and see The Final Reckoning, that ball was tossed up in the air and
11:36
caught very artfully by Christopher McQuarrie in a very cool way.
11:40
Take car, go to Mum's, kill Phil, grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for
11:47
all this to blow over. This has become a meme. Whenever there's any sort of crisis, I get little
11:53
memes of Sean raising a pint from Shaun of the Dead, obviously.
11:56
Go to Mum's, kill Phil, grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for
12:03
all this to blow over. This is from the plan scene from Shaun of the Dead, which is a very Edgar Wright
12:10
sort of signature moment when you see the plan realised visually in its various sort of formats
12:15
until they decide to go to the Winchester pub, which is based on a pub that Nick Frost and I
12:20
were in constantly called The Shepherds in North London. It's called The Boogaloo now, if you want to visit.
12:25
The Boogaloo is a fantastic pub and Edgar used to get annoyed at us for never wanting to leave it.
12:29
So that became part of the Shaun of the Dead story and it did eventually all blow over. Actually,
12:33
it hasn't blown over. It's been 20 years and people are still watching the film, which is great.
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