I have to admit that I’m a bit of a sucker for the autobiographies of the great and good but it is a very specific part of their career trajectory that fascinates me most. You can generally boil the life of anyone who has attained a position in the public consciousness into three acts. The first will be the formative years involving schools and siblings, juvenile escapades and the seeding of those interests which will later shape them enough to bring them to the attention of the world. The third is the post-recognition era, the one of fame and moving in certain circles, of meeting heroes and being afforded the trappings of success. But for me it is always Act Two that is the most interesting. Act Two can really be summed up with the tag line of “how did they go from plebeian to prince,” the bit with the hard work and the lucky breaks and that for me is the heart of the story.
Simon Pegg is one of those people who I always just warmed too, as one of us, a regular guy made good and it is his Act Two which shows you just how much success is all about putting the hours in. He shot to fame, or more properly garnered a loyal following, via Spaced, his homage to cult films via a dysfunctional house share, sit-com vehicle. This enabled him to move into film where he became adept at producing loving and reverential parody. Shaun of The Dead re-set the zombie apocalypse in suburban North London, Hot Fuzz took the classic cop-buddy movie and relocated it in The West Country and The World’s End replayed John Wyndham style alien invasion stories in small town England. Or as they are collectively known the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy as the ice cream features briefly in all three.This success enabled him to achieve Nerdvana…that state of grace that any self confessed sci-fi geek attains when they find themselves cast in actual, big budget, Hollywood epics such as the latest string of Star Trek movies. But before that all happens there is a back-story. In Pegg’s case one of school productions, a drama degree and chance meetings with his long-term collaborator Nick Frost whilst trying to break the stand up circuit.
To delivery his story he takes a typically non-linear approach, referencing the roots of ideas as he relates them from their later point of fruition. He also uses fictional interludes supposedly written from the third party by his robot butler Canterbury, which are very witty and highlight what it is that you already know about Pegg, he’s very funny, though in this context they often seem like he is trying a bit too hard to win the readers approval.Not all autobiography’s are going to have universal appeal and there is a balancing act to Simon Pegg’s and it is this. Away from the comic asides and footnotes, the story just isn’t always that interesting, you realise that the problem with being attracted to stories of normal people who the roll of the dice has favoured, is that essentially most of the story is about a normal person, doing normal things.
Fans of the man will obviously revel in it’s self-aware geekiness; sci-fi fans will love the story of one of their own achieving godhead; cult TV and underground film buffs will get more of the in jokes and references than most of us. Okay it isn’t for everyone, but if the idea of a normal guy with a passion for pop culture, underground film, pulp novels and TV getting to live his dream and do so through sheer hard graft appeals to you, then dive right in.
