We could have introduced a new gay character but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character,’ rather than simply for who they are and isn’t that tokenism? the audience would infer that there has been an LGBT presence in the Trek Universe from the beginning ... that a gay hero isn’t something new or strange.

Simon Pegg

Categorized in : Entertainment

I've appeared in those kind of films and have great fun doing it, and I'm always up for a challenge. I think with things like Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, those things are such an ensemble, it's not like I'm Ethan Hunt. I'm Benji. I'm the guy that does the computer business. I know my place.

Simon Pegg

stars fun thinking

Having done Spaced, I can't even remember it being that difficult on Spaced, but we know what the end's going to be like. We know why we're putting in this amount of work, or why a shot might be particularly tricky, because we know that what we do is create a whole package. It's the writing, the performances, and the style of camerawork, that's what we're working toward, and we're prepared for that.

Simon Pegg

style done writing

If there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance?

Simon Pegg

life-changing fate important

I was the naughty kid that the teachers liked. I bullied a kid in the 1st year when I was in the 2nd, who then hit puberty like a plane crash and grew into a gorilla who bullied me when he was in the 4th year and I was in the 5th. That's Karma.

Simon Pegg

karma teacher kids

I think that the joke and the ghost story both have a similar set up in that you kind of set something up and pay it off with a laugh or a scare.

Simon Pegg

ghost-stories laughing thinking

Jewish comedians do the best Jewish jokes, and anyone else doing that, they don't have a right to, because they're not coming from that experience. I know that's a slightly heightened example, but it's the same thing. We're bumpkins, so we can make bumpkin jokes.

Simon Pegg

do-the-best comedian example

Films that rely on their cast to be funny are often episodic and feel like a series of loosely connected sketches rather than a satisfyingly structured script.

Simon Pegg

casts scripts film

The trouble with improv is that it is often about being funny in the moment without any real consideration for the bigger picture.

Simon Pegg

moments real trouble

I've only played two sort-of slackers, in Spaced and in Shaun Of The Dead. They're different people, but they have the same kind of everyman quality, particularly as a twentysomething.

Simon Pegg

quality two people

We've kind of grown up in a post-Star Wars era, and what Star Wars did to cinema, in terms of an explosion of that kind of blockbuster culture. It's thrown up a generation of geeks. With the evolution of computer games and the Internet, that's all impacted on us as a generation, and affected the creative element of that generation enormously. So whereas the different schools of filmmaking...

Simon Pegg

stars war school

We realised that it was important to embrace this popcorn logic, that it works, that it's funnier when you fire 20 rounds from one tiny pistol. Then it becomes the joke, it's funnier when you pay less attention.

Simon Pegg

logic important attention

The revolution of video had a massive affect. We grew up in a time where suddenly you could own films. Before, they had a theatrical run, and then perhaps they'd come back, or you'd catch them in a retro cinema.

Simon Pegg

video cinema running

This idea of popular culture became something that belonged to us rather than something that we looked at from far away. We realized we could be part of it and create it, instead of just being consumers only.

Simon Pegg

just-being culture ideas

The only thing that would deter me at the moment would be the idea of doing one thing for a very long time. There is no doubt in my mind that television is an incredibly auspicious medium right now. It's where a lot of the serious acting is taking place.

Simon Pegg

doubt long ideas

It's a fun world to exist in, and I relish doing those movies as much as I do the smaller ones. They're always immense fun. I don't know if I am - unless we do a Benji film, I don't think I am an action hero really.

Simon Pegg

hero fun thinking

My worst job was packing animal feed in a warehouse in Gloucestershire when I was a student. It was a very strange environment. It was hung heavy with oat dust, the place was infested with mice, and everyone who worked there was over 60, and I was 18. It was crazy. Apologies to anyone who works in animal-feed packing industry and loves it.

Simon Pegg

apology crazy jobs

The simple fact is that what you see on the screen is pretty much real.

Simon Pegg

real simple facts

Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about... whatever. Now we're walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk had a fight with a robot.

Simon Pegg

emotional fighting journey

Suddenly, the world I had scrutinised for so long was all around me, as if I had leaned forward and climbed into the television like Alice through the looking-glass. I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go.

Simon Pegg

glasses long ideas

In the most basic terms it was about how when we experience art without critical awareness we consent to the ideas being promoted, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the filmmaker. For instance, if you watch a racist comedian and laugh at his jokes, you are consenting to the prejudices inherent within them. Similarly, if you watch a movie which perpetuates conventional ideas about race, gender, etc., you are consenting to them and not affecting change in any way.

Simon Pegg

race ideas art