rfastChat simomPew ritish comic actor Siman PW,,41,attend- ed StratforiJ ', - UponAvon ' C,oA46e ud the tlniversi- ' ty dlristol,writinghis , q.rdergroduate thesis on t -A Mqrxist Overview of ;' ftprlor Sqenties Cine' anord Hqemonic Discourses ." And years , fuer,he reached cult i *ardom fleeing zombies :, indrchor,or comedy - :Sftonn ofthe Dead" , (No4). r,: .tfs thotmix of the : intelectual and the pop ';; anld;rol that informs , nurch of Pegg'sworhe ;;.. irludirgthe buddy mvieparody turned { Eolllrrrter Filmspastiche E EaFuzz" Q007) and T &estondup comedy and I .eftish TV workhe did ryt.21). Peg, who also plays otle of the l:'ito men nonedlnspector ThomP- srclnintheupcoming mation-capture film 'IlleAdvmrures of Tmtt1" spokeby phone front England w.ith r egu' lcr Newsdoy contributor >*Lovece. So. . . "Ghost Proto- col'Any zombies? No, ifs far too fast for zom- bies They would be left be- hfud in the dust. librally - I saw the movie's niAX dust storm. My eyes ne srifl stittgrtC. Yeah, it was pretty fantastic. I remember when we were shooting that stuff, and the crew and [star] Tqm [Cruise] and everyone were iust breathing it in. I think it ras like wood splintered into tiny atomized Pieces, ad everyone was just cough- ing for days. c3 and the part-CGl "The lron Giant"l. It was very important, I think, to Brad Bird and Tom that thinss weresreal. There's a thin! nowadays with cGI [in thatl- it does enable us to do pretty much anything and remove the leopardY from certain situations, and [view- ersl just think, "Oh,.it's been done with computers"' Whereas if it's done for real, there's still that Presence You can get from actual PhYsical things happening. I think thatis whilhey used real dust and why Tom dangled off that building. By "dangled off that build- ing," you're referring to Cruisa, himself, doing wire- wo* shniLs 2;7OO Seet'uP':" well over half a mile in the air - at the Buri Khalifa Tower in Dubai. We've all seen the photographs of him doing it, but. . . reallY? Seriously? Yes! I mea& obviously, the safety measures were rigorous because we had a lot more of the lilm to shoot, so if he fell it would have been a disaster for many reasons. But, yeah, he did it * and he did it with a great big smile on his face! It was awe-inspiring to watch. I went up there to check it all out, and it was kind of a hive of silent industry. There were all the stunt lcoor- dinatorsl with the harnesses and stuffand Tom just out there having the time of his life running around on the outside of the tall- est building in the world. I have a quote from you that sounds too good to betrue: Did you actuaF ly once say, when some one asked if you were going to leave England and go Hollywoc*|, "Well, it's not like l'm goingto go do'Mission: lmpossible lll'! " .It's true. The British press canbe quite sort ofpossessive and get annoyed at you ifyou show any signs ofleav- ing. They consider Hollywood the piruracle ofsuccess, but at the same time they see it as abetrayal, in some respects. I always liked saying, "Ob,I'mnot going to iust go awaY andbe in some block- buster," and theblock- buster I pickedwas this imaginary "Mission: Impossible III." And six months later, I get a call - , fromJ.|.Abrams saYing "Would you like to be in 'Mission: Impossible III'? " Do you even nemember mak- ing that comment, or to whom? No, but I was reminded of it later. That was the world telling me to nol be so full of myself. Well, hey, it's not like You're going to go off and do "Star Trek 2." Oh, wait. . . ! ll-aughs.l Yeah, that's some- thing I'm very much looking forward to. I leave for LA. in |anuary, and I can't wait. We've been emailing each other and stuff, and I'm very excited to see everybody again and get back tg_qhat particular group, beciuse it's a 161 gf{gr;t,' : :..ir3;'i? rr. a o n g a t1 I i ti' I ; € { { 3 o { q q o :s o o = z m a 0 c z o I m a) m @ m n N O i vqra think they would have , rEed CGl, espechlly given ' tfiectorl Brad Bird's familiar- I lY with it [with such animat- i -* ri' nnrsa aTh*tcredibles" See a trailer for "Ghost Protocol"