Those Shaun of the Dead rom-zom-com nutters, aka Simon Pegg and Nick Frost team up again in spoof cop flick Hot Fuzz, set in sleepy Somerset and directed by Edgar Wright. Rampaging round the countryside they shoot up the hedgerows as if they’re in a Die Hard actioner – wielding big boy’s weaponry to daft comic affect.
VM: How did you think up the title Hot Fuzz?
Simon: The title is wilfully stupid - it’s Edgar (Wright’s) title. He just wanted to appeal to that mid-to-late 70s trash exploitation stuff like Fuzz and Super-fuzz and Freebie and the Bean. But I really like it - Hot Fuzz is the opposite of Snakes on a Plane, it tells you *uck all about the film!
VM: And you accompanied cops on ride-alongs as research, right?
Simon: We were driving down a country lane in Somerset when a voice came over the radio saying, “There are some hippy types out in the Kwik-Save car park vandalising the recycling bins!” He stuck on the Blues and Twos and we went hurtling down this country lane at 85 mph, and me and Edgar were like ‘ohmigod!’ But when we got there, it had been resolved, so he had to drive round the corner so that no-one would see before he switched the lights off!
VM: Was it tough playing Nicholas Angel as the straight guy to Nick Frost’s klutsy PC Danny Butterman?
Simon: I couldn’t rely on any of my tricks with him because he’s not goofy; he’s absolutely focused all the time. You don’t see him smile until halfway through the film - he’s like a robot. You could arguably say that in Shaun I was just doing a different version of Tim (Spaced), or more accurately a version of myself, whereas with Hot Fuzz it’s not like that at all.
7th February 2007
