To explain, he's reading his book to a Dalek.
"Both me and Edgar are firm believers in never underestimating or talking down to an audience, and giving an audience something to do, to give them something which is entirely up to them to enter into the film and find these hidden things and whatever."
Simon Pegg (born Simon John Beckingham on 14 February 1970 in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, England) is a British actor and comedian who has had breakout success in a wide range of movies.
He began as a TV actor and gained success for Spaced, which he co-wrote with Jessica Hynes. He later collaborated with Spaced helmer Edgar Wright and actor Nick Frost on Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End. Since then, Pegg has starred in a few films and was cast as Scotty in J. J. Abrams' reboot of Star Trek. He and Deep Roy are the only two actors who have played roles in all three of the juggernaut English-language SF franchises: Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek (and in the last-named one, Roy plays Pegg's sidekick).
Pegg is known for his quick-witted and sarcastic characters, and for often playing a slacker. He's quickly become a poster boy for nerd culture for many minor projects like a one-episode role in Doctor Who and his two-man re-enactment
of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
He admits that he hates being famous. He warns anybody seeking for fame that "It's like jumping into a pool full of sharks."
Film Roles:
- Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy - Various Characters
- Shaun of the Dead (2004) - Shaun
- Hot Fuzz (2007) - Sgt. Nicholas Angel
- The World's End (2013) - Gary King
- Mission: Impossible Film Series - Benjamin "Benji" Dunn
- Star Trek - Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
- Star Trek (2009)
- Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
- Star Trek Beyond (also co-writer) (2016)
- Big Nothing (2006) - Gus
- Run Fatboy Run (2007) - Dennis
- How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) - Sidney Young
- Burke & Hare (2010) - William Burke
- Paul (2011) - Graeme Willy
- A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012) - Jack
- Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014) - Hector
- Kill Me Three Times (2014) - Charlie Wolfe
- Man Up (2015) - Jack
- Absolutely Anything (2015) - Neil
- Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) - Unkar Plutt, the junk dealer on Jakku.
- Ready Player One (2018) - Ogden Morrow
- Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) - Meredith Houseman
- Terminal (2018) - Bill
- Inheritance (2020) - Morgan Warner
Voice Acting Roles:
- Free Jimmy (2006) - Paul
- Ice Age - Buck
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
- Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
- The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (2022)
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) - Reepicheepnote
- The Adventures of Tintin (2011) - Inspector Thompson
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2012) - Dengar
- Phineas and Ferb (2014) - Various Characters (including C-3PO in the Star Wars special)
- The Boxtrolls (2014) - Herbert Trubshaw
- Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) - Dengar
- LEGO Dimensions (2016) - Benjamin "Benji" Dunn
- The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019) - skekSil the Chamberlain
- Piney: The Lonesome Pine (2019) - Jackster
- The Boys: Diabolical (2022) - Wee Hughie
- Luck (2022) - Bob the Cat
- Hogwarts Legacy (2023) - Phineas Nigellus Black
- Agent Elvis (2023) - Paul McCartney
- Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023) - Studio Security Guard #1
TV Roles:
- Asylum (1996) - Simon
- Is It Bill Bailey? (1998) - Various Characters
- Big Train (1998-2002) - Various Characters
- Spaced (1999-2001) - Tim Bisley
- Band of Brothers (2001) - William S. Evans
- Black Books (2004) - Evan
- Doctor Who (2005) - The Editor
- Mob City (2013) - Hecky Nash
- The Boys (2019) - Hughie's Father
- Truth Seekers (2020) - David
This actor provides examples of:
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: As Wee Hughie, the protagonist of The Boys. Confirmed by Word of God on several occasions. He ended up playing Hughie's father in the Amazon adaptation. This casting would eventually be fulfilled in The Boys: Diabolical, where he gets to actually play Hughie, set in the original comics' continuity no less.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- Has dyed his hair red for Shaun of the Dead, black for The World's End and is mostly seen with blond hair, but his real hair colour is actually light-brown.
- He got insanely ripped for his role in Inheritance.
- Old Shame: He is very critical of the Star Wars prequels, Jar Jar Binks in particular. However, in 2018, in the wake of the online harassment of Kelly Marie Tran for her role as Rose Tico and the revelation that Jar Jar's actor, Ahmed Best, contemplated suicide over similar harassment, Pegg felt some shame over his criticism, even though he admits he was only criticizing the character at the time and thought other people were doing the same.
- Playing Against Type:
- In Hot Fuzz, Pegg is much more of a straight man than his normal persona.
- In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, his comic lab-rat role in the previous film is upgraded to being in the field with the rest of the IMF team on the run, meaning he gets in on the gun-wielding action and even gets to pull the badass-with-sunglasses pose on the main poster alongside the more imposing Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner. He does opt out of helping Ethan Hunt with a physically demanding task at one point, quipping, "I'm on the computer."
- Inheritance is a psychological thriller and he plays a creepy villain without any comedy at all.
- Precision F-Strike: He can sometimes drift into this territory in real life. See below.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- His role in Star Trek (2009).
- On his sudden fame after Shaun of the Dead: "Well, it's not like I'm going to go do Mission: Impossible III!"
- He apparently put aside his vitriol for the Prequels in order to play an Original Trilogy character, Dengar, on Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
- He then gets to play a character in the new Star Wars trilogy, Unkar Plutt, the junk dealer on Jakku.
- Voicing Johnny Alpha on the Big Finish audio adaptations.
- He and his daughter are huge fans of Phineas and Ferb, and tweeting an obscure reference from the show got him cast in an episode. Didn't hurt that co-creator Jeff "Swampy" Marsh is a huge fan of Spaced.
- Considering that he did Star Wars films many times, it made sense that they'd cast him for the Star Wars crossover episode.
- He's been a fan of The Dark Crystal since seeing it on initial release, and does a rather scarily spot-on impression of Barry Dennen's performance as the Chamberlain in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
- Star-Making Role: Shaun of the Dead. He was known in the UK before with Spaced.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He's well known for ranting against... anything he hates. His infamous Instagram rant against UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from January 2023 actually got him trending worldwide on Twitter:
"What a prick. What about arts and humanities, fostering this country's amazing reputation for creativity and self expression? Rishi Sunak wants to fuck his drone army of data entering robots. What a tosser, FUCK the tories. Get rid of them, please. FUCK! Fuck Rishi Sunak and fuck the TORIES."
- Those Two Actors: He seems to get along with a great deal of actors.
- Nick Frost (Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, Paul, The Adventures of Tintin). In Ice Age they both participated but in different sequels of the franchise.
- Rosamund Pike (The World's End, Hector and the Search for Happiness).
- Andy Serkis (Burke & Hare, The Adventures of Tintin, Star Wars: The Force Awakens).
- David Schwimmer (Band of Brothers, Big Nothing). In Run Fatboy Run while Schwimmer did not act, he directed Pegg in it.
- What Could Have Been: Reportedly, he was supposed to play Pete Tyler on Doctor Who, but scheduling got in the way, and he ended up playing the Editor of Satellite Five instead.
- Written by Cast Member: He co-wrote Spaced, Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, Run Fatboy Run, Paul, and Star Trek Beyond.
