Simon Pegg: How He Became the Patron Saint of Geekdom

Simon Pegg (Photo: Amy Sussman/Invision/AP)

Simon Pegg’s back on screen in Star Trek Beyond, the third release in the sci-fi franchise’s reboot phase, and the first in which Pegg has had a hand in the script (co-written with Doug Junn). That writing credit, along with his recurring role as chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, further burnish the 46-year-old British star’s credentials as keeper of the flame for all things nerdy and fan-boyish in Hollywood. Above all others, he’s modern movies’ patron saint of geekdom.

Related: Simon Pegg Clarifies Gay Sulu Concerns With ‘Star Trek’ Canon Explanation

Pegg first staked a claim toward that title back in 1999 courtesy of the television comedy Spaced. He and co-star/co-writer Jessica Stevenson played a pair of twentysomethings sharing a London flat, managing their own absurd lives while dealing with the romantic tensions building between them. It was Pegg’s breakout role, and also his first in a series of collaborations to come with director Edgar Wright (who helmed all 14 episodes). It was also awash in pop-culture references — in particular, to sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and superheroes — that immediately established Pegg as not just a fan of such material, but a champion of it as well. This Spaced clip gives you the idea:

After Spaced, Pegg and Wright set their sights on the big screen. Their 2004 cult hit Shaun of the Dead proved a hilariously spot-on reimagining of the zombie-outbreak thriller as both a romantic comedy and a man-child-grows-up saga. Pairing Pegg with his Spaced co-star (and real-life best pal) Nick Frost, Wright’s feature directorial debut (co-written with Pegg) was a charmingly goofy riff on horror cinema conventions; its jokes at the genre’s expense were infused with a warmth that only comes from a place of love.

Shaun of the Dead put Pegg on Hollywood’s radar, and in 2006, he’d partner with Tom Cruise for the third installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, directed by J.J. Abrams. Pegg was a perfect comedic foil for Cruise’s super-spy Ethan Hunt, though more tellingly, it showed that he was capable of holding his own in a big-budget summer action extravaganza, as well as playing a very particular sort of witty, nerdy computer-whiz technician.

Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg in 2006′s ‘Mission: Impossible III’ (Photo: Everett)

From there, Pegg jumped from one geeky big-screen touchstone to another. First, there was his participation in Edgar Wright’s fake horror-movie trailer for Don’t, featured as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 double-feature Grindhouse. That same year, he’d reteam with Wright and Frost for Hot Fuzz, a gloriously loopy and loving tribute both to U.K. comedies as well as over-the-top-macho Hollywood ’90s offerings like Bad Boys II and Point Break. As a super-cop reassigned to a seemingly sleepy rural enclave populated by country bumpkins, it expanded both Pegg’s big-screen persona (his Nicholas Angel is a straight-laced, no-nonsense adult) as well as the cinematic universe to which he wanted to pay respect.

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in ‘Hot Fuzz’ (Photo: Rogue Pictures)

An even bigger, geekier break would come in 2009 when Pegg would board the U.S.S. Enterprise as chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott when his Mission: Impossible director Abrams rebooted the original Star Trek. Like M: I’s Benji Dunn, his Scotty serves as the exasperated technical-mechanical expert sidekick for the proceedings’ front-line heroes. Poised between channeling James Doohan’s founding performance, and giving it his own distinctive twist, Pegg’s turn — aided by the fact that he frequently gets the film’s funniest lines — once and for all cemented his geek credentials.

Simon Pegg as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in ‘Star Trek’ (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Now a bona fide movie star, Pegg used his clout to produce an original out-of-this-world comedy screenplay written by him and Frost. The end result, director Greg Mottola’s Paul, concerns two devoted sci-fi fans (played by Pegg and Frost) encountering, and then going on an RV road trip with, a foul-mouthed alien (voiced by Seth Rogen). Deeply indebted to E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and overflowing with genre-movie shout-outs (as well as a cameo from some sci-fi stars), it’s a film made for a very particular, fanboy-centric audience.

The next five years found Pegg circling back into a variety of sequels to the aforementioned hits (Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation; Star Trek Into Darkness); voicing a recurring character in the Ice Age franchise as well as in Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn; and headlining comedies of a more earnest (Hector and the Search for Happiness) and lethal (Kill Me Three Times) variety. As if that weren’t enough to maintain his position as global cinema’s Geek King, he also found a way to cameo in Abrams’ The Force Awakens (watch the clip below) — thereby making him one of only a handful of actors ever to play a part in both Star Wars and Star Trek.

Now, before reprising his Star Wars role in Episode VIII (due in 2017) and participating in Steven Spielberg’s ’80s-videogame-nostalgia saga Ready Player One (due in 2018), he’s back aboard the Enterprise alongside Chris Pine’s Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, Zoe Saldana’s Uhura, John Cho’s Sulu, and the late Anton Yelchin’s Chekov in Star Trek Beyond. With Fast and the Furious director Justin Lin at the helm, the latest Trek landed at the top of the weekend box office chart on a wave of positive buzz —and with it, the always amusing Pegg once again reasserts his standing as one of fanboy nation’s shining stars in Hollywood.

Simon Pegg on having the Borg as the next ‘Star Trek’ villain: