Star Wars: The Force Awakens European Premiere: Simon Pegg Simon Pegg, who is currently appearing in season three of The Boys on Prime Video , is a Hollywood favourite. He first came on the scene when he starred in Channel 4 flat sharing sitcom Spaced, which began 25 years ago in 1999. While undoubtedly talented and funny there was nothing at the time to indicate his stratospheric rise to Hollywood fame.
He seems to have seamlessly jumped from TV comedies and quirky British movies such as Shaun of the Dead to sharing red carpets with the likes of Tom Cruise at the Mission Impossible premieres. Indeed, it did all happen very quickly. He can trace all his success back to Spaced.
The show was directed by the then up and coming Edgar Wright. Now a huge name and award-winning director at the time he was best known for directing shows on the Paramount Comedy Channel. When he made his feature film directorial debut with Shaun of The Dead in 2004 he called on Simon to play the titular role.
Released in 2004 as part of Edgar's Cornetto Trilogy (which also includes Hot Fuzz and The World’s End) it became a huge hit. However, that alone may not have been enough to give Simon the nudge he needed to get to the next level of fame had it not been seen by acclaimed filmmaker JJ Abrams. He was struck by Simon's performance and as a result of that, in a huge career leap, he cast him as Benji Dunn in Mission: Impossible III.
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