Pegg Still Keeping Trek A Secret
By Ian M. Cullen
It seems that getting Simon Pegg to open up about his Star Trek role of Scotty is a little like pulling teeth – and tonight it was the turn of BBC chat show host Jonathon Ross to have ago.
Pegg appeared on Friday Night With Jonathon Ross in order to promote his new movie – How To Lose Friends And Alienate People. However due to Jonathon Ross being a self confessed comic book and Star Trek fan – it didn’t take to long for him to touch on the subject of the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie.
Ross admitted to being very excited about the fact a British Actor had been cast in the role of Scotty and proceeded to try and get Pegg to open up – though sadly had no more luck than most interviewers have had.
“We’re so gagged by Paramount – willingly so. We’re not supposed to talk about it…”
“You don’t want to spoil it,” Ross cuts in.
“No – J.J. Abrams is the director. He doesn’t want to spoil anything about it.
“So when we were filming it we used to go from set to the studio in covered – like cloaks. In golf buggies covered in cloth so people couldn’t see you.”
“Wow – so they’re really – the secrecy’s a big deal?” Ross asked.
“Absolutely – it’s incredible,” Pegg revealed.
“And you play Yoda in it. Is that right?” Joked Ross.
“I play Yoda,” laughs Pegg “Typecast again… I play Scotty.”
Of course at this point Ross proceeds to do his worst impersonation of the role that James Doohan originated in the series too much laughter from Pegg and the UK audience.
“Are you a Scottish Scotty?”
“I am Scottish,” Pegg confirms. “I tried to approach it like James Doohan did when he got the part – which is say ‘Ok the guy is Scottish. He works in space.’ I didn’t try and do an impression of James Doohan…”
“Essentially he’s the guy that would keep a big Ocean ship going,” Ross asks.
“Yes… and its right that he’s Scottish as well,” adds pegg. “Because the Scottish came up with all those amazing engineering inventions. So he’s the uber Scott.”
“I don’t want to treat you like some kind of performing monkey here – but we’d love to here a little bit of the accent.” Ross says while referring to the audience and viewers at home.
“I can’t do that.” Pegg says in traditional silly voice. “Because I’ll be sued in the face.”
“Sued in the face. Is that some sort of really aggressive legal tactic?” Jokes Ross.
“That’s means Paramount will sue my ass off – where my head should be,” Pegg said.
“What if you said it – While I coughed?” asked Ross while playing to the audience.
“No,” laughs Pegg. “I’ll do it for you later. Privately.”
“Oh yeah – your gonna love that aren’t you.” Ross gestures to the audience.
In conclusion Simon Pegg is still keeping quiet – but as always provided a highly entertaining interview.
If you missed the show you can watch it again tomorrow night at 1:20Am on BBC 1 – but no doubt a full version of this interview will have hit youtube by then.
