Simon Pegg News

Don't look now, but Simon Pegg is becoming an American movie star. He appeared in Mission: Impossible III and received critical acclaim for Run Fatboy Run.

In a recent interview, the British actor spoke on his new starring role in the big screen adaption of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People:

Did you spend much time with Toby Young researching the role of Sidney Young before you started filming How to Lose Friends & Alienate People?
I read his book, which was the first thing I did. Then I realized that I didn't ever want to do an impression of him because the script is a fictionalization of his book. It's a very anecdotal account. It doesn't necessarily lend itself to a movie when you first read it.

What [screenwriter] Peter Straughan did was to fashion a fiction out of the information that he had, and create this universe that was a filmic version of it. So I thought, "I'll play the character from the ground up, but I'll go meet Toby and see what he's like."

And he's got this weird kind of [affects gravely voice] "bah bah" about him, which I thought would be distracting if I did that in the movie. But it was interesting to meet a guy who essentially didn't really care what anyone thought. He cares what one percent of people think about him and nothing about what the rest of them think.

He's genuinely happy to be hated, it doesn't really bother him, and that's very opposite to me. I don't want to be hated. [Laughs.] And it was fascinating just to talk to someone who has no compunction about upsetting people.

Run, Fat Boy, Run, the next vehicle starring writer / actor Simon Pegg is about to hit theaters tomorrow.

Comingsoon.net was lucky enough to interview Pegg about his upcoming movie. Here's a small excerpt with the star of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

ComingSoon.net: How did David convince you to come onto this project both as a writer and as the star? Did he just send you the script and ask?

Simon Pegg: Well I got the call and I read it again and I thought, "How is this going to work as a British set film?" because it very much had the spirit of New York in it. It had the New York Marathon, it was intrinsically New York, and at first I kind of resisted it. I was like, "Well, can't we just come shoot it here and I can play an American?" The (production) company Material are all about shooting in London, and obviously we want to keep our film industry going and make sure our crews work because they're brilliant and so I thought, "Well okay, this is a challenge then. This is going to be some hard work." It actually was easier than I thought it was, because I think London and New York have a similar sensibility. I think they have more in common with each other than say New York and L.A. in terms of the metropolitan feel of the place, so it was just the case of taking it on as a challenge, and I always like a challenge.

CS: Did anyone have worries about David being American trying to direct a British comedy?

Pegg: No, not at all. What he was doing was directing a comedy in Britain. He wasn't directing a Bollywood film, you know? The cultural difference wasn't that great, and he's a very adept comic and director.

CS: Did you actually have to create a marathon for this thing?

Pegg: Yeah, we were tied up in all sorts of nonsense. The London Marathon is sponsored by a margarine company and that entity is tied up with another film, so the rights to that event we couldn't get, so we had to invent an event which we did with the kind help of a major sports clothing company. It became this River Run, which doesn't really exist, so we shot it basically with about two hundred fifty people and then the magic of crowd replication, which you could do digitally, made it look like a real marathon.

You can read the rest of the interview at Comingsoon.net.