Simon Pegg Biography

Simon John Pegg (n Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for having co-written and starred in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy of films: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013), as well as the comedy series Spaced (1999-2001), all directed by his friend Edgar Wright.

Pegg also portrayed Montgomery Scott in Star Trek (2009) and its sequel Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), Thompson in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011), and Benji Dunn in the Mission: Impossible film series (2006-present). Much of his work has been in collaboration with some combination of Wright, Nick Frost, Jessica Hynes, and Dylan Moran. Pegg has also formed a notable collaboration with director J.J. Abrams, working together on major motion pictures such as Star Trek (2009) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Early life

Pegg was raised in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, the son of Gillian Rosemary (ne Smith), a former civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician and keyboard salesman. His parents divorced when he was seven and he took the surname of his stepfather (Pegg), after his mother remarried. Pegg attended various schools, including Castle Hill Primary School, Brockworth Comprehensive Secondary School and The King's School, Gloucester.

Pegg moved to Stratford-upon-Avon when he was 16 and studied English Literature and Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon College. He graduated from the University of Bristol in 1991 with a BA in Theatre, Film and Television and wrote his undergraduate thesis on "A Marxist overview of popular 1970s cinema and hegemonic discourses". While there, he performed as a member of the comedy troupe "David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus", alongside David Walliams, Dominik Diamond, Myfanwy Moore, Barnaby Power, and Jason Bradbury.

Career

Pegg's early appearances in TV series and films include Asylum, Six Pairs of Pants, Faith in the Future, Big Train and Hippies. Between 1998 and 2004, Pegg was regularly featured on BBC Radio 4's The 99p Challenge. Pegg's other credits include appearances in the World War II mini-series Band of Brothers; the television comedies Black Books, Brass Eye and I'm Alan Partridge; and the films The Parole Officer, 24 Hour Party People, and Guest House Paradiso. He played various roles during the tour of Steve Coogan's 1998 live stage show The Man Who Thinks He's It.

In 1999, he created and co-wrote the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced with Jessica Stevenson. The series was directed by Edgar Wright, with whom Pegg and Stevenson had previously worked on Asylum, and Pegg wrote the character of Mike Watt specifically for his friend Nick Frost. For his performance in this series, Pegg was nominated for a British Comedy Award as Best Male Comedy Newcomer. The experience of making a Spaced fantasy sequence featuring zombies led to Pegg and Wright co-writing the "romantic zombie comedy" film Shaun of the Dead, released in April 2004, in which Pegg also starred. At George A. Romero's invitation, Pegg and Wright made cameo appearances in Romero's zombie film, Land of the Dead. In 2004, Pegg starred in a spin-off of the television show Danger! 50,000 Volts! called Danger! 50,000 Zombies!, in which he played a zombie hunter named Dr. Fell.

He played mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, the Strontium Dog, in a series of Big Finish Productions audio plays based on the character from British comic 2000 AD. Pegg also appeared in Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who audio story Invaders From Mars as Don Chaney, and appeared in the Doctor Who television series, playing the Editor in the 2005 episode "The Long Game". He also narrated the first series of the "making-of" documentary series Doctor Who Confidential.

Upon completion of Shaun of the Dead, Pegg was questioned as to whether he would be abandoning the British film industry for bigger and better things, and he replied, "It's not like I'm going to run off and do Mission: Impossible III!", picking the title of an imaginary blockbuster. When the film Mission: Impossible III was subsequently made, Pegg appeared in it as Benji Dunn, an I.M.F. technician who assists Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt. He reprised the role of Benji Dunn in the 2011 film Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and the 2015 film Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.

In 2006, he played Gus in Big Nothing alongside David Schwimmer. The same year, Pegg and Wright completed their second film, Hot Fuzz, released in February 2007. The film is a police-action movie homage and also stars Nick Frost, in which Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London policeman transferred to rural Sandford, a fictional village where grisly events take place. In 2007, Pegg starred in The Good Night (directed by Jake Paltrow) and Run Fatboy Run directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria. In 2008, he wrote the dialogue for an English language re-release of the cult 2006 animated Norwegian film, Free Jimmy. Pegg received screenwriting credit for this, and Pegg also voiced one of the main characters in the English-language version, which has an international range of actors including Woody Harrelson.

Pegg co-wrote the script for a film called Paul, about two young men who encounter a comedic extraterrestrial alien during a road trip across the US. The completed script appeared on the 2008 "Brit List", a film-industry-compiled survey of the best unproduced British screenplays, inspired by the American Black List. In those films and in Spaced, Pegg typically plays the leading hero while Frost plays the sidekick. However Paul reverses this dynamic. The film was later produced, and was released in 2011.

Pegg and Wright completed the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (the first two films being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) with their 2013 film The World's End.

Pegg played engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek, the eleventh film in the Star Trek film series, released 8 May 2009. He reprised the role in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness. In 2010 he appeared as William Burke in Burke and Hare, a film directed by John Landis about some Ulstermen who were notorious murderers and bodysnatchers in early 19th-century Edinburgh. His likeness was also used for the character of Wee Hughie in the comic book series The Boys; while this was done without Pegg's permission, he quickly became a fan of the title, and even wrote the introduction to the first bound volume. He voiced Reepicheep, the heroic mouse in Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Personal life

Pegg married his long-time girlfriend Maureen McCann, a music industry publicist, on 23 July 2005 in Glasgow. Best friend Nick Frost was the best man at his wedding. The couple has one child together, Matilda (born 2009).

Along with Jonny Buckland, Pegg is godfather to Apple, daughter of close friends Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. In return, Martin is godfather to Pegg's daughter. Pegg's parents and sister briefly appeared in Spaced, while his mother appeared in both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Pegg was awarded an honorary fellowship by the University of Gloucestershire on 4 December 2008.

Pegg has supported the HeForShe feminist campaign.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999	Tube Tales	Clerk	Segment: "Steal Away"
1999	Guest House Paradiso	Mr. Nice
2001	The Parole Officer	Deflated Husband
2002	24 Hour Party People	Paul Morley
2004	Shaun of the Dead	Shaun Riley	Also co-writer
2005	The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse	Peter Cow
2005	Land of the Dead	Photo Booth Zombie	Cameo
2006	Mission: Impossible III	Benji Dunn
2006	Big Nothing	Gus
2006	Free Jimmy	Odd (voice)	Also writer of the English version
2007	Grindhouse	Cannibal	Segment: "Don't"
2007	The Good Night	Paul
2007	Hot Fuzz	Sgt. Nicholas Angel	Also co-writer
2007	Run Fatboy Run	Dennis Doyle	Also co-writer
2007	Diary of the Dead	Newsreader (voice)	Cameo
2008	How to Lose Friends and Alienate People	Sidney Young
2009	Star Trek	Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
2009	Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs	Buck (voice)
2010	Burke and Hare	William Burke
2010	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	Reepicheep (voice)
2011	Paul	Graeme Willy	Also co-writer
2011	Scrat's Continental Crack-up	Buck (voice)	Short film
2011	The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn	Thompson (voice)
2011	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	Benji Dunn
2011	The Death and Return of Superman	John Landis	Short film
2012	A Fantastic Fear of Everything	Jack	Also executive producer
2013	Star Trek Into Darkness	Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
2013	The World's End	Gary King	Also co-writer and executive producer
2014	Cuban Fury	Mondeo Driver	Uncredited cameo
2014	Hector and the Search for Happiness	Hector
2014	Kill Me Three Times	Charlie Wolfe
2014	The Boxtrolls	Hebert Trubshaw (voice)
2015	Man Up	Jack	Also executive producer
2015	Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation	Benji Dunn
2015	Absolutely Anything	Neil Clarke
2015	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	Unkar Plutt
2016	Ice Age: Collision Course	Buck (voice)	Post-production
2016	Star Trek Beyond	Montgomery "Scotty" Scott	Post-production, also co-writer
2017	Star Wars: Episode VIII	Unkar Plutt

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	Six Pairs of Pants	Various Characters	Also writer 3 episodes
1995-1998	Faith in the Future	Jools	15 episodes
1996	Asylum	Simon	Also writer 6 episodes
1997	I'm Alan Partridge	Steve Bennett	Episode: "Watership Alan"
1997	We Know Where You Live	Various Characters	12 episodes
1998	Live from the Lighthouse	Robert Jobson	Television film
1998	Is It Bill Bailey?	Various Characters	6 episodes
1998-2002	Big Train	Various Characters	Also writer 12 episodes
1999	Tube Tales	Clerk	Segment: "Steal Away"
1999	Hippies	Ray Purbbs	6 episodes
1999-2001	Spaced	Tim Bisley	Also co-writer 14 episodes
2000	Randall & Hopkirk	Justin Pope	Episode: "Paranoia"
2001	Brass Eye	Gerard Chote	Episode: "Paedophilia Special"
2001	Band of Brothers	First Sergeant William Evans	2 episodes
2001	Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible	Angus	Episode: "Curse of the Blood of the Lizard of Doom"
2002	Look Around You	Sleeping Queen's Guard	Episode: "Maths"
2002	Linda Green	Jay	Episode: "Dark Side of the Moon"
2003	Final Demand	Colin Taylor	Television film
2004	Sex & Lies	Radio DJ	Television film
2004	Black Books	Evan	Episode: "Manny Come Home"
2004	I Am Not an Animal	Kieron (voice)	6 episodes
2005	Look Around You	Handsome Man	Episode: "Health"
2005	Doctor Who	The Editor	Episode: "The Long Game"
2005	Doctor Who Confidential	Narrator	Documentary series
2005	Spider-Plant Man	Frank Matters	Television film
2009	Robot Chicken	Various voices	2 episodes
2012	Star Wars: The Clone Wars	Dengar (voice)	Episode: "Bounty"
2012	Room on the Broom	Narrator	Television film
2012-2014	Phineas and Ferb	Various voices	4 episodes
2013	Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja	Pitch Kickham (voice)	Episode: "The McHugger Games/McFreaks"
2013	Mob City	Hecky Nash	2 episodes

Video games

Year	Title	Role
2010	Fable III	Ben Finn (voice)
2011	Spare Parts	Con-Rad (voice)
2013	Star Trek	Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (voice)

Awards and nominations

Year	Nominated work	Award	Result
1999	Big Train	British Comedy Award for Best Male Comedy Award
2000	Spaced	BAFTA TV Situation Comedy Award (shared with Edgar Wright, Nira Park and Jessica Hynes)
		British Comedy Award for Best Male Comedy Newcomer
2004	Shaun of the Dead	Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay (shared with Edgar Wright)
		British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay (shared with Edgar Wright)
		Peter Sellers Award for Comedy
		Empire Award for Best British Actor
		London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Screenwriter of the Year (shared with Edgar Wright)
		Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Screenplay (shared with Edgar Wright)
2007	Hot Fuzz	Empire Award for Best Actor
2009	Star Trek	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cast
		Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
		Critics' Choice Award for Best Acting Ensemble
		Scream Award for Best Ensemble
	Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs	Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture (shared with Peter de Sve)
2014	The World's End	Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor in a Comedy
		Saturn Award for Best Writing
		Saturn Award for Best Actor
2016	Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation	Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor