Simon Pegg is the ultimate fanboy living the dream. Just read his memoir, “Nerd Do Well” and see how close your own geekiness matches his. Even going back and watching his excellent series SPACED you can see the reverence that he has for movies. So, it goes as no surprise that he absolutely despises the spoiler element that pervades today’s internet.
In a recent interview, Pegg was directly asked about whether Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Khan in STAR TREK 2. Pegg replied and had something to say about spoilers themselves.
This time, Pegg isn’t the only Brit in the world of Starfleet. Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as a villain. Pegg is full of praise for Cumberbatch’s baddy, whom he describes as “not just another disgruntled alien. It’s a really interesting… sort of… thing,” he squirms. “Obviously I can’t talk about it.” Given internet rumours that Cumberbatch has been cast as Kirk and Spock nemesis Khan, will this be a very different “wrath of Khan” from the 1982 film of the same name? “It’s not Khan,” replies Pegg, annoyed. “That’s a myth. Everyone’s saying it is, but it’s not.”
Is that misinformation from the famously secretive Abrams camp? “No, I think people just want to have a scoop. It annoys me – it’s beyond the point to just ferret around for spoilers all the time to try to be the first to break them,” says Pegg, a fanboy’s fanboy who wrote an autobiography called Nerd Do Well and who seems to have forgotten that part of the thrill of being a comic book/film/sci-fi fan is about getting as many details as possible in advance. “It just spoils the film,” he complains. “It masquerades as interest in the movie but really it’s just nosiness and impatience. You just want to say, ‘Oh f— off! Wait for the film!’”
So, there you go. Any actor who told me something like this I would think was lying through their teeth. But, Pegg does not strike me as the type to make this big of a deal about spoilers only to have the truth come out and make him seem like a liar to his devoted fanbase. I am thinking he is being truthful.
But, that only goes to prove that Cumberbatch is not Khan, not that Khan doesn’t exist in STAR TREK 2. Looks like we will all know for sure when STAR TREK 2 opens May 17, 2013.
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