Interview with Simon Pegg, Alice Eve and Jean-Baptiste AndreaSimon and Alice as British actors, how did it feel playing archetypal American characters? Does that make the role more of a challenge? Simon Pegg: Doing an accent was hard because not only do you have to think about acting and the character, you have to constantly project your thoughts into a different accent. But we had a dialogue coach on set and she would listen to every take with headphones on and come up after every take. Alice had spent some time in America so I was always very impressed with her efforts. Alice Eve: Or just me. Simon Pegg: Just Alice in general. Though not her personal hygiene. Jean-Baptiste Andrea: The script was written as an American story and I wasn’t thinking of casting English actors – and then I saw Simon in Spaced and thought I have to have him as Gus. It’s a complete coincidence that we had so many English actors because the production didn’t require that we had so many – Alice Eve: they’re just better Jean-Baptiste Andrea: I just couldn’t find an American Josie, I didn’t like any of them. Simon Pegg: Also the option of making my character Gus British, it would do a disservice to the script, just to help me fit in. So it was better for me to meet the script – he’s a Portland boy, a small town guy who never got out of his hometown, he’s an American.
Did the fact that you were filming in Wales and the Isle of Man make things seem even stranger?
Simon Pegg: Yeah, it’s really conducive… Alice Eve: But we were filming in the middle of the night, in big open spaces like army training grounds, so you didn’t really see any people – and you could have been in America, couldn’t you? Simon Pegg: And we had, like, a French director and an Italian producer and a Hungarian producer and an American co-star. We felt like in a kind of nether world for a lot of the time… Alice Eve: We did, we were in a bubble. Simon Pegg: The Isle of Man is quite a strange place, we were there off-season, it’s got a big sky – it was easy to lose yourself in it.What was David Schwimmer’s opinion of your American accents?
Alice Eve: He loved them – but it would have been hard for him to say anything else… Simon Pegg: Also, his English accent is appalling – he sort of goes (in terrible Dick Van Dyke / Mary Poppins-style) “’Ello, Moite, Um on me moe-bile…” so let he who is without sin cast the first stone… Alice Eve: He’s not here to defend himself you bastard! Simon Pegg: He’s very supportive David, coming from a show where it was like basically a battle among six funny people to give the best performance, he was able to sit back and be the moral centre of the film. His character Charlie is like the audience’s way in to the plot and he’s quite serious and bewildered a lot of the time while me and Alice are chewing up the scenery. So I think that displayed an enormous generosity on David’s part.Simon you and David come from very different styles of comedy – how was it combining those?
Simon Pegg: I think with David we had to just play in a little Friends musical sting at the beginning of each scene so he could feel at home…Did you have to cheer like a Friends audience when he walked on?
Friends is obviously done in front of a live audience so he obviously knows what it’s like but David’s quite instinctive. I guess working in all types of comedy, you’re still doing comedy and the rules of timing and what have you still apply, so I don’t know if it makes that much of a difference. Jean-Baptiste Andrea: I thought they would be a good pair because they come from very different backgrounds – cultural backgrounds, type of humour, I thought that would be interesting to put both of them into unknown territory as opposed to just doing their own thing the way they do normally. Simon Pegg: Back in the day, Spaced used to be on Channel 4 on a Friday night after Friends and you couldn’t get two more different shows – culturally speaking for a very few geeky types of people like me, it’s odd to see us in the same movie.Alice and Simon your first day together on-set sounded interesting…
Alice Eve: Our first day was a sex scene, which meant that… Simon just fell in love with me and that was that, basically. Simon Pegg: It wasn’t necessarily you I fell in love with. Alice Eve: It meant that we skipped a few stages – once you’ve done that… Simon Pegg: We got to third base on the first date. What you don’t see is that we’re in a fake room on a bed in what was actually a barn in the Isle of Man, in the middle of a farm surrounded by a minimal camera crew. When you do something like that, it is slightly weird to take your clothes off in front of people and simulate sex… Alice Eve: It was almost better that we did it on the first day than after 3 weeks when it would have been like, “Simon…weird…” it was really surreal so let’s just get on with it. Simon Pegg: It’s very unsexy – especially what we were doing which was essentially comic – maybe it’s different if you’re really smooching someone… Alice Eve: It’s never sexy, really.Simon does this film show you’re attracted to darker roles?
Simon Pegg: I’m attracted to complexity, I think, which will often take you down darker paths because then there’s more light and shade. It’s interesting to have a character with layers. Something a little bit challenging in terms of not knowing whether to laugh or wince.
What would you say your influences were in writing the script – some people mention films like 2 Days in the Valley or Pulp Fiction…
Jean-Baptiste Andrea: I wrote without thinking about any specific films actually – they are all subconscious influences, I guess. I love the Coen Brothers obviously who have this very unique tone, although we tried to push it a little bit more towards comedy at the beginning and towards darker territory near the end. But not in a conscious style – “let’s write a Fargo-style script”
The call centre where Charlie and Gus work in the beginning looks particularly hellish.
Simon Pegg: Not many people know this but David actually worked in a call centre once. Jean-Baptiste Andrea: Most Internet call centres for France are really based in North Africa. And they change people’s names, just like in the film, from, say, “Fatima” to “Virginie”, to make it sound more French, which I thought was really nasty.
Is there a certain freedom in making smaller, independent films like Big Nothing?
SP: I think so. There are several thoughtful, good, slightly lower-budget films coming out – it’s good time to be careful about your scripts. And it’s nice to try and cultivate British film and keep our industry alive.Simon how does it feel to just work as an actor for hire, rather than co-writing the script like you did on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz? Simon Pegg: It’s bliss to hand over the reins and just be an actor, which I really enjoy doing. If you read the script and think, ‘Oh I’d like to change that’ it’s different but I read Big Nothing and it was so nice to sit back and just be an actor and feel completely cosseted by not feeling like I wanted to control everything, which is unfortunately my usual way, wanting to be in all the pies – or eat them, as was the case at that point – I thought that Gus should be a little blimp. Alice Eve: Part of your process was shoving Caramac in your mouth between takes… Simon Pegg: And what other job allows you to put an axe through the head of Tom Cruise’s ex-wife? Possibly Tom Cruise’s lawyer but…
Simon can you imagine going back and making more TV like Spaced?
Simon Pegg: I think the thing about TV is, tit akes a lot of dedication and commitment – one series might be eight weeks filming it but certainly writing it for the best part of a year and then if they want another series, you could be locked into something for 3 or 4 years. Never say never though…Also, TV makes you very famous, it gets you into everyone’s living room all the time and some people can take that on – I find that side of it really hard to rationalise in a way. For example, David is the most famous person. It’s hilarious to see David walk down the street with people chasing him with a phone filming him, shouting “Ross! Ross!” I would hate that.I think some people see that nowadays as an end in itself whereas I just see it more as radiation to someone who works in a nuclear power plant – it’s just something that happens, not necessarily great, it can make you feel a bit funky at times…