The Simon Pegg Interview

Star Trek the DVD is out now (click here to boldly go and buy it)

Before Star Trek came out fans were sceptical of such a dramatic reboot. Did it feel a gamble going into it?

Not really, because we were all there from the beginning with J J’s vision and we had a very good feeling that this was going to be a clever thing to do. I was just looking forward to it coming out. There was a lot of passion about it on the internet and people were getting upset, perhaps as you would about torture or death, and it was nice to see a lot of those people – well, there were some who were never going to enjoy it. Some people love hating things for pleasure and the internet has facilitated groups to get together and hate, for a dangerous buzz people get by being nasty – come around and see that it was a fun reboot of a loved story.

I thought it was a great contrast to The Dark Knight, a dark brooding film while Star Trek’s shiny and optimistic. Are people ready for that change in tone?

Yeah I think it’s odd. It’s 23 years since the Dark Knight returned and Frank Miller darkened up Batman and then 15 years later there was an obsession with making things very dark. Harry Potter was dark, The Dark Knight’s very dark. It’s a great film, I loved Heath Ledger’s performance - a great take on The Joker. But I think it was good for us to get away from that trend, because dark doesn’t necessarily mean – it became a byword for serious, like if something went bright coloured it was flimsy or childish, whereas Star Trek always had a varied pallet. The uniforms were so primary, the sets were always so bright, it was great to get back to that and it still be a heart-stopping adventure that adults can enjoy.

Was it difficult to avoid doing an impression of James Doohan. Did you have to consciously block his performance from your mind?

It was and I didn’t want to do that, I wasn’t playing James Doohan, I was playing Scotty. So I took the page rather than the man, so he’s the rough and tumble engineer and works in space and has this particular view on life.  Out of sheer respect for James Doohan, it was nice to work with James’s son on set and have him be pleased with what I did. And he’s been really supportive of the movie, which I really like, because that’s a hell of a person to get in your corner.

Did the Americans on-set ever quite grasp the intricacies of which region in Scotland your accent was from?

Tommy Gormley, The first AD on Star Trek, and Mission Impossible, who J J uses all the time is from Glasgow, he’s a real Glaswegian and so the crew are all used to hearing him speak and because my family is Glaswegian I tried to pitch it slightly west. My wife was also on set so I would go up to both of them after each take and ask if I nailed it.

What was it like, that first day, putting on that uniform? Did it seem strange? Star Trek’s been going since before either of us were born.

There was never any doubt among all of us for what we were taking on board when stepping onto the bridge for the first time, and pulling on that red jersey. I remember standing in my trailer and taking a photo of myself in the mirror. I had a great love for Star Trek growing up as a kid, it was always on BBC2 at six o’clock, and different to Star Wars, it was more cerebral and like a little play every week, So to go and be part of that was extraordinary.