Plainly it isn't an exact science, despite it being a complex interaction of micro-decisions and corresponding thought; perhaps it doesn't always work and we pass by some potential soulmates like the proverbial ships in the night, never quite connecting. Then again, perhaps the system is tenacious and continues to run like a computer program on infinite loop, so that if at first you don't meet, you are drawn back together for another try.
Simon PeggThe trouble with addiction is that you can park the car but you can never switch off the engine or stop yourself from hearing the revs.
Simon PeggWe might not know we are seeking people who best enrich our lives, but somehow on a deep subconscious level we absolutely are. Whether the bond is temporary or permanent, whether it succeeds or fails, fate is simply a configuration of choices that combine with others to shape the relationships that surround us. We cannot choose our family, but we can choose our friends, and we sometimes, before we even meet them.
Simon PeggI do get very angry at things. My wife has to count to ten because if she gets annoyed at me being annoyed, then I get annoyed at her being annoyed at me being annoyed.
Simon PeggThe only thing that would deter me at the moment would be the idea of doing one thing for a very long time. There is no doubt in my mind that television is an incredibly auspicious medium right now. It's where a lot of the serious acting is taking place.
Simon PeggA movie is a creative process from its conception, through its writing, to its execution, to the editing. I think with the best films there is some kind of contribution from one person all the way through that. The best films are made by people who write, direct, and edit, so there's continuity.
Simon PeggYou grow up watching certain films or admiring certain filmmakers, and to write a love letter to one and have them validate it, it's extraordinary.
Simon PeggHaving done Spaced, I can't even remember it being that difficult on Spaced, but we know what the end's going to be like. We know why we're putting in this amount of work, or why a shot might be particularly tricky, because we know that what we do is create a whole package. It's the writing, the performances, and the style of camerawork, that's what we're working toward, and we're prepared for that.
Simon PeggIt's a fun world to exist in, and I relish doing those movies as much as I do the smaller ones. They're always immense fun. I don't know if I am - unless we do a Benji film, I don't think I am an action hero really.
Simon PeggA biological agent, Iโll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. Itโs hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.
Simon PeggI mean, yeah, I'm sure that Python and the other things have paved the way for a greater understanding of the British sense of humor, but I don't think it's all that different than the American sense of humor.
Simon PeggWhen men write women, they tend to write women the way they want women to be, or the way they resent women for being. They don't really - they seldom nail it. It takes a woman to write a really good female character. I like that.
Simon PeggThe thought of filming in London was a big draw because I could stay in my house. I read it, and I was really taken with it because it felt at once very unapologetic for what it was, which is a romantic comedy. But at the same time, a little spiky and a little truthful.
Simon PeggFilms used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about... whatever. Now we're walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk had a fight with a robot.
Simon PeggIf there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance?
Simon PeggI think that the joke and the ghost story both have a similar set up in that you kind of set something up and pay it off with a laugh or a scare.
Simon PeggI think we all mistake certain things for happiness. I think we mistake comfort for happiness and we mistake pleasure for happiness, and entertainment for happiness, when really these are just things we use as proxies for our happiness. We use them to cheer us up or try and achieve brief happiness, when really happiness is something much more profound and long lasting and exists within us.
Simon PeggIt's why I get miffed at all the dashing around in recent zombie films. It completely misses the point; transforms the threat to a straightforward physical danger from the zombies themselves, rather than our own inability to avoid them and these films are about us, not them. There's far more meat on the bones of the latter, far more juicy interpretation to get our teeth into. The first zombie is by comparison thin and one dimensional and ironically, it is down to all the exercise.
Simon PeggWe realised that it was important to embrace this popcorn logic, that it works, that it's funnier when you fire 20 rounds from one tiny pistol. Then it becomes the joke, it's funnier when you pay less attention.
Simon PeggI was the naughty kid that the teachers liked. I bullied a kid in the 1st year when I was in the 2nd, who then hit puberty like a plane crash and grew into a gorilla who bullied me when he was in the 4th year and I was in the 5th. That's Karma.
Simon PeggIt's hard, really, to make any physical movement that hasn't been done in another film. If you grab someone's hand, it doesn't mean you're referencing other films with grabbing hands...
Simon PeggIf one of your best friends is making a Star Wars movie, you're not gonna not abuse that privilege. I defy anybody to say otherwise!
Simon PeggMy worst job was packing animal feed in a warehouse in Gloucestershire when I was a student. It was a very strange environment. It was hung heavy with oat dust, the place was infested with mice, and everyone who worked there was over 60, and I was 18. It was crazy. Apologies to anyone who works in animal-feed packing industry and loves it.
Simon PeggAlso, if you watch the film once, there are lots of things that you won't get because there are punch lines in the first act, the setup to which isn't until the second act.
Simon PeggThis idea of popular culture became something that belonged to us rather than something that we looked at from far away. We realized we could be part of it and create it, instead of just being consumers only.
Simon PeggIn the most basic terms it was about how when we experience art without critical awareness we consent to the ideas being promoted, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the filmmaker. For instance, if you watch a racist comedian and laugh at his jokes, you are consenting to the prejudices inherent within them. Similarly, if you watch a movie which perpetuates conventional ideas about race, gender, etc., you are consenting to them and not affecting change in any way.
Simon PeggLike behind the car or in the pub, to do a scene, a proper nice dramatic scene, it's always a treat. And they're usually shot as one, so you've got a big chunk of dialogue to learn, and you feel like you're working.
Simon PeggI lived in the cultural equivalent of Tatooine when I was a little boy. I didn't live in London, I didn't live right in the middle of where everything was happening, I lived on the very edge of it.
Simon PeggI think I would probably be He-Man because Battle Cat would clinch the deal for me because I've always wanted a large, green cat.
Simon PeggWe are never more creative than when we are at odds with the world and there is nothing so artistically destructive as comfort. Princess Leia taught me that.
Simon PeggWe don't watch the film anymore because we've seen it so many times, so we'll introduce it, walk out and we'll come back in right about when I wake up in the morning and walk over to the shop and everything's changed.
Simon PeggIf I did a TV show, it would have to be in North London because I'm a bit of a homebody, and my work takes me away from home enough. But yeah absolutely. Television has never been more exciting than it is now.
Simon PeggI like to work in films, but I'd love to work in the technical side of film. I'd love to work with, say, Greg Nicotero [The Walking Dead] in kind of, like, special makeup effects. I'd probably say, "Good with clay and latex." Although I don't know what kind of job that'd get me.
Simon PeggChris Martin's a good friend of mine. I'm actually Apple's godfather. He's an old friend and we've been mates for quite a few years now.
Simon PeggI think the jokes would have been a bit broader and a bit more obvious in terms of the day-to-day of country life.
Simon PeggI've only played two sort-of slackers, in Spaced and in Shaun Of The Dead. They're different people, but they have the same kind of everyman quality, particularly as a twentysomething.
Simon PeggSpoilers are cowardly. They're just people who want to anesthetize themselves against the tension and the experience that the director and the artist have set up. If you go in there knowing what's going to happen, it's like reading the last page of the book. It's just cowardly.
Simon PeggIt wasn't until a year later, when a young woman with Danish pastries on either side of her head knelt down in front of a walking dustbin to record an important message, that love truly came to town." - p 16 [re: Princess Leia]
Simon PeggThe nuts and bolts of shooting a film and writing a film are still really difficult. But what makes it easier is the fact that you know you're going to go to work with your best mate.
Simon PeggSuddenly, the world I had scrutinised for so long was all around me, as if I had leaned forward and climbed into the television like Alice through the looking-glass. I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go.
Simon PeggThere seems to be this tendency toward denigrating romantic comedies as of late because it becomes something sort of cheesy or whatever. Whereas this embraced what it was. As a fan of When Harry Met Sally or Annie Hall, as a demonstration of what romantic comedy could be and should be, I immediately phoned Nira back and said, "Yeah, I'd like to do this. It'll be fun."
Simon Pegg