Interviews: Simon Pegg

From The A.V. Club:

A big star in his native England, actor-writer Simon Pegg has developed a devoted cult following in the States for his smart, pop-culture savvy work alongside friends and collaborators Edgar Wright and Nick Frost. Pegg rose to prominence as the star and co-creator (alongside fellow star/co-creator/writer Jessica Hynes) of Spaced, a clever, Wright-directed sitcom that gave a deliriously cinematic, larger-than-life spin to the misadventures of a pair of slacker roommates. The 2004 instant cult classic Shaun Of The Dead took Spaced's fanboy-friendly, pop-culture-warped sensibility to the big screen in the scary/funny story of a directionless young man whose humdrum existence is shaken up by a zombie attack. Pegg, Frost, and Wright reunited for 2007's equally awesome Hot Fuzz, a giddy deconstruction of/homage to the buddy-cop genre. In recent years, Pegg has embarked on a number of projects without Wright or Frost, including the 2006 dark comedy Big Nothing, last year's romantic comedy Run, Fatboy, Run, which he co-wrote, and the brooding comedy/drama The Good Night. Next year Pegg will play Scotty in J.J Abrams' feverishly anticipated update of the Star Trek franchise, and he'll appear in and co-write the road comedy Paul with Frost for Superbad director Greg Mottola. Pegg can currently be seen in How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, an adaptation of Toby Young's memoir about his oft-disastrous tenure writing for Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair. The A.V Club recently spoke with Pegg about Young's on-set faux pas, Star Trek, cutting the profanity from the American version of Run, Fatboy, Run and, of course, his Marxist overview of popular '70s cinema and hegemonic discourses.

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