Simon Pegg: Star Trek’s a sort of romcom

Simon Pegg is using romantic comedies as inspiration for Star Trek 3.

The 45-year-old actor is currently penning the script for the latest instalment in the sci-fi franchise.

And Simon has revealed in a new interview with the UK’s The Guardian newspaper he is looking to a somewhat unusual genre to help him come up with storylines.

“Yes, absolutely,” he said when asked if there are romantic comedy elements in the film. “Because it’s all about relationships. Myself and Doug Jung, who are writing it together, we’re writing about characters that already exist, so there are pre-existing relationships there, it’s a familial setting. It’s not a romantic comedy exactly, but there are human relationships in it, and that’s what’s at the heart of a romantic comedy, too.”

Simon can next be seen starring alongside Lake Bell in Man Up. The film was written by Tess Morris who came up with the plot after she was herself mistaken for a stranger’s blind date.

While Simon is known for his acting abilities, he is also a skillful screenwriter – having penned projects including the TV series Spaced and movies Run, Fatboy, Run and Shaun of the Dead.

However, Simon acknowledges there is one aspect of writing that he continues to find difficult.

“I find it very hard to write for women,” Simon added. “It’s mine and [Shaun of the Dead co-writer Edgar Wright’s] self-confessed weakness – whenever we’ve written scripts together, the women in our films are the weakest characters. It’s hard – you can understand the opposite sex, and yet still there’s a degree of authenticity that’s hard to achieve.

“Particularly when you’re writing specifically about issues relating to your own gender, because when you’re trying to see how the opposite gender interprets those issues you tend to project what you hope they think, and it isn’t always right.”