Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are best friends who play best friends – in the landmark TV series Spaced, and again in the feature films Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, all directed by Edgar Wright. Now they’re taking the act on the road in Paul, writing themselves the roles of Graeme and Clive, a pair of sci-fi obsessives who befriend a genuine extraterrestrial with the voice and instincts of Seth Rogen.
At a promotional stop in Scottsdale, Arizona, the pair discussed Comic-Con, CG co-stars and working with Steven Spielberg – a guy who has some experience with aliens himself.
The opening scene of Paul is set at San Diego’s Comic-Con, with your characters walking among thousands of conventioneers. It’s a zoo – were you actually able to shoot there?
Nick Frost: We tried, [but] to use the fire marshal of San Diego’s exact words: “No fucking way.” So we shot the exteriors just after it finished, and all the interiors we shot in a big convention centre in Albuquerque.
Did you ever think of going old-school and using animatronics for the character of Paul rather than digital effects?
Frost: Nah, we wanted it to be seamless we didn’t want people to think, “Oh, there, it’s a puppet.” We were interested in seeing the most amazing CGI character in a gas station in Wyoming, you know?
Simon Pegg: We used to say, “Imagine seeing him sitting there scratching his nose.” You have this amazing effect, but all he’s doing is lying on the sofa watching TV.
Paul celebrates sci-fi fandom by referencing virtually every piece of it from the last 35 years.
Pegg: We’ve grown up at a really fertile time in popular culture, and so we often go there for our metaphors and our similes. “It was like going into the cantina in Star Wars, and at the end it was just like Close Encounters!” That’s Graeme and Clive telling the story of their adventure: big visual metaphors taken from pop culture.
Speaking of Close Encounters, the two of you are actually working with Steven Spielberg now, playing Thompson and Thomson in his upcoming Tintin movie.
Frost: When Paul first comes out of the darkness and Clive kinda laughs and hits the floor, that was our reaction to meeting Steven for the first time, essentially.
Pegg: I think Paul is like a reflection of that whole experience, to be honest. We’ve travelled to this fabled land and met these incredible figures who’ve turned out to be just regular guys. The experience that Graeme and Clive have in meeting the very pinnacle of their ambitions and dreams, and him just turning out to be a normal bloke – you know, that’s very much what’s happened to us.
Interview Clips
Simon Pegg on picking Greg Mottola to direct:
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the challenges of introducing a CG character:
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the logistics of shooting Paul:
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on making a movie for a mass audience that’s still pretty geeky:
Nick Frost on shooting Tintin for Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg:
Simon Pegg on his plans to make the third chapter of the Cornetto Trilogy with Edgar Wright:
