While doing the press rounds for his latest film, TERMINAL, Simon Pegg sat down with our own JimmyO and had a lengthy chat about the new film, the state of STAR TREK, the future with Edgar Wright and Nick Frost, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT and which superhero property he'd like to be involved in. To kick things off, we're sharing his STAR TREK and superhero talk with the rest to come out later this week. Here's Pegg on the state and future of STAR TREK:
J: Where are we going? What do you want from it?
SP: I don't know. I've always taken as it comes, and my involvement with those big films is kinda down to JJ Abrams, because he was fresh from making Alias and had just finished making Lost, and he had been given this feature film to make, and he's seen Shaun of the Dead, and he just said, "Hey, do you wanna come and be in this with me?" Kind of as a… He said he'd seen my at the Saturn Awards in 2005, but was too nervous to come and say hello. I was like, "What are you talking about?"
Through that relationship I was able to get caught in his slipstream, and then did Star Trek and that kind of thing, and a little Cameo in The Force Awakens, and…
J: I forgot about that!
SP: Yeah. That's been really fun, but I always wanna stay in touch with where I'm from, which is the smaller films, films like this, films that are harder to get made and just come with a lot of… Quicker to do, and that's not a reason why I do them, but I do like that kind of… You know, I've gone from Mission Impossible – Fallout, which was 141-day shoot, partly because of Tom's ankle, to a film I'm doing in LA at the moment called Lost Transmissions, which is a 19-day shoot for a feature, which is just… I mean, talk about this it's like, "Don't be ridiculous!"
I really like to just make sure I'm in touch with both those things. You could easily, I think, put yourself out to pasture in big blockbusters if you have the opportunity, if you're able to get access to them. But that's not all I wanna do.
J: I loved Beyond.
SP: Yeah, I was very proud of it.
J: What surprises me a little bit about it is the fact that, while it wasn't as huge a success as I expected, why would you not want to continue on with this world?
SP: Oh yeah!
J: Because it's already proven itself time and again.
SP: There's so much more to say and do, and it's…
The thing with Beyond, I think the time is sort of born that out in terms of its popularity and the constant feedback I get from the Star Trek community, which seems very grateful, and that's who we… 'Cause I felt they were done a slight disservice, maybe, with Into Darkness, 'cause it was quite… It was divisive, I think.
J: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
SP: And so Doug and I tried to sort of pull it back to almost a giant episode was our agreement that we came up with.
But there's so much more to do with those characters. I'm very excited about SJ Clarkson being hired. J.J. emailed us about that just before it was announced.
J: Nice.
SP: Everybody was so excited. I think Zach's actually worked with her. I've seen stuff she's done, and I think it's a great choice, and it's about time.
J: Yeah. It'll be interesting to see where the future holds for this, and how long you guys can go with it.
SP: Yeah. I don't foresee us being like the original crew, and doing it when we're, like, unusually old.
In addition, when asked what superhero film Pegg would be interested in doing, seeing as he surprisingly hasn't done one yet, he replied with a homeland favorite. Here's that exchange:
J: Is there a superhero you grew up with that you'd wanna play?
SP: I mean, Captain Britain was this Marvel superhero that I loved growing up, 'cause he was the British member of that community. I even have a Captain Britain mask when I was a kid, but I fear I would probably be slightly too old now, but if they do have… If a Captain Britain movie comes about, they're gonna need a British cast, so…
J: They're gonna need you.
SP: I'll be waiting.
Pretty interesting choice, even if a bit obvious to a point. Captain Britain (alias: Brian Braddock) is the leader of the British superhero team known as Excaliber, which was first introduced in 1987. Captain Britain himself was introduced in 1976 as part of Marvel's UK imprint and created by X-Men writer Chris Claremont, artist Herb Trimpe and artist Fred Kida. Fun Fact: Captain Britain's twin sister is Psylocke, who was originally a blonde-haired white woman, before she was kidnapped, brainwashed and eventually transferred into the body of an Asian female assassin named Kwannon, where she broke free of the mind control and became the current visage of the swimsuit-clad X-Men psychic ninja warrior. Ah, good times in the X-Men universe.
You can catch Pegg in his latest, TERMINAL, out this week, and look for more from our interview with him later in the week.