Simon Pegg Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

I broke my hand on the serve the world's end afterwards I went to see Morag the certain urse and she gave me two very powerful painkillers which I took both of and then she called me and said just take one it was a fun night spaced yeah that was my first kind of lead role in a sitcom Tim was a kind of extension of who I was at the time a bit of a sort of sci-fi geek comic book fan I wrote the series with Jessica Hines who played Daisy who is an incredibly gifted actress and writer together we sort of came up with this flatshare sitcom and got all our friends to be in it and it was the first time the second time actually we worked with Edgar Wright where I really formed my creative partnership with Edgar the first time I played Tim bisley I was required to kill a whole bunch of zombies and we shot the zombie sequence one morning I was a little bit hungover I seem to remember the idea was that Tim had done so much speed that he was hallucinating that he was actually in the video game he was playing which is Resident Evil 2 you want a piece of me come get some and it was after that morning of shooting that we decided we would quite like to make a zombie film and that zombie film was Shaun of the Dead Shaun of the Dead short of the Dead was our first feature film mine and Edgar and I played the part of Shaun smileyriley as his name was you probably didn't know that is that was his dj name he was a an electrical store retailed chap who was stuck in a sort of cycle of torpor and inactivity with his best friend ed much to his girlfriends sort of disapproval that really at the time was fairly autobiographical Nick and I Nick Frost and I who play dead were ensconced in a pub in Highgate called the Shepherd's where we spent much of our time to the disappointment of our den girlfriend Edgar Wright who used to try and get us to go into town and go to the Groucho Club and places like that where celebrities hang out but we didn't want to do that we wanted to stay in the pub and my girlfriend at the time Maureen who is now my beautiful wife for 13 years she also was trying to get us to leave and we didn't want it so we wrote a whole film about it and added zombies when we came up with the idea for Shaun we wanted him to stay in the same costume for the whole movie apart from the sort of thirst scene in the last scene so we came up with this very very distinctive white shirt red tie which became his look and now every Halloween I get sent pictures of people who dress in that costume because it's actually quite an easy Halloween costume to replicate it's just a white shirt with short sleeves and a red tie covered in blood and your Shaun of the Dead Hot Fuzz in Hot Fuzz I played the part of Nicholas angel who was a very dedicated police officer very by-the-book not a maverick he was the opposite of the classic action movie hero and he did everything straight down the line and during the process of the film he learns to essentially dumb down and become more like an action hero for Nicholas angel I had to kind of do a deal bit more research Shaun was basically me but Nicholas angel was very very much not me I had to go and do some research with the police and hang out with cops you know research procedure and all that kind of stuff if you drive a driver Long's and we put the blues and twos on a couple of times and went screaming around and turn them off and then we're told not to tell anyone that we did that now we were lucky enough to be in the car one time when there was a domestic in the West Country and not it wasn't lucky that the domestic happened obviously but there was a big argument in some house and lot of noise we got there with the blue lights flashing and were careening down some some alleyways in the West Country which was an enormous fun and fortunately nobody was hurt it was just a dispute over a tractor ever since I've had a nodding relationship with most British police officers you know usually the Bobby is seen as a sort of slightly parochial character when in actual fact you know we thought it was time the British Bobby got a call representative most of the police that I encounter if not all seem to be slightly grateful for that because we weren't really taking the piss we were actually kind of making a sort of tribute pic so I've been let off so many murders because of hot fuzz the World's End Gary King is my favorite character I've ever played Gary is a lost soul a warrior in the name of something completely pointless he was a complex character and that Gary comes across as being very annoying at first and irritating and not someone you particularly like because he seems selfish at the expense of his friends but you learn as the film goes on that there's a lot more to him than that and he's actually you know beset by complications when the truth of him is revealed you kind of slightly understand with more clarity why he behaves the way he does Mission Impossible 3 ghost Protocol rogue nation and fallout Benji Dunn Benjamin Disraeli done this know his name I just made up I've got a call once from this guy JJ Abrams I don't happen to him but he called me at my office and I was writing Hot Fuzz at the time and literally said hey do you want to come and be in Mission Impossible 3 and I said all right then why not I'll give it a go he had a big future that guy I'm just looking at anything and you got something you're gonna go somewhere I know where he went it's weird I think I saw him in LA last time I was there I was shooting in Skid Row and there was a box with JJ written on it and I left to the lid and there he was skulking in the background of this little box he was just wearing a pair of white Underpants and they were very grubby and I said Jake ask me Simon remember from Mission Impossible 3 but he was gone he was too far he gave at least the game of the opportunity to play Benjy for the first time and subsequently three more times in Ghost Protocol rogue nation and fallout Benji was a sort of lab technician who I think got a taste for adventure in Mission Impossible 3 he ends up being Ethan's GPS when he's in Shanghai and I think that the thrill of that the thrill of sort of being a bit naughty and going rogue with Ethan gave him a taste for adventure and so he enrolled in the field agent program and then when Ethan gets out of Russian prison in ghost Protocol there's Benji in the field and that's like seeing that kid from ITV fixed your computer yesterday suddenly with you in the mine or whatever you're doing for a living I don't know why being a mine so it's been really fun playing Benji because he sort of changed over the years he's become more and more adept to more and more capable but at the same time he's still that wide-eyed wet-behind-the-ears kind of new guy and for that reason he's sort of the audience's way into these crazy adventures Star Trek star trek into darkness Star Trek beyond chief engineer Montgomery Scott Scotty is such an iconic character and that's not anything to do with me that's to do with James Doohan who brought the character to the screen in the first place and made him such a beloved sort of feature within the Star Trek TV series and latterly the movies I was very lucky enough to be offered the role of Scotty by the guy JJ again I was able to take part in Star Trek and eventually got to write co-write a Star Trek film with a guy called doc junk it was it became my dear friend in the trenches of writing a Star Trek film in six months is what we had to do and it was it was no fun I love playing Scotty a lot of people say my accents terrible I'd like to say it's not it's actually okay but people like to be passive-aggressive towards strangers because their lives are so empty so you know how about it hang on a minute I've got to find my crewmates you help me and I help you all right well things being as they are today I'll get a better offer today so lead the way my wife is Scottish as such shows half my family so they all help me out with my accent and teach me words to say like scanner and yeah we clatter bastard and things like that so that's really good fun having some authenticity despite what mainly English people will say oh you're Scottish actions rubbish but most of the Scottish people I encounter like hey well done lad you did well so I love them for that I love the Scots more than the English ice age dawn of the dinosaurs and collision course I play the catch of buck the weasel who is a one-eyed weasel which is also often a euphemism for a man's parts it's not a euphemism for my part because my part was actually buck the weasel who was trapped in a prehistoric ice cave for many years with a group of dinosaurs in ice age dawn of the dinosaurs and then came topside for Ice Age collision course to help the Ice Age gang Manny Diego that law avoid a collision with a massive asteroid I love Claire buck he's a he's a crazy sort of ball of energy you'd be surprised to know how exhausting it is to play him even though I'm only in a room with a microphone all the time I've never met Ray Romano or Queen or any of those guys I met Dennis Leary once when I was younger but he won't remember that and yet we've had all these adventures together and that's the strange thing about doing voiceovers is that you sometimes or generally always do it solo one day I'll get to meet those guys and we'll reminisce about the great times we had together but until then they're not gonna happen for in Paul I play the character of Graham Willy who is the friend and wingman of Clive Collings played by Nick Frost my longtime friend and collaborator Graham and Clive are two nerds in the real sense of the word not in the new sense where everyone's a nerd just because they go and watch Ironman and Clive and Graham are both big sci-fi fans Clive's an author Graham was in Illustrator they go to comic-con and then they take a little pilgrimage out to the black mailbox at area 51 in Nevada when they get there they happen to run into an alien on the run and they help him get back to the ship it's like a wish fulfilled for nerds really Paul was played by Seth Rogen an entirely CG character beautifully brought to life by double negative I become a father in Paul and you can look out for this if you like I'm the same when we knock on Terra's door and she opens the door in the interim between us knocking and her opening I went back to Los Angeles and was present for the birth of my daughter and then went back to film the rest of the scene so when I watched the movie I see myself become a father in a single edit and it's ER it's a remarkable little moment for me when I watch that film which I do every week because I love it so much Star Wars The Force awakens Star Wars The Force awakens is a film in a series of movies which began in 1977 with Star Wars a new hope as it was called a lot year after it came out and then Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi the Phantom something attack of the things revenge of something and then there was another one and it's this and in that I play unkar plutt who is essentially like a scrap metal merchant and alcohol was an interesting role for me because it was fully synthetic suit fat suit silicone mask with CG augmented features it was a tough call because I was in the deserts of Abu Dhabi in 50 degree heat and then in Pinewood Studios in similar heat because we were in a studio but it was great it was great to play such an important part in the Star Wars universe and I hope I'm not spoiling it for anyone to say that unkar plot in the episode 9 will become something of a significant character and he is actually the force and as such means more I think than any other Star Wars character particularly hands Olo or Judah bakudan or Luke Skywalker I love any chance I get to work with Steven Spielberg he is a fantastic director and a wonderful man and it's someone who shaped my love of cinema and films generally so yeah to get to play up tomorrow was a tree Ogden Morrow was the co-creator of the Oasis with James Halliday who's played by Matt Rylands I got to play Ogden at various stages in his life as a young man as a middle-aged man as an old man as well and that was really good fun because I got to go into have aging makeup and that took about five hours but it was really fun to look in the mirror and see myself as an old man which I'd do every day but as an even older man let's say and also do my old man walk which is to put my hand just here and then walk a little bit like this I like to watch old men walking it's one of my favorite pastimes often I'll get a nice position in the park put a rub down get some sandwiches and just watch old men walking around it's quite easy to do because a lot of them are partially sighted so sometimes I'll pursue them for up to 2 or 3 miles if they can make it that far and video than walking and I have a large library of old men walking around which I watch in the evenings as I'm having my dinner for me it's always about the money and how much they're gonna pay me to be in these films no I you know I mean you look for complexities in characters you look for layers and interesting sort of subtext I love a character who has something going on inside which you have to communicate in subtle ways

Channel: GQ

Views: 3,949,545

Keywords: simon pegg, simon pegg characters, simon pegg interview, simon pegg 2018, simon pegg funny, simon pegg shaun of the dead, simon pegg hot fuzz, simon pegg gq, simon pegg iconic characters, simon pegg spaced, shaun of the dead, simon pegg nick frost, simon peg, best simon pegg, funniest simon pegg, simon pegg character, simon pegg movie, simon pegg movies, simon pegg show, nick frost simon pegg, hot fuzz, simon pegg and nick frost, gq, gq magazine

Id: WfsCoFOqEQM

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 26 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/z0mbiepete]

Simon Pegg is such a better actor than the parts he gets these days demand of him. All you need to do is compare the nuanced performances he gives in the Cornetto trilogy vs. the one note characters he's asked to play in Star Trek or Mission: Impossible (basically the same character). I hope he gets to do something that shows off his range again soon.

[u/artistofdesign]

I really enjoy Simon Pegg's subtle dry humor and quick wit. IRL and in his movies.

[u/jalkazar]

I love this series of interviews, even when it features actors I hardly know about (Pegg not being one of them). But I just have to recommend the episode with Ethan Hawke. He is just so passionate, eloquent and sweet in how he talks about his movies, the actors he worked with and the directors he worked with. It's incredible and I've seen his interview several times.

[u/nsmibert]

Loved Sergeant Knickerless Angle in Hot Fuzz.

[u/dwSHA]

Yarp

[u/[deleted]]

Is Shaun of the Dead a good film?

[u/Shemlocks]

Thank you for posting this.

[u/[deleted]]

Those cuts are so quick it could trigger an epliptic.

[u/[deleted]]

Fucking love Simon Pegg. Absolute legend