Original traveller: Simon Pegg

Words: Michael Hogan
Photography: Hollie Fernando  
Styling: Mark Anthony Bradley

“This story has been in my life for 20 years,” says Simon Pegg. “It blows my mind to think about it having been that long.” The 55-year-old actor and screenwriter is celebrating two decades in the Mission: Impossible franchise, with its keenly awaited eighth and final instalment hitting cinemas in May. The milestone moment is a chance for Pegg to look back on his journey, from a flat-sharing North London nerd in Spaced to a Hollywood super-spy and globe-straddling star. And where better to get reflective than at Tooting Bec Lido, while wearing slightly damp designer menswear?

Even the detail of Pegg’s casting alongside Tom Cruise has a you-couldn’t-make-it-up quality. When his zombie pastiche Shaun of the Dead (a “rom-zom-com”, as he called it) proved a cult hit in 2004, an interviewer asked if he’d now be abandoning the British film industry and heading to Tinseltown. “It’s not like I’m going to go off and do, I don’t know, Mission: Impossible 3,” he replied, randomly naming an imaginary blockbuster. Lo and behold, exactly that came to pass. The following year, he bagged the role of Benji Dunn, a British tech geek who becomes a close friend of hero Ethan Hunt and loyal member of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).

“It was so strange to get a call out of the blue from [director] JJ Abrams,” he recalls. “He’d seen Shaun of the Dead and just phoned up and said, ‘Hey, would you like to come and play?’ I’d never made a movie in Hollywood before and had no experience on a production that size, so initially it was overwhelming. I met Tom for the first time in costume on set, but he was so nice and supportive. I did three days’ work and assumed that’d be the end of it but every couple of years, I’d get a mad email from JJ: ‘Do you want to play Scotty in Star Trek?’ ‘How would you feel if Benji became a field agent?’ These questions were almost rhetorical. Like, yeah, of course!”

Six movies later, Pegg professes himself “amped” for the release of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. “It’s the biggest practical action movie ever made,” he says. “It’s going to be thrilling and very much the climax of the series. Everything has come to this. I haven’t seen the finished film yet but it’s my favourite in terms of the work I did and the places we went.”

By “practical action”, Pegg means old-fashioned stunts, rather than CGI. “Our mantra has always been that the stunts should be real,” he explains. “You can do anything now on screen – create insane environments, have people do superhuman things – but it’s all a little airless if it isn’t authentic. I’ll never forget being in an IMAX cinema in Sydney watching Ghost Protocol. When Ethan jumped off the Burj Khalifa, the audience collectively gasped. I was like, yeah! That’s what we have to do in order to deliver a real thrill these days. The fact that it’s the actor, not a stunt performer, adds an extra frisson. It’s really Tom hanging off bi-planes or riding motorbikes off cliffs. It’s testament to his dedication that he actually does risk his life for his audience.”

The Final Reckoning is one of the most expensive films ever made. Expect exotic locations and spectacular set pieces. “You glimpse some mad stuff in the trailer, but you’ll get much more,” he says. “As Sir Anthony Hopkins said in the second film, this isn’t Mission: Difficult, it’s Mission: Impossible.” It’s intended as the final chapter in the series, although Cruise has hinted at a desire to play Ethan into his 80s, like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Pegg chuckles at this: “He keeps this very quiet, but Tom Cruise is actually 102.”

Cruise might be the consummate daredevil, but Pegg has pulled off some scary stuff, too. “There was a big car chase in Rogue Nation. I was in the passenger seat with Tom driving, and it was hairy as f*ck. The camera crane was coming within inches of the windscreen as we weaved through souks in Marrakech. We went hell for leather, then reversed off a staircase. Terrifying but such a buzz. When they shot the car chase in Rome for Dead Reckoning, I got FOMO. I was like, ‘Oh man, I was riding shotgun but now it’s Hayley [Atwell]!’”  

His physique has certainly transformed in the last 20 years. “I’m physically in better shape than when I did the first film,” he says. “I was a bit pudgy back then. When Benji became a field agent, I had to look like one. That was the first time I trained for a movie, and it changed my life. I got happier and healthier. I like being skinny and strong.”

He became so buff that Cruise – no slouch himself in the muscle department – nicknamed him ‘8-Pack Peggles’. “I don’t think I’ve got an eight-pack now, just the regular six,” he says. “It’s got to be even numbers, obviously, or you’d have an asymmetrical stomach.” He works out in a home gym “called The Two-Headed Dog, which is one of the pubs from The World’s End. The pub sign is up on the gym wall as a tribute to the days when pubs were part of my life – and a reminder never to go back.” 

Pegg has been open about his battle with alcoholism and depression. He checked into rehab in 2009 and has been sober since. “It’s nothing but a good thing,” he says. “I don’t associate alcohol with anything positive. Cutting it out was revelatory. As soon as I did, things started to go well because I wasn’t anaesthetising my emotions. I don’t miss it at all.” His main liquid intake these days is sparkling water and coffee. “My wife bought me a bean-to-cup machine for Christmas,” he says. “It’s my last little vice.”

With men’s mental health a growing issue, he’s glad he went public. “The response was so positive,” he says. “Lots of people thanked me for speaking out. There’s this odd view of people in the public eye. They think you’ve got it all, but mental health doesn’t discriminate. You can be wealthy and famous but miserable as f*ck. You can have nothing and be gloriously happy.”

Born in Gloucester, Pegg studied theatre and film at Bristol University, where he formed his first live comedy troupe. After early forays into stand-up – often performed with his pet goldfish Rover, purportedly a silent Marxist poet – his breakthrough came in 1999 with much-loved slacker sitcom Spaced, co-written by Jessica Hynes and directed by regular collaborator Edgar Wright. Pegg and Wright translated this success on to the big screen by co-creating the ‘Three Flavours Cornetto’ trilogy: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. These affectionate spoofs spun three of Pegg’s teen obsessions – zombies, cop duos, sci-fi – into comedy gold. His career went global with roles in two of entertainment’s flagship franchises, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. 

As well as playing USS Enterprise engineer Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott in the rebooted sci-fi trilogy, he co-wrote the screenplay for Star Trek Beyond. Will he ever return to the bridge of the iconic starship? “I’d like to,” he says. “A script has been in development for the longest time. I’m proud of Star Trek Beyond, both as a writer and an actor. But obviously we tragically lost Anton [Yelchin, who played Chekov], which took the wind out of our sails. If JJ calls, I’ll be there, for sure.”

Pegg now lives in Hertfordshire with his wife Maureen (aka ‘Mo’), teenage daughter Matilda (aka ‘Tilly’) and their three dogs: a cockapoo and two Schnauzers, the latter inspired by his Spaced character’s pet pooch Colin. “Ada, who played Colin, was such a beautiful dog that I fell in love with the breed,” he says. “In the evening, we all lie around watching TV together like a big pride. Dogs, people, squirrels…” He writes in a garden office full of props and posters from his films. “All the stuff that’s not allowed in the house because it contradicts the rustic aesthetic,” he laughs. 

In a self-deprecating appearance at this year’s Baftas, Pegg joked about never winning one of the golden mask gongs. Does he believe comedy is underestimated? “A lot of actors with a history in comedy feel like they’re not taken seriously,” he muses. “It’s an underrated skill. If there was an Oscar for best comedy performance, Jim Carrey’s shelves would be bending under the weight. He’s an absolute master. You need to understand the mechanics of drama in order to play comedy properly. I suspect he got sick of everyone wanting him to be a dancing monkey.”

Are Pegg’s own dancing monkey days over? “Probably not! I texted Edgar today and said I’m not doing any comedy until we work together again, because that’s when I enjoy it the most.” So do they have plans to reunite? “Oh man, we’re permanently thinking about it. When we wrote Shaun of the Dead, we didn’t have anything else to do. Nowadays, our calendars are so full it’s a matter of finding six weeks to hash out an outline for a new film. As soon as we can, we will. It’s all we talk about when we’re together.”

He’s close friends with Coldplay’s Chris Martin and they’re godfathers to each other’s daughters. Pegg occasionally joins the band on stage to play harmonica or tambourine. “I find myself at Glastonbury or Wembley and it’s like Make A Wish: a sneaky way to briefly experience that rock star life,” he says. The first fan ever to approach Pegg on the street was a young Amy Winehouse, saying how much she loved Spaced. “That was such a lovely thing,” he says. “It’s a travesty how Amy was treated. The press coverage was brutal. I’m so glad she got a statue in Camden. We always say hi when we walk past her.”

Pegg once said he tries to approach work with a sense of wonder, imagining how his childhood self would react. Is that still a guiding principle? “It was for a while,” he concurs. “In the first half of my career, I ticked things off like a bucket list: Star Trek, Star Wars, meeting George Romero and Quentin Tarantino. I texted Mark Hamill about my dog the other day. He’s got a cockapoo like us. If someone had told seven-year-old me that I’d be exchanging messages with Luke Skywalker about our dogs, I’d have thought they were insane. I feel like I’ve fulfilled my childhood dreams. I don’t want to linger in that twilight between youth and adulthood. I want to do grown-up stuff now.”

Straight after our photoshoot, Pegg is heading into the West End to be the surprise guest star in Inside No 9 Stage/Fright. Also in the pipeline are period drama Angels in the Asylum and a second season of Channel 4 cyber-thriller The Undeclared War. He’s looking forward to taking on more varied work. 

“Extensions of the stuff we consumed as children are such a part of culture now,” he says. “Forty years ago, [French philosopher] Jean Baudrillard predicted that society would infantilise itself to its detriment. That’s not to decry mass entertainment. There’s always a place for it but, personally, I want to talk about the things I’m interested in as a grown-up, not as a kid.” He’s embracing his current life stage with relish: “I’m enjoying middle age. I love dressing like an adult, having a bit of grey in my beard and being uncool around my daughter’s friends.” 

Pegg shakes his head in disbelief at how far he’s come in the past 20 years. “My life has changed so much,” he says. “I feel better as a person than I ever have. Being a parent. Having a house I want to live in forever with my family, doing a job that I’d happily do as a hobby. It never escapes me that I’m in a very fortunate position.” Time for one last question before he departs. As a veteran of another huge espionage franchise, would Pegg fancy donning James Bond’s tuxedo? “I’ve made my spy bed and I’m lying in it,” he laughs. “IMF till I die.” 

Simon Pegg’s travel tips

High Life asks the jet-setting actor for his top three travel hacks 

What’s your top tip for beating jet lag? 
“Get up. Don’t toss and turn. Stay up as long as you can but, if you find yourself awake in the middle of the night, don’t lie there panicking. Put the light on and read a book. It’s just your body adjusting. There’s no point going insane. If you’re awake, you’re awake.”
 
What’s the one item you never travel abroad without?
“Bedside chargers. What makes a good hotel for me is sockets by the bed and proper coat hangers. Not those ones that insinuate that you might be a thief and that if you are, you could steal coat hangers. Comfy clothes for the evening are always important. So are your favourite ablutions in your washbag. I do a lot of packing. I hate it.”

What's your top tip for navigating the airport stress-free?
“Always book the lounge. Whenever I fly, my main priority is heading straight to the lounge for a nice cooked breakfast before take-off. Bolt for somewhere that’s not chaotic and as comfortable as possible. Preferably somewhere serving nice sausages."

 

 

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is released in UK cinemas on 21 May. Three Mission: Impossible films will be on board BA long-haul flights in June