THE EMPIRE INTERVIEW
HE’S THE ORIGINAL NERD DONE WELL, A COMEDY STAR FAMOUS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC. BUT THERE ARE HIDDEN DEPTHS TO SIMON PEGG . AS HE CONFESSES TO CHRIS HEWITT, HE’S HAD HIS FAIR SHARE OF DARK DAYS, BUT HAS COME OUT THE OTHER SIDE SMILING
It’s been at least a month since Simon Pegg appeared in Empire, so here he is. Crisis averted.
“This is my big ‘my drink and drugs hell!’ interview, isn’t it?”
laughs Simon Pegg, leaning forward on a ridiculously oversized sofa in a Los Angeles photo studio. It’s important to note, or possibly even emphasise, the ‘laughs’ part of that equation. For today, our chat — just the latest of a long string of interviews we’ve done together since I first met Pegg back in 2004 — has taken an unexpected detour, into a soul-baring revelation about an ongoing battle with depression, and drinking, that had, until now, been known to only a handful of the actor’s closest family and friends.
But he’s come through that now, and today he’s ebullient and effervescent; bouncing around with a brolly and a bowler hat for our photographer, cracking wise with the crew. You wouldn’t know, if you didn’t already know, that he’s off after our shoot to film the last day of a low-budget drama, Lost Transmissions, in which he’s tackling his heaviest role, as a schizophrenic music producer lost on the streets of LA.
Because Pegg, these days, is a contented man. Contented, personally, and ready to share, ready to inspire others who may feel the same awful dark drag of depression. And contented, professionally. As an actor, he has a busy summer coming up, appearing in dark thriller Terminal, and making his fourth outing as IMF agent Benji Dunn in Mission: Impossible Fallout,
two films which encapsulate his career. There’s the low-budget, edgy, independent side, where he got his start with Edgar Wright on Shaun Of The Dead
and its Cornetto-flavoured follow-ups. And then there’s the blockbuster, deeply geektastic, nerd-do-well side, with roles in three major franchises — Mission, Star Trek and Star Wars.
But he’s expanding his horizons, giving lie to that nonsense about men being unable to multi-task. He’s always been a writer (see that Cornetto Trilogy box set for details), but the next year will see him venture into producing, with his and Nick Frost’s new company Stolen Picture, and directing as well. Clean, sober, he’s fully focused on forging a formidable career. In fact, if you can forgive a pun this awful (and you probably can’t), at last he seems to be a round Pegg in a round hole.
You’re filming Lost Transmissions here. A serious drama. For the most part, the stuff you do has been comedic. Are you stretching yourself a bit?
That whole perception of me as an actor, I think, is obviously something I cultivated to a degree. I never planned to be a comedic actor. I often see myself referred to as a comedian. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I was a comedian in the ’90s for a period of time, but I’ve stopped being a comedian. Stand-up was a way of having some autonomy over my career. My idealistic 19-year-old self was like, ‘I don’t want to be a Shakespearean monkey.’ I’d love to be one now. My big ambition as a young acting student was to be at the RSC and do theatre. But stand-up led to roles in TV shows like Big Train and Spaced. But that wasn’t my ambition, to be a comedic actor. It was just to be an actor.
In your career, you’ve become something of a multi-tasker.
A multi-hyphenate.
You act.
Occasionally. If you can call it that.
You’ve written.
Once or twice.
Now you’re producing as well. The way your career has developed, you seem to have been a little more ambitious than some of your contemporaries.
I don’t know if it’s ambition as much as me being a control freak. [Laughs] When
I look back at what I’ve done, it wouldn’t be anywhere near what it is if I hadn’t tried to self-generate and write. I’ve always had ideas. I wanted to make sure they came to fruition. I see writing as part of my process. That way you can be the most autonomous with what you’re doing and have the most say, and create the most complete personal work.
As a writer, you’re driving your own career.
It’s my comfort zone. That’s where that is. I have desires to extend beyond that comfort zone. Certainly with mine and Edgar’s comedy, it’s always been very much part of a continuum which features genuine tragedy and seriousness, particularly in Shaun Of The Dead and The World’s End, where you have essentially a guy who has to kill his own mother and a chronic alcoholic who is suffering from suicidal depression. That’s ultimately what The World’s End is about. It’s about how addiction can lead you to risk your life and others’ in order to get what you want. It doesn’t feel like a huge leap to go from those films to dramatic acting.
Gary King in The World’s End is a really interesting character. He was a risk. I don’t think people knew how to receive it.
The whole thing about Gary was that I wanted to make someone who was maddening, irritating and unlikeable, then force the audience to re-evaluate that opinion. He’s thoroughly broken and hurt. Often we can dismiss people who have not physically manifested problems as mad or annoying, when in actual fact they’re screaming for help and extremely vulnerable. It’s easy to dismiss people whose issues aren’t immediately evident, when really they need to be cuddled.
You said that Gary was unlikeable. Which is interesting, because you’ve always had a likeable presence on screen. Very naturalistic. Very relatable.
I always really liked that naturalistic style of acting. That’s why Big Train, when it came along, felt like the thing I’d always been waiting to do, which is be realistic and relatable and naturalistic but in a completely bizarre and unnatural situation. My favourite sketches in Big Train were always where we’re being totally, documentary-real, but the situation is utterly, utterly bizarre.
Like the office wanking?
Office wanking is the classic one. No arch winking at the camera, no big performances. I loved that idea of playing it super-straight and super-realistic, which extended into all of mine and Edgar’s films.
Shaun Of The Dead launched you and Edgar, particularly here in Hollywood. What was your best-case scenario for this low-budget British flick?
That it would be on at the Empire Leicester Square, maybe. At three o’clock in the afternoon.
Three stars in Empire?
Yeah! The thing we didn’t know is that it would ever be seen over here in the States. It was like, maybe we’ll get it on DVD — a DVD each that we can give to our mums. We hoped for the best for it. Everyone seemed to love the script and we felt very buoyed by the enthusiasm. [Producer] Nira Park will always be someone for whom I have the utmost respect and gratitude. She’s always made us think we can do everything we want to do. My directorial debut, which will hopefully be shooting by the end of this year...
Multi-hyphenate.
Multi-hyphenate. That’s with Nira. She sent me a script last year and said, “This might be your first film.” I read it and said, “I think you might be right.” Sure enough, that’s what we’re gearing up to do in November. I went on a recce. My first recce to Finland. That’s all I can tell you.
So it’s a…?
It’s a porno.
That period after the release of Shaun Of The Dead, when you’re meeting and befriending people like Quentin Tarantino and J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, must have been a dizzying time.
It was strange. For lots of reasons. I remember Edgar and I were writing Hot Fuzz at Big Talk. I got a phone call saying that J.J. Abrams was on the phone. In a very typical way for J.J., he said, “Do you want to come and be in Mission: Impossible 3?’ I said, “Sure.” It was weird. I wasn’t in a great place emotionally, then. I remember getting to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and waiting in a hotel room for eight days to be told what to do, not knowing anything about LA. Not knowing you had to drive everywhere. Every now and again I’d step out onto the curb of the hotel, and look up and down this wilderness of wide sidewalks and think, “What should I do?” I was in the throes of a fairly dark depression and felt really weird. I was in a fucking Hollywood movie. It’s Tom Cruise. And I’m really not that happy. That extended right through the first Star Trek.
What was the issue?
I was depressed. I had always been susceptible to it. But at the same time as I started to ascend into what would conventionally be regarded as a success, I was going down. I had some really hairy moments. The more material success presented itself to me, the less I could understand why it wasn’t fulfilling me in any way. It wasn’t that it wasn’t fulfilling me, it was because I was depressed. It’s not a mood. It’s a condition. As a result, I just drank more heavily. When I was here, I would drink. I was in hospital here. It was a really difficult time. Eventually I crashed out. At Comic-con in 2010 — I’ve never told anyone this — we were promoting Paul and I sort of went missing for about four days. I got back to the UK and just checked myself in somewhere. [Pause] Well, I woke up somewhere.
You were checked in.
Yeah. That coincided with the birth of my daughter. That was the ultimate happiness. I thought, “If this doesn’t make me better, what will?” And of course, nothing like that makes you better. You have to get better on a more fundamental level with depression. You can’t cheer up.
“Come on, Simon, it might never happen…”
Yeah. I got well in 2010. I stopped drinking. I got a little bit of help. If you look at Burke & Hare, I’m bloated and fucking dead-eyed. I can’t even watch that film now, even though I love John Landis. I look at it now and think, “Fuck me, I was in a dark place then.” I was drunk a lot of the time and I was profoundly unhappy.
Who were you admitting it to, in your inner circle? Your wife? Nick Frost?
Nobody. You don’t. It’s such a lonely experience. The face of your self is a cosmetic wall of, “Hey, everything’s fine.” But you’re tortured inside. This is very common. A lot of people go through this, in whatever capacity. It was interesting to me that I wasn’t in dire straits in terms of my family or financially or career-wise. All of that was fine. The fact it was all fine made it even more confusing as to why I was so desperately unhappy. When I see Mission: Impossible III, I see a guy who’s been awake for eight days. I didn’t get one of those “rabbit’s foot” speeches all the way through. I fucked up every single one of them. I was tired and I was nervous and J.J. was so good with me. Tom was wonderful, and Ving [Rhames]. They managed to edit together a fairly competent performance. I got the speech the night before I had to do it and was already in a bizarre place in my head. They were so good. J.J., I have so much to thank that guy for. Not just for taking the chance on me, but also for helping me get through all that stuff. When I got to Ghost Protocol they had all the stuff in place to look after me. All the booze was out of my room at the hotel. There was a contingency to bring my family out whenever I wanted them. There was an assistant who was with me the whole time. They took care of me and it helped me to get out of this dark place and realise that life was enjoyable. By the time I finished Ghost Protocol, I was better. That’s why I could get onto The World’s End, which was about getting it all out there.
So, given your experiences on Mission III, were you surprised to…
Be brought back? Fuck, yeah! J.J.’S unending faith in me makes me teary to think about it. He’s always stuck by me. I got an email. Classic J.J.: “What would you think if Benji was an agent?” I was still in the bad times, but I thought, “Yeah, right, sure.” It came at the right time for me. And the birth of Tilly [his daughter, with wife Maureen] was extraordinary and epiphanal for me. That’s what precipitated the change for me. There’s only two ways this can go. Down or up.
You moved away from London as well.
Well, I had grown up in the countryside. I’m quite a private person anyway. I went through the whole thing with Twitter and found it was completely contrary to all of my beliefs as a person. You want to be
“I WAS DEPRESSED. I WAS IN HOSPITAL. IT WAS A DIFFICULT TIME.”
private but you give the world your phone number. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.
I wanted to get you back on Twitter today. You were great on Twitter.
I felt that Twitter was counter-productive for me emotionally. I just didn’t like me on it. Though I made some good jokes on it. “Happy Father’s Day, motherfuckers!” is one of the best jokes I’ve ever made.
What sort of director are you going to be?
I want to be a nice one. I want people to enjoy their job and to feel like they’re part of a process, not just a cog in a machine. It’s the best way to make a film. I remember once on Shaun Of The Dead, appealing to the crew, because all of Edgar’s favours had gone, if we could overrun by half an hour just to get something. And my chin was going. [Wobbles his chin] And some of the more established, experienced crew members, who weren’t necessarily in it for the fun, were a little harder to convince. But the fact that they didn’t just down their tools and fuck off, that’s what I want my crew to feel like. To all be in it for the right reasons.
The key to crew respect is firing someone on the first day.
I was doing a long monologue for something late at night once. A young camera assistant walked a mag up to the camera, and he was wearing a bright white T-shirt and it caught my eye and I lost my train of thought and forgot my lines. And the director said, “Who’s not coming into work tomorrow?” And he fired this kid. It wasn’t a wise thing to do — he was a trainee, a young kid. I begged the director not to fire the kid. I felt responsible for it. And because the director was a lovely person, he reinstated him. But I’ll never forget that.
Last thing. The true power players of Hollywood — Cruise. Spielberg. Abrams — want to work with you again and again...
I play well with others. I’ve got all the right ports and sockets.
So, is there anyone in Hollywood who thinks you’re a dick?
[Laughs] Probably. Me.
I might leave that in.
[Laughs] Can you? And can you put the answer as ‘me’? Because it would be true!
Terminal is in cinemas from 6 july. mission: impossible Fallout is in cinemas from 26 july.