PRINTActor’s Studio: Run Simon Run
April 3, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Vox readers might be familiar with British screen actors such as Jude Law, Daniel Craig or Michael Caine, but how many know Simon Pegg? Cult movies including Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead have made this comedian-turned-actor a sensation on American screens.
A fresh Pegg
Simon Pegg received a miniature drum kit when he was 5. At 16, he became the drummer for God’s Third Leg. Leaving music behind, he attended Stratford-Upon-Avon College where he focused on English and performance studies. In 1991, Pegg earned a degree in theater film and television from the University of Bristol in southwest England. Pegg eventually turned to stand-up comedy before his film and television career began.
This Brit’s got skill
Much like Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell, Pegg tends to work with his friends. He and Edgar Wright co-wrote Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), and Wright directed them. Pegg is candid about working with best friend Nick Frost, who also happens to star as his “best mate” in both films. The pair met while Frost was a waiter. Although Pegg is well known for his roles in these films in the U.S., in Britain he is known for his role in the television sitcom Spaced (1999-2001), which he also wrote with co-star Jessica Hynes. Wright directed the series, which was about two friends pretending to be a couple while renting a flat. An American version of the series is currently in the works.
Crossing the pond
Pegg is now in another film he helped write: Run, Fat Boy, Run, which opened March 28. “I thought it was real sit-com-y and real conventional,” says St. Louis Post-Dispatch film critic Joe Williams, after watching a preview of the film March 13. He was dissapointed but says some of the other critics at the screening seemed to enjoy it. Williams says that Run, Fat Boy, Run doesn’t have the same type of humor as Pegg’s previous work, which he calls “tongue-in-cheek deconstructions of American movies” where he plays with the conventions of genre movies.
Pegg is also writing a script with Frost called Paul about two Brits on a road trip in America, so their teamwork will be on screen yet again. This time, Pegg is sidekick to Frost’s lead, unlike in their previous movies.
Pegg will also play Scotty in Star Trek, set for release in May 2009. Williams thinks that Pegg, a die-hard Star Trek fan, is a good choice for this part. “I don’t know if he’s going to be the only comic relief in the movie, but having someone like him in the movie would be a good asset,” he says.
Whether he’s playing a slacker, as in Shaun of the Dead, or the straight man, as he does in Hot Fuzz, Pegg seems to be expanding his appeal to another continent.
