Mission Impossible 7 arrives in theaters this week and we were lucky enough to sit down with Simon Pegg, who has starred as Benji Dunn througout the entire film series.
Source: Courtesy / Paramount Pictures / Skydance
Simon Pegg Was The Vet On The Set Of ‘Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Pt. 1’
There’s so many things to love about Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 and Pegg’s character is definitely at the top of our list. We asked the veteran actor, who is also known for roles in The Boys, Star Trek, Star Wars: Episode VII- The Force Awakens and Shaun of the Dead about the friendships that he’s made through his work with the Mission Impossible franchise.
“The kind of core friendships that I have on Mission are vitally important,” Pegg told BOSSIP Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden. “And the new friendships. I’ve known Tom [Cruise] and Ving [Rhames] for 17 years now and they’re very old friends and and our friendships is have evolved over the years, particularly me and Tom because we’ve been through so much, but also Rebecca you know who I love very much and is a dear friend, and all the new people that came in you know and when you’re all making when you’re all working with your friends and you like everybody it makes the experience so much more enjoyable and it was really fun for the all the new kids to come — I call them kids, and be the kind of veteran. I used to be the new kid in Mission Impossible. I used to be the puppy dog and now there’s all these young ones that have come in and I’m like the old guy now. I kind of like that. They all come to me and ask me stuff because Tom’s always busy. Tom and McQ [director Christopher McQuarrie] are always away hatching plans, so you know I’m the kind of one that they’re hanging out with and they’re always coming to Simon, ‘What does it mean? When are we going to do this? How does the… and I’m like, ‘Listen, I don’t know, you know it’s like I know as much as you do.’ But it’s fun being a veteran now.”
Source: Courtesy / Paramount Pictures / Skydance
‘Shaun Of The Dead’ Actor Simon Pegg Says A.I. Went From Science Fiction To Fact
We’ve been trying our best not to give any spoilers about MI:7 but we thought it was importabnt to ask Pegg about the enemy in this film, known as The Entity, which comes from a mysterious technological [artificial intelligence] threat. Pegg, who has been in films with all manner of real and imagined foes, spoke to us about the potential threat posed by technology.
“As human beings we’re always scared of things we don’t understand, and I think the proposition of AI to a lot of people is like it’s something that’s mysterious and it could want to kind of hurt us,” Pegg said. “We’ve always been scared of things like monsters and Gods and aliens and zombies– anything that might threaten to wipe us off the face of the Earth — this is something that feels very real, you know? This is more real than any of those things. It’s something that’s emerging now. When McQ said, ‘This is the enemy in Mission 7,’ I was like, ‘I love that!’ You know it feels very Mission Impossible, it’s quite science fiction. Three years later and it’s very much science fact you know? I think it’s extraordinary. It’s kind of intriguing it could be a wonderful thing, but it might not, we’ll have to wait and see.
Pegg’s character Benji actually uses some pretty unconventional things in his line of work, as part of Ethan Hunt’s top notch intelligence and weapons team so we had to ask about what things in Benji’s toolkit he would never leave home without.
“The funny thing about that is that Benji finds himself without any tools and he has to ransack people’s luggage to find out what they carry with them and get the toolkit together,” Pegg said, referring to the new MI film. “I think Benji probably has a little wallet, a lovely little leather wallet with like a screwdriver and a Phillips head and a kind of flathead and all the different things you need, he just doesn’t have it with him at that moment, so he has to literally ransack the luggage of perfect strangers to try and see what they have as tools in their bags. So I would look in your soap bag tonight and see if you’ve got enough in there to defuse a nuclear bomb.”
Source: Courtesy / Paramount Pictures / Skydance
Finally we asked the Mission Impossible veteran about his own personal “Mission Impossible” in life that he’s managed to prove as possible. The answer was so heartwarming!
“I always look at the biggest challenge in my life as being a parent,” Pegg who is father to a teenage daughter named Matilda told us. “It doesn’t feel like a Mission Impossible but sometimes it does. You can find yourself in the early stages when you can’t can’t get any sleep, you know because you were up late, that can feel like a Mission Impossible but it’s the most gratifying, rewarding, and beautiful mission I’ve ever been given. That’s been my favorite mission of all time and I think my most successful.”
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 arrives in theaters everywhere tomorrow, July 13th!
