Live Magazine - The Mail on Sunday, 20 January 2007

The Plod Couple
How does Simon Pegg follow rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead? With Hot Fuzz, a cop comedy that brings the testosterone excess of Lethal Weapon to bucolic Somerset. He sings like a canary to Jon Wilde - and reveals why his top 20 classic comedy clips are so funny they're a crime…

Simon Pegg is dressed to kill. He is wearing the militaristic garb of a British firearms policeman and fondling a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. So is his friend, Nick Frost This is odd. as technically the duo didn't have to be wearing their outfits upon arrival at our photo shoot.

The boys spent last summer hurtling down country lanes in this guise for the spoof police action-comedy Hot Fuzz. I surmise that they wanted one last job - and Live has provided it. 'There was a point during filming when we realised we could get away with murder wearing our cop gear,' says Pegg, 36. Frost, with comic menace, chimes in. 'I've always been handy with a gun.' He strokes the barrel of his shotgun and adds, 'Guns are such beautiful things. Even before this film I was an accurate shot. I could easily kill a fly from a hundred paces.'

This, in fact, is not a complete joke. During his teens Frost spent a couple of years working on a kibbutz in Israel. Handling guns was a part of everyday life. 'But I'm an even better shot now,' he adds. 'We had special gun training before shooting the film. We learned to handle Beretta rifles, Jericho pistols and Winchester shotguns. For me, the gun scenes were one of the most enjoyable parts of filming.
'There's one bit where we're driving at high speed in pursuit of Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent and we both get to fire our weapons out of the window in that John Woo/Quentin Tarantino double-gun style. In the middle of scenes like that, I don't need to be reminded that I've got the best job in the world.'

Indeed, Hot Fuzz is the big British comedy movie of 2007. Working Title (Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill) has recast Pegg and Frost's win-ningShaun OfTheDead double act. Pegg is city cop Nicholas Angel, who is reassigned to a sleepy West Country town. There, he teams up with bumbling sidekick Danny Butterrnan (Frost) and together they discover that the town is a hotbed of criminal activity. When asked to sum up the film, Pegg says, 'Imagine Michael Mann directing Midsomer Murders and you're getting close.'
For 11 weeks the cast, including Dalton, Broadbent, Steve Coogan and Bill Bailey, were in Wells, Somerset, enacting frantic gun fights, car chases and crashes, massive explosions and gravity-defying stunt action.

'I was really unfit at the start of 2006,' says Pegg, 'so I had to work hard at getting myself into shape, which involved more time in the gym and a lot less time in the pub. That was essential, as I do nearly all my own stunts in the film. I'd have happily done them all, but there's a clause in my contract stating that, if the stunt co-ordinator advises me I shouldn't attempt something, then I'm not allowed to argue with him.'

Nevertheless, filming still proved pretty hazardous for all involved.

'I think every member of the cast and crew suffered an injury at some point,' says Pegg. 'Even our make-up person ended up with a black eye after bashing into a door. My own roll-call of injuries included scraping all the skin off my knuckles, straining my quad muscles, spraining a foot, cutting an arm quite badly and doing in my knees after crashing into the bonnet of a car.'

Just as Shaun Of The Dead set crazed zombies in the genteel London neighbourhood of Crouch End, Hot Fuzz pulls off a similar trick of the absurd. The film juxtaposes high-octane action sequences seen in Hollywood blockbusters such as Die Hard and Lethal Weapon and drops them into the sedate setting of the English countryside.

A self-confessed cinema and TV nut, Pegg is better qualified than any other British actor to make a film so clearly a homage to Hollywood excess. Indeed, his encyclopaedic knowledge of movies and classic TV shows rivals that of Quentin Tarantino; from Life Of Brian to An American Werewolf In London, he is happy to talk endlessly about his favourite screen comedy moments (so much so that we've listed his top 20 - see overleaf).

'I wouldn't be over-emphasising it to say that I've always been obsessed with film and comedy,' says Pegg. 'I'm a complete geek when it comes to that stuff.'
His movie awakening came at the age of seven, when his parents - his father was a keyboard salesman and his mother an amateur actress - took him to see Star Wars in Gloucester, where he grew up.

'For months afterwards, I'd kiss a picture of Princess Leia before going to bed every night I've seen that film dozens of times since, though I'm glad to say I couldn't give you an exact number. I think I'd be an even sadder individual if I actually could.'

Star Wars has remained his passion. While studying film and theatre at Bristol University in the early Nineties, he wrote a thesis analysing the movie from a Marxist perspective. These days, when asked by newspapers for a quick soundbite about a particular film, Pegg has been known to turn in erudite 3,000-word essays and he has argued the case that C-3PO is gay.

Not that his enthusiasm is confined to the 1977 George Lucas classic. Mention any movie or TV comedy and Pegg has a theory about it at the ready. 'Eric Morecambe? He was the first British performer to properly deconstruct the meaning of comedy. Napoleon Dynamite? It's essentially about a mythic American nev-erwhere full of sunshine, bad hair and budding farmers. People always complain that film theory is unnecessary, but I've always found it enormous fun to pick apart a film and realise that it reflects certain moods and ideas in society.'

His wide-ranging and ever-expanding knowledge of popular culture has been given free rein in his role as co-writer and acting lead in the offbeat sitcom Spaced. The show managed to squeeze in knowing references to everything from Murder She Wrote and Scooby-Doo to Grange Hill and Star Wars. Shaun Of The Dead had knowing references to films as diverse as Dawn Of The Dead, The Deer Hunter and .Reservoir Dogs. Hot Fuzz continues the trend.

'We looked at a lot of action movies, identified all the cliches and used them for our own devices,' says Pegg. 'I just can't resist throwing in those references. But it's not about showing off my knowledge of films and TV shows. Nor is it setting out to make a pastiche of those things. It's more about admitting just how self-referential popular culture has become, with everything being in some way a nod to something else.'

Pegg first met Frost in 1993, when Pegg was starting on the stand-up comedy circuit. They were introduced by Pegg's then girlfriend, who worked in the same Ilford restaurant where Frost was a waiter. The two men bonded over their mutual love of movies and TV comedy, and became flatmates.

By the end of the Nineties, Pegg had established himself as one of television comedy's rising stars on the back of the sitcom Hippies and the sketch series Big Train. When writing Spaced, he recruited Frost to play his character's psychotic, army-obsessed best friend. And there, Frost's comedy/acting career was born, leading to Shaun Of The Dead and his own TV career, which has included the sci-fi sitcom Hyperdrive. Seven years on, he still can't quite believe his luck. 'If Simon hadn't given me that break,' Frost says, 'I'd still be a waiter. Which I wouldn't have minded. I was a great waiter and, at one stage, held the world record for spinning trays. To get the chance to be on TV and act in films was beyond my wildest dreams. Even so, I still think of myself less as a proper actor and more a normal bloke who happens to do some acting.'

Pegg and Frost are clearly the firmest of friends: they finish each other's sentences and at times lapse into a sort of private mode of jokey communication in which the cryptic punch lines are a mystery to all but themselves.

'We've always been that way,' says Frost. "We're very similar and a lot of our humour is unspoken. We have our occasional difference of opinion but it's never come to a punch-up. If it ever did, there's no doubt I would win.'

'No doubt at all,' nods Pegg. 'If you got into a fight with Nick, he'd be a formidable opponent If you're going to take Nick, your best chance would be a powerful jab to the face or a straight kick to the privates. I very much doubt that it will ever come to that because we are closer than brothers. If he was a woman, I'd fancy him. We'd be happily married by now. We are that compatible.'

Frost nods in agreement, saying that his ideal arrangement would be to live with his partner, production manager Christina, but also next door to Pegg and his wife Maureen.

Pegg has been recognised as a rising comedy star for nearly a decade, but only now has it been suggested that he might follow Peter Kay and Ricky Gervais into attaining superstar status. 'Maybe that's because I've never put myself at the very centre of a TV show or a film,' he says. 'I'm far more comfortable writing for a group and performing as part of an ensemble. I sometimes wonder if I should be more selfish. Then I remind myself that I've managed to avoid typecasting and never had to face the kind of problem that Ricky Gervais has had in emerging from the shadow of David Brent'

It was 2004's Shaun Of The Dead that brought Pegg's career to a whole other level. A surprising 'zom-rom-com' hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 2004, it is said to have contributed as much as £70 million to the UK economy. Hollywood sat up and took notice of its co-writer and main star, recruiting Pegg to star alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III and with David Schwimmer in last year's Big Nothing.

Now Pegg can boast an impressive contacts book: David Walliams, Tamzin Outhwaite, Coldplay's Chris Martin and his wife Gwyneth Paltrow all attended his wedding in 2005, and Pegg also happens to be godfather to Martin and Paltrow's daughter, Apple.

Frost, on the other hand, has yet to join the showbiz elite. Indeed, up until now, it's been easy to dismiss him as merely a comic foil to Pegg. Hot Fuzz should finally change all that. As Pegg says, 'Nick gets most of the best lines in this movie.' But, Frost adds, 'If it turns out that no one else agrees I can always return to spinning trays.'

Frost says his biggest showbiz moment to date was meeting his hero Quentin Tarantino duringthe press tour for Shaun Of The Dead. The director made Frost's day by telling him he was the funniest man in the world. 'That was quite a compliment,' says Frost. 'Although I'm sure there must be a funnier man out there somewhere -possibly in the wilds of Borneo.'

Hot Fuzz opens on February 16.

SO WHAT MAKES A COMIC LAUGH?
SIMON PEGG'S TOP 20 ALL-TIME COMEDY MOMENTS:

1. ANNIE HALL (1977)
The lobster-chasing scene almost gets my vote, but the bit when Woody Allen is offered a silver box of cocaine, sneezes and sends the lot flying is just hilarious. This film was a big influence on my sitcom, Spaced.
2. LAUREL & HARDY: WAY OUT WEST (1937)
includes that indelible moment when Stan has hidden the deeds to the gold mine down his top and this woman tries to get them back by tickling him.
3. NIGHTY NIGHT (2004)
The scene with Julia Davis pole-dancing to Marillion's Lavender in order to impress the Angus Deayton character is complete genius. She struck a perfect balance between being absurd and completely sexy,
4. SLEEPER (1973)
When it comes to physical comedy, Woody Alien is hard to beat, right up there with Chaplin in my opinion. A great example of this is in Sleeper, when he beats up a villain with a giant strawberry.
5. MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979)
The centurion berating Brian for the poor grammar in his graffiti. When I'm watching this film, every time a new scene begins I think, 'I love this bit.'
6. THE YOUNG ONES: THE OIL EPISODE (1982)
The bit that sticks in my mind is when Vyvyan discovers oil in the basement and Neil and Rick are forced into slave labour, during which Vyvyan gets an axe buried in his head
7. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)
Griffin Dunne's character, now a zombie with decaying skin, is sitting in the cinema talking as if his situation is completely normal. The whole film is hilarious.
8. THE EVIL DEAD II (1981)
Bruce Campbell's character (Ash) has a fight with his own hand and resorts to cutting it off with a chainsaw. It's surely the movie's seminal moment. A great horror film that's also incredibly funny.
9. SHAUN OFTHE DEAD (2004)
The bit where Ed and Shaun meet the girl, Mary, and assume she's drunk. In fact there's a huge hole in her. It was hard to film because we found it so funny it was difficult not to corpse, if you'll excuse the pun.
10. THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984)
Nigel's at the piano, playing a section of his Bach-influenced work for full orchestra entitled... Lick My Love Pump. Another film that's just one brilliant sketch after the other.
11. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (2004)
The dance scene, involving Jon Heder grooving to Canned Heat by Jamiroquai. It's a great dance from someone who doesn't look as though they'd be able to dance at all.
12. WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (1996)
Another great dance scene - Corky (Christopher Guest) prepares for the small-town pageant by practising his moves in his house. It's done with such subtlety that you just have to laugh.
13. TOY STORY (1995)
Buzz Lightyear is in the shopping mall and sees all these versions of himself, and suddenly it dawns on him that he's not unique. It's so, so funny and at the same time completely heartbreaking.
14. THE SIMPSONS: HOMER BADMAN EPISODE (1994)
Homer's being chased by a mob. He grabs a cola can, rips it open with his teeth, pours Space Dust into it and hurls it like a Molotov cocktail at his pursuers... boom!
15. ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (1994)
Right at the start Jim Carrey kicks a parcel down a corridor like it's a football - it's the best moment in the film. Carrey milks every last second of his time on screen.
16. THE ROYLE FAMILY (2006)
The recent Queen Of Sheeba episode had many good moments. I'd go for the scene where Cheryl empties the 'wee bag' into the sink and then casually wipes the side.
17. HARRY ENFIELD AND CHUMS - KEVIN AND PERRY
My favourite moment is the first time we're introduced to these characters. The sheer accuracy of it, the attention to detail. .. who could possibly not find it funny?
18. BILL BAILEY: FOGHORN SKETCH (1998)
Bailey and his wife are selling their home and have a house-viewing. Every time they speak, a deafening foghorn pipes up. Turns out they live next to a foghorn factory.
19. MORECAMBE AND WISE
Eric plays the Cossack coachman being pulled from the carriage every time he encourages the horses to go faster, while Ernie stands there canoodling with a female guest star. My first comic epiphany.
20. VIC REEVES' BIG NIGHT OUT (1990)
The Novelty Island sketch, when Bob Mortimer's character would do things like push a lump of lard through a cornflakes box with picture of Mickey Rourke's face on it.

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