Simon and
Alice as British actors, how did it feel playing archetypal American
characters? Does that make the role more of a challenge?
Simon Pegg: Doing
an accent was hard because not only do you have to think about acting
and the character, you have to constantly project your thoughts into
a different accent. But we had a dialogue coach on set and she would
listen to every take with headphones on and come up after every take.
Alice had spent some time in America so I was always very impressed
with her efforts.
Alice Eve: Or just
me.
SP: Just Alice in
general. Though not her personal hygiene.
Jean-Baptiste Andrea:
The script was written as an American story and I wasn’t thinking
of casting English actors – and then I saw Simon in Spaced and
thought I have to have him as Gus. It’s a complete coincidence
that we had so many English actors because the production didn’t
require that we had so many –
AE: they’re
just better
JBA: I just couldn’t
find an American Josie, I didn’t like any of them.
SP: Also the option
of making my character Gus British, it would do a disservice to the
script, just to help me fit in. So it was better for me to meet the
script – he’s a Portland boy, a small town guy who never
got out of his hometown, he’s an American.
Did the fact that
you were filming in Wales and the Isle of Man make things seem even
stranger?
SP: Yeah, it’s
really conducive…
AE: But we were
filming in the middle of the night, in big open spaces like army training
grounds, so you didn’t really see any people – and you could
have been in America, couldn’t you?
SP: And we had,
like, a French director and an Italian producer and a Hungarian producer
and an American co-star. We felt like in a kind of nether world for
a lot of the time…
AE: We did, we were
in a bubble.
SP: The Isle of
Man is quite a strange place, we were there off-season, it’s got
a big sky – it was easy to lose yourself in it.
What was
David Schwimmer’s opinion of your American accents?
AE: He loved them
– but it would have been hard for him to say anything else…
SP: Also, his English
accent is appalling – he sort of goes (in terrible Dick Van Dyke
/ Mary Poppins-style) “’Ello, Moite, Um on me moe-bile…”
so let he who is without sin cast the first stone…
AE: He’s not
here to defend himself you bastard!
SP: He’s very
supportive David, coming from a show where it was like basically a battle
among six funny people to give the best performance, he was able to
sit back and be the moral centre of the film. His character Charlie
is like the audience’s way in to the plot and he’s quite
serious and bewildered a lot of the time while me and Alice are chewing
up the scenery. So I think that displayed an enormous generosity on
David’s part.
Simon you and David
come from very different styles of comedy – how was it combining
those?
SP: I think with
David we had to just play in a little Friends musical sting at the beginning
of each scene so he could feel at home…
Did you have to
cheer like a Friends audience when he walked on?
SP: Friends
is obviously done in front of a live audience so he obviously knows
what it’s like but David’s quite instinctive. I guess working
in all types of comedy, you’re still doing comedy and the rules
of timing and what have you still apply, so I don’t know if it
makes that much of a difference.
JBA: I thought they
would be a good pair because they come from very different backgrounds
– cultural backgrounds, type of humour, I thought that would be
interesting to put both of them into unknown territory as opposed to
just doing their own thing the way they do normally.
SP: Back in the
day, Spaced used to be on Channel 4 on a Friday night after Friends
and you couldn’t get two more different shows – culturally
speaking for a very few geeky types of people like me, it’s odd
to see us in the same movie.
Alice and Simon
your first day together on-set sounded interesting…
AE: Our first day
was a sex scene, which meant that… Simon just fell in love with
me and that was that, basically.
SP: It wasn’t
necessarily you I fell in love with.
AE: It meant that
we skipped a few stages – once you’ve done that…
SP: We got to third
base on the first date. What you don’t see is that we’re
in a fake room on a bed in what was actually a barn in the Isle of Man,
in the middle of a farm surrounded by a minimal camera crew. When you
do something like that, it is slightly weird to take your clothes off
in front of people and simulate sex…
AE: It was almost
better that we did it on the first day than after 3 weeks when it would
have been like, “Simon…weird…” it was really
surreal so let’s just get on with it.
SP: It’s very
unsexy – especially what we were doing which was essentially comic
– maybe it’s different if you’re really smooching
someone…
AE: It’s never
sexy, really.
Simon does this
film show you’re attracted to darker roles?
SP: I’m attracted
to complexity, I think, which will often take you down darker paths
because then there’s more light and shade. It’s interesting
to have a character with layers. Something a little bit challenging
in terms of not knowing whether to laugh or wince.
What would you say
your influences were in writing the script – some people mention
films like 2 Days in the Valley or Pulp Fiction…
JBA: I wrote without
thinking about any specific films actually – they are all subconscious
influences, I guess. I love the Coen Brothers obviously who have this
very unique tone, although we tried to push it a little bit more towards
comedy at the beginning and towards darker territory near the end. But
not in a conscious style – “let’s write a Fargo-style
script”
The call centre
where Charlie and Gus work in the beginning looks particularly hellish.
SP: Not many people
know this but David actually worked in a call centre once.
JBA: Most Internet call centres for France are really based in North
Africa. And they change people’s names, just like in the film,
from, say, “Fatima” to “Virginie”, to make it
sound more French, which I thought was really nasty.
Is there a certain
freedom in making smaller, independent films like Big Nothing?
SP: I think so.
There are several thoughtful, good, slightly lower-budget films coming
out – it’s good time to be careful about your scripts. And
it’s nice to try and cultivate British film and keep our industry
alive.
Simon how does it
feel to just work as an actor for hire, rather than co-writing the script
like you did on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz?
SP: It’s bliss
to hand over the reins and just be an actor, which I really enjoy doing.
If you read the script and think, ‘Oh I’d like to change
that’ it’s different but I read Big Nothing and it was so
nice to sit back and just be an actor and feel completely cosseted by
not feeling like I wanted to control everything, which is unfortunately
my usual way, wanting to be in all the pies – or eat them, as
was the case at that point – I thought that Gus should be a little
blimp.
AE: Part of your
process was shoving Caramac in your mouth between takes…
SP: And what other
job allows you to put an axe through the head of Tom Cruise’s
ex-wife? Possibly Tom Cruise’s lawyer but…
Simon can you imagine
going back and making more TV like Spaced?
SP: I think
the thing about TV is, tit akes a lot of dedication and commitment –
one series might be eight weeks filming it but certainly writing it
for the best part of a year and then if they want another series, you
could be locked into something for 3 or 4 years. Never say never though…Also,
TV makes you very famous, it gets you into everyone’s living room
all the time and some people can take that on – I find that side
of it really hard to rationalise in a way.
For
example, David is the most famous person. It’s hilarious to see
David walk down the street with people chasing him with a phone filming
him, shouting “Ross! Ross!” I would hate that.I think some
people see that nowadays as an end in itself whereas I just see it more
as radiation to someone who works in a nuclear power plant – it’s
just something that happens, not necessarily great, it can make you
feel a bit funky at times…
And you and he are
working together again?
David’s
directing me in a film this month in London called Run, Fat Boy, Run
with Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria and Dylan Moran. It’s a romantic
comedy.
Big
Nothing
more
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Hot Fuzz: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright
