Ask: Hot Fuzz boys

Feb 11 2007 By The Sunday Sun

Comedians Simon Pegg, 36, and Nick Frost, 34, have acquired a faithful following since bursting onto the comedy scene with their telly show Spaced.

Then they won over fans worldwide with their first film Shaun Of The Dead, which they described as a rom-zom-com . . . a romantic comedy with zombies.

Now they're back in Hot Fuzz, a homage to Hollywood's action and cop movies, which Simon describes as "The Bill as directed by Tony Scott". To celebrate the film's release next week, Simon and Nick came to Newcastle to answer your questions in person.

How did you meet?

Nick: "I was a waiter in a restaurant and someone else working there said I should meet him because he was quite funny.

Simon: "We met properly at a party. I came across this drunken chap and he did an impression of Rik Mayall.

Nick: "I'd had a massive fight with my girlfriend that night and I fell asleep in the middle of the party."

Simon: "I thought `If this guy is still alive in five years I'm going to put him in a film'."

You're like the Ant and Dec of the film world. Will you always stick together?

Simon: "Ant and Dec's thing works so well because they are so resolutely a unit . . . I think we'd like to live in lock-keepers' cottages with adjoining doors.

Nick: "We've actually done more work apart, but things we've done together have been amazing."

Is it true that the two of you once shared a bed?

Nick: "We did, for about nine months. He moved in with me and was sleeping on the floor, which was uncomfortable, and eventually we topped and tailed . . . and then it didn't seem weird for us to lay next to one another.

There were some mornings where I didn't know where I ended and Simon began."

Simon: "We had a lesson in how to spoon. Girls don't have that problem where they are frightened of their emotions or proximity, why should men?"

You've written creative deaths for all sorts of famous people in your films, but how would you like to die?

Simon: "I'd like to be massaged to death over a period of about a day and a half."

Nick: "I don't really want to die but if I had to choose I would be shot by a sniper from quite a long way away, so I'd be dead before I heard the bang."

What's your favourite book?

Simon: "When I was a kid it was Stig of the Dump but of late it's been The Bridge or The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.

Nick: "Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham."

You play policemen in Hot Fuzz . . . have either of you ever been in trouble with the police?

Simon: "I've been cautioned a couple of times, well, not officially, just told off for kicking a bin and other minor stuff . . . then there were those horses I killed."

Nick: "I don't want to say."

Is this your first time in the North?

Nick: "Yes. Well, I was married to Alan Shearer."

Simon: "We saw some fog on the Tyne today."

Nick, do you ever get annoyed that you always play the goofy sidekick?

Nick: "No, I don't think I've got anything to be upset about. I'm not driven by ego and I'm just glad to be here."

Simon: "As cowriter I get to write `me' as the lead but, during the writing process, I became less like a supercop and more like a potato. Ironically, Nick plays the more idle cop and he's a green belt in kick-boxing."

What's the worst job that either of you have done?

Nick: "I worked in a chicken slaughterhouse."

Simon: "I packed and loaded animal feed in a place that was overrun with mice. Thousands would run around my feet in my lunch break."

The cast of Hot Fuzz includes loads of veteran British stars, such as Bill Nighy, Timothy Dalton and Newcastle's very own Anne Reid. Any uncredited cameos we should look out for?

Simon: "The Father Christmas who stabs me at the beginning is actually Peter Jackson - director of Lord of the Rings - and the scenes of crime woman playing my ex-girlfriend behind the mask is Cate Blanchett."