Simon Pegg on movie Hector and the Search for Happiness, Mission: Impossible 5 and Robin Williams

A TRIP to Australia almost 20 years ago taught a broken-hearted and not-yet-famous funnyman Simon Pegg that life was going to be “enormous fun”.

A TRIP to Australia almost 20 years ago taught the broken-hearted and not-yet-famous funnyman Simon Pegg life was going to be “enormous fun”.

You’re shooting Mission: Impossible 5. Are you enjoying catching up with your secret agent alias, Benji?

“It’s nice to be able to play a character more than once. It’s becoming more and more common these days — cinema is taking a leaf out of television’s book, becoming more episodic. I like Benji; he has evolved from his first appearance in M: I III where he was a schlubby IT guy to being an agent, to being an agent who now would have been in the field for four years. It’s fun to revisit him at these different stages.”

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KILL ME THREE TIMES: Simon Pegg filming in Western Australia

A professional assassin ... Simon Pegg as Charlie Wolfe in a scene from thriller Kill Me Three Times.

So will you turn up in M: I 5 looking like Dwayne Johnson?

(Laughs) Not quite. I think Dwayne Johnson has the monopoly on looking like Dwayne Johnson.

Speaking of episodic, you did the pilot episode of Frank Darabont’s Mob City. It’s been canned already, but were you prepared to commit to series TV?

No, because I was shot in the head in the first episode! Frank became a good friend after Shaun of the Dead — he was very supportive. I remember Edgar (Wright) saying, ‘Frank Darabont really likes the movie’. ‘What? The Shawshank Redemption guy?’ We were really thrilled. So I was at his birthday party and he said, ‘Listen, I’m doing a show, but you don’t have to commit to the series because you get killed’. I was like, ‘All right, let’s do it!’

#killmethreetimes premiere at #TIFF14 There I am, tucked behind the Hemsworth. pic.twitter.com/voLNhvS0ai

— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) September 7, 2014

This time last year you were in Australia shooting Kriv Stenders’ Kill Me Three Times. How was it?

I’d never been to Western Australia, so it was a pleasure to visit that part of the country and make a film. It’s a fun little crime caper which has its tongue firmly poked in its cheek, but nonetheless is pretty complex and threatening.

Plays a quirky psychiatrist ... Simon Pegg as Hector in a scene from movie Hector and the Search for Happiness,

Did you have any trouble with the film’s very Aussie lingo?

I was playing a Brit so I was an old colonial amid the craziness going on. It was great to play alongside Bryan Brown, someone I’ve watched my entire movie-watching career. To do scenes with him was a privilege. And to discover he was such a lovely man, which you always hope and pray when you meet people you’ve admired for a while. Also Sully (Stapleton), Teresa Palmer, Callan (Mulvey) and Luke (Hemsworth), it was a nice little collection of beloved Aussie exports.

My daughter keeps bugging me about taking her to a sing along screening of Frozen. I told her to let it go but that only made it worse.

— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) October 21, 2014

What was bigger for you on your new film Hector and the Search for Happiness: getting your head read by Christopher Plummer or roughed up by Jean Reno?

They each had their benefits. It was hilarious getting beaten up by Jean because he’s Leon in The Professional, a film I absolutely love. Then to be acting alongside Christopher Plummer, who is a legend, was extraordinary. It ranged from being reverent around Christopher to just having a real good giggle with Toni Collette and Rosamund Pike, who are mates.

Had a “real good giggle” together ... Simon Pegg (who plays Hector) with Toni Collette, as Agnes, in a scene from the film Hector and the Search for Happiness.

Hector goes on a classic “find yourself” trip in the movie. You spent some time in Australia in the 1990s — was that a “find yourself” trip?

I didn’t intend it to be! It was a stand-up comedy tour that I got off the back of the Ediburgh Festival — I was invited over to play Funny Business in Adelaide and also the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It happened at a time in my life when I’d just come out of a relationship I’d been in for five years. So I emerged from the thicket of a long-term relationship into being young, free and single on the other side of the world. It was quite an epiphany. It totally and utterly brought home — to tie it back to Hector — that happiness was possible. I’d come out of this relationship pretty miserable and went off on this trip and suddenly in this incredibly exotic, sunny, friendly place I realised that life was not only gonna go on, but it was gonna be enormous fun (laughs).

Just found this picture of @Rich_Fulcher with a crab on his stomach, taken in Adelaide, AU 1998. Thought I'd share. pic.twitter.com/DDDErJsliF

— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) October 21, 2014

You have said you’re particularly proud of Hector and the Search for Happiness. Why so?

Because it represents a change of pace for me. It’s a film that embraces every single colour in the emotional spectrum — it has to because that’s the point, that you can’t be happy unless you have all of those things. I really like the fabelistic approach, too. It’s not supposed to be taken as a travelogue documentary, it’s much more metaphorical. It’s a grand adventure that deals in archetypes where the East is this mysterious, tempting place and Africa is dark and mysterious and America is this light, frothy hippie place.

Boyfriend, girlfriend ... Simon Pegg (Hector) and Rosamund Pike, who plays Clara, in a scene from movie Hector and the Search for Happiness.

Someone wrote that Hector is you “emerging from professional puberty”. Is there something to that?

Certainly, because the characters I’ve played before have been these perennial teenagers, guys who can’t quite let their childhoods go or are stuck in a rut of youthful exuberance. Whereas Hector is someone who has closed himself off to his childhood, he’s a terminal adult and has no access to his inner Tintin, his inner child. Not to suggest we should stay in a state of arrested development, not at all, but we do need access to our childhood selves because that’s where we form our first opinions on all the big things in life. You need to retain an awareness of that so you can progress as an adult; if you don’t, you can become a very sterile, emotionless, confused grown-up.

Christopher Plummer is almost 85. Can you see yourself still doing this job at his age?

Absolutely, because it’s not a job to me. It’s something I do because I love it. No matter what you do, whether it’s picking fruit or whatever, if it’s the thing that makes you happy, that’s the true measure of success. You can be the richest, most famous person on earth and be deeply, deeply unhappy. That’s a very important truth. People project ideas onto notions of fame and fortune and think, ‘That’s how you’re happy’. It really isn’t. For me, making films — I do that for free. The press — I get paid for.

Married since 2005 ... Simon Pegg with wife Maureen at the London Film Festival screening of Kill Me Three Times. Picture: John Phillips

That’s an issue that raised its head this year when Robin Williams passed away.

Yeah. There is nothing good about that situation. It’s a terrible tragedy and very upsetting. But I hope it makes people realise that depression is not just a mood, it’s a very serious condition which can have tragic consequences. For someone who was the very epitome of joy, the effervescent smiling face of never-ending laughter, for him to come to that end is a very sobering reminder.

Robin was doing a voice for a film you’re also in, Absolutely Anything. What’s the status on that?

I’ve been reliably informed that he had completed it. I was obviously worried that maybe he hadn’t ... not that that’s very important, given what’s happened. But yeah, he’s completed it. If there’s anything to be happy about in this situation, then that’s it.

Robin Williams’ tragic death ... Simon Pegg hopes the loss of the funnyman makes people wake up to depression. Picture: Art Streiber / CBS

At first, Hector’s life is very boring and predictable, then it turns chaotic and surprising. Is there much boring and predictable about an actor’s life?

Well, you can see so far into the future — a degree of clarity which is like walking through a mild fog. You can see maybe six months ahead, but the big picture is much more unclear. I couldn’t tell you what I’m going to be doing this time next year. But then, I like that. There’s a degree of surprise about it: you get a new job, you find out who you’re going to be working with ... that’s always pretty interesting.

Discovered happiness exists in Australia after a broken relationship ... Simon Pegg on the red carpet for the premiere of Kill Me Three Times at BFI London Film Festival, London, England. Picture: John Phillips

You sent a tweet saying “Thanks Mum!” when a Gill Pegg stood up to the “cynical critics” of Hector and the Search for Happiness on Twitter. Is that really your mum?

Yes, that is my mum. There was a degree of resistance to the film here critically because I don’t think we Brits are particularly OK with emotions (laughs). There was a unified sense of revulsion. There’s a great saying in India which is that the jaundiced need sugar water, but the more jaundiced they become the more bitter the sugar-water tastes. I think that describes the British critics.

HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS OPENS TODAY

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Originally published as Simon Pegg on movie Hector and the Search for Happiness, Mission: Impossible 5 and Robin Williams