By GustavoLeao / 17:39, 21 July 2008 / Feature Films

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Wired.com posted a new interview with actor Simon Pegg, the new Montgomery Scott in J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. Here are few excerpts of the interview.

Wired.com: Speaking of Star Trek ... in an episode of Spaced, your character Tim says that there are some things in life that are just fact. And one of those facts is that every odd-numbered Star Trek movie is shit. But now you're about to star in Star Trek XI.

Pegg: Obviously there are exceptions to every rule. It isn't a universal constant. I have been made to participate in my own wrong proving. Fate put me in the movie to show me I was talking out of my ass.

J.J. Abrams has this habit of putting me in the position of making me eat my own words. When I was doing press for Shaun of the Dead, a journalist asked me if I was going to go off to Hollywood now. I said: "I'm not gonna just run off and do some film like Mission: Impossible III." I just made up a film. Four months later, J.J. calls me and asks me if I wanted to be in Mission: Impossible III and I was like: "Yes!" Oh what a fool.

This odd-numbered film is going to be amazing.

Wired.com: The historical character of Scotty is a bit of a stereotype. He's a Scottish engineer, named Scotty, who loves to drink. Did you need to update the character at all in the way you played him to make him more PC?

Pegg: In some respects he's a racial stereotype. But, I know plenty of Scottish people who like a bit of a drink and have the surname Scott.

It's very important to be sensitive and not make generalizations about groups of people, but you can be oversensitive. Scotty's a very affectionate stereotype. He's a popular character in Scotland. He's not a negative stereotype -- he's a fun stereotype. The differences between ourselves can be very funny. But Scotts are the first people to laugh at the fact that they drink and fight a bit.

It's also not an accident that the chief engineer on the Enterprise is Scottish. An enormous amount of extremely important inventions came out of Scotland. The Scottish engineer is in the tradition of John Logie Baird, who invented the TV, or Alexander Graham Bell.

Wired.com: So you were OK with playing him as a stereotype without parodying him?

Pegg: Certainly not parodying him. It was just a question of playing him. I approached the part like James [Doohan, the original Scotty] did when he got the part. To look at who he is. He's an accomplished engineer, a bit cheeky, likes a drink and a brawl.

Wired.com: Right, but it's hard to imagine how you can play the part without mimicking the original character. The same thing goes for Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the new film. How do you do Kirk without doing Shatner?

Pegg: Going into it I thought the same stuff. How are all these other actors going to take on characters where the actor is as famous as the character? Shatner and Nimoy, they inhabited those roles with such conviction and such skill. All you can do is play the part in the spirit of those actors -- not take it lightly or parody it. Watching Chris Pine, and all the actors, I had skin-tingly moments. I saw them doing their stuff and thought: They've got this so fucking right. Chris had that swagger, and confidence, and big-balls-ness, and I think he nailed it.

The full interview is here.