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