{"id":46275,"date":"2013-07-18T13:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T12:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=46275"},"modified":"2021-10-13T07:51:45","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T06:51:45","slug":"edgar-wright-and-simon-pegg-on-the-worlds-end-inspirations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/edgar-wright-and-simon-pegg-on-the-worlds-end-inspirations\/","title":{"rendered":"Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg on The World’s End inspirations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World\u2019s End<\/em> hits British cinemas on 19th<\/sup> July, as Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost give us the final bite of the Cornetto trilogy.<\/p>\n

Shaun of the Dead<\/em> was a loving zombie homage, while Hot Fuzz<\/em> was a hilarious tribute to all our favourite buddy cop movies from Point Break<\/em> to Bad Boys II<\/em>. While The World\u2019s End<\/em> is a science-fiction film, Wright tells us that they wanted to use the genre to drive the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to do movie references and stuff,\u201d he explains. \u201cBecause we did Spaced<\/em> where we did that a lot, and Hot Fuzz<\/em> is more of a meta film because they actually directly talk about the movies. But in this one it felt like the sci-fi theme was exactly what we wanted to say about the homogeny of chain pubs and how the British high street has changed and how your home town has been infected by London. And so all of those things about the central theme of you can never go home again perfectly fit in with thaat quiet invasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, the things that really inspired it, not specific films but really John Wyndham and Nigel Kneale, John Christopher, and obviously things like Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/i> and The Stepford Wives<\/i>, but predominantly there\u2019s a lot of British sci-fi authors that then through TV and film had a huge effect on pretty much everything we watched growing up. Whether it\u2019s Doctor Who<\/i> or Chocky<\/i>, there\u2019s a particular strain of British sci-fi that I felt was felt darker and would tackle global events through a very narrow focus in terms of this is one town, but it has consequences over the whole planet. And a lot of the Quatermass<\/i> films are like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So while The World\u2019s End<\/em> has its roots in British sci-fi, the team decided that they would not go back and study their predecessors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we watched It\u2019s Always Fair Weather<\/i>, which is a Gene Kelly musical,\u201d Simon Pegg remembers. \u201cWe watched The Big Chill<\/i> and Fandango<\/i>. But otherwise we decided not to do what we did with Hot Fuzz, which was to watch a lot of films. Because we didn\u2019t feel like we needed to learn any kind of language of cinema, we weren\u2019t going to make any comments about science fiction or make any references to other films. Any references that you might pick up on are unintentional or subconscious. There are no overt references in this film.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven films that you could possibly apply to being similar to like Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/i> or Stepford Wives<\/i>, Village of the Damned<\/i>. We thought, \u2018Let\u2019s come from a social science fiction angle and look at like John Wyndham\u2019, who obviously wrote Midwich Cuckoos<\/i> and Day of the Triffids<\/i>, so if there\u2019s any influences there it\u2019s probably a literary one but\u00a0 it\u2019s not a riff on anything. It is a science fiction film but it\u2019s not a comment on science fiction films.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead Wright and Pegg drew inspiration from their own lives. While Shaun of the Dead<\/em> dealt with its hero approaching 30 and realising he needs to take responsibility in his life, The World\u2019s End<\/em> finds its band of friends staring 40 dead in the face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that, all the three films we touch on the idea of perpetual adolescence and the joys and the dangers of that,\u201d Wright explains. \u201cAnd we wanted to do a film which was much more about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s that thing where we felt we have to be honest about the age of the actors and stuff. Simon and Nick are both husbands and fathers. And there\u2019s a thing that I find in American manchild comedies, people pretend to be stoner flatmates forever and it\u2019s like \u2018That\u2019s not true, you guys are married!\u2019 So what we felt was a good thing to do was to take five people, four of whom are grown up, they\u2019re divorc\u00e9s, married, they\u2019ve got proper jobs, and one guy is stuck in his teenage years and wants to drag them all back. So Simon thought of Gary as the ghost of sixth form past. He sort of appears like a wraith in the movie! But that was important to us. It\u2019s one of the reasons why we never did the third Spaced<\/i> was I think it would be extremely false to just pretend to be 26 forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as the filmmakers didn\u2019t want to be stuck in the same age bracket forever, The World\u2019s End<\/em> gives Pegg and Frost the opportunity to change up the partnership. Pegg plays Gary, who is trapped in perpetual adolescence, while Frost plays Andy, who is teetotal and has no time for Gary\u2019s antics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some people think, and I think wrongly, that \u2018Oh they always play the same characters,\u2019 Wright tells us. \u201cBut I think that people get that impression just from them as friends in interviews, because I think, Shaun and Ed are different from Danny and Nicholas Angel, and then different again in this, and I think particularly in this one.<\/p>\n

\u201cNick Frost can be very serious and very stern when he\u2019s on the phone with the council and sometimes when I see him a bad mood think \u2018I wanna see that Nick in a movie!\u2019 because he can be extremely severe and terrifying when he\u2019s in a bad mood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frost\u2019s character is reluctantly dragged along for the pub crawl while obviously holding on to some old resentment towards Gary. In fact, everyone seems to have some reason to be angry with Gary, and Wright explains that presenting this character who hasn\u2019t moved on from his past was a big part of the appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knows somebody like that, that they went to school with and who hasn\u2019t moved on, who was the coolest guy at school and through whatever circumstances, whether it\u2019s drink or drugs, or failure in their career has just stayed at that point whilst everybody else has grown up and so we liked the idea that he\u2019s going to attempt to bring them back down to his level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody\u2019s had that experience, whether you\u2019ve gone to a wedding or a school reunion or you\u2019ve gone back to your hometown where it\u2019s extremely bittersweet. And sometimes when you reconnect with friends and you have running jokes that you had when you were a teenager, but you can\u2019t quite remember them anymore or it doesn\u2019t mean anything anymore, it\u2019s not funny anymore. So there are more of those elements of frank rawness of comedy that we wanted to get into because we\u2019d been through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While they may have been through it, everyone agrees that a pub crawl doesn\u2019t seem like a very appealing proposition these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the only way I\u2019d do a pub crawl now is if it was in beautiful walled Spanish city,\u201d Nick Frost tells us. \u201cAnd I\u2019d stop and have some sherry and chorizo, and then I\u2019d move on and have some patatas bravas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d do a caf\u00e9 crawl now,\u201d adds Pegg. \u201cA cake in each one and a cup of tea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World’s End’s Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost talk influences and pub crawls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":121272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,1718,7],"tags":[1619,523,597,2649],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-Worlds-End.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}