When Simon Pegg joined the Mission: Impossible franchise back in 2006 as the lovable techie Benji Dunn, no one expected he’d still be dodging explosions, hacking satellites, and opening airplane doors for Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt two decades later. Yet here we are, Mission: Impossible, a commercially successful string of action-packed movies with Cruise still jumping buildings, and Pegg still dismantling bombs until the last possible second.
Simon Pegg: “I Feel Grateful and I Feel Sad”
In a recent interview with Collider, Pegg got a little nostalgic about his two-decade run as Benji. “It’s strange. It’s bittersweet, is the best way I can describe it,” he admitted. “Here I am now, promoting the final chapter. It’s been such a ride. It’s been such an amazing experience. I feel grateful, and I feel sad, and I’m excited for people to see this movie. I mean, what an incredible wrapping up. McQ [writer/director Christopher McQuarrie] has done such an incredible job embracing everything that’s gone before and pulling it into this movie as a kind of culmination of all Ethan’s choices. I don’t think there could be a better way to go out.”
Pegg also shared the stunts he did in the past years while making the movies.
He shared, “I drove a speedboat up the River Seine, which was so much fun. They basically closed the River Seine for me. There’s a lot of aqua. In fact, it’s all water-related. I drove a water taxi through Venice, and I rescued, or rather retrieved, Sean Harris from a submerged armored car wearing a rebreather, which is different to scuba.” The Shaun of the Dead actor added, “So, every day on ‘Mission’ is like that. Bombing through Casablanca in a battered BMW, being up there on the mountain watching Tom do that stunt where he jumped off a cliff. I mean, it’s one of those jobs.”
What’s Next for Pegg?
Now that he’s closing the book on Benji Dunn, what’s next for Pegg? The actor and screenwriter admitted that he’s “quite enjoying the uncertainty of the future.” However, he did share a few details about what he might be doing, hopefully in the future: directing. He said, “I’ve adapted a book which I have loved for a long time, which I hope to direct. I can’t really say any more than that because I don’t want to jinx it. Nothing’s been officially announced, but that’s the last thing I wrote.”
Catch Simon Pegg on Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning scheduled for release in theaters on May 23.
