What is your writing process? Do you go to work at nine in the morning and stop at five? Do you always write with Edgar? How is the dynamic between you guys?

First of all we kill a horse, every time. (me laughing)  Just slaughter a horse.

Every week, or every day?

Just at the beginning of the project. Not everyday.  That would be wasteful.

I just had to ask.

We stab a stallion in the chest with a pike and then we begin. Edgar is a great disciplinarian. We get into work around ten in the morning, because you need to avoid rush hour, and we will stay and write until around five or six o’clock and then call it a day. We work completely collaboratively, we sit opposite each other, and we have a desk that faces each other. There was a DVD extra on Shaun of the Dead where we go through a big flip chart of ideas that we had for the film.  We did that again for Hot Fuzz.  We haven’t filmed it.  Actually, we should do that for the DVD. We put all of our ideas down and then we stick it on index cards, and then we start moving them around so we can get the order of events in the film.  Then you get to the point where you write it. The first draft of Hot Fuzz was 235 pages long. It was long.

Any thought of making a four hour movie?

No. I don’t know what it is at this moment, where there seems to be this tendency.  Everyone’s being allowed to make these movies that are longer than two hours, and I don’t necessarily think it is a good thing.

Lots of audience members will say that it isn’t.

I don’t know what it is. You would think that, in the age of DVD, directors would settle for putting a few scenes in the deleted file.  It is not always great to be in the cinema for longer than two hours. We want Hot Fuzz to be about two hours long. We want it to be a hearty meal, but not a hearty meal and some dessert that you don’t really want.

Here is my question for you about rewrites. You guys go to the set and do you rewrite there or do you pretty much stick to the script?

We are pretty much done so as soon as we hit set the script is etched in stone. Pretty much. No, that’s wrong, it does change. Things will come up in the day that you suddenly think, hang on, we’ll lose that line or we’ll think of a really great joke and that will go straight in. Pretty much though, by and large, when we come to the set the script is how it is going to be. It is not loose on set at all.  There is some room for improvising in terms of performance style and how the lines are delivered, but a lot of the times it is important that things are said because they have ramifications later on.

And how was it with Nick this time as opposed to Shaun?

He’s changed so much since Shaun.  He used to be such a nice guy, and now he is this moody monster. He locks himself in his trailer.  He hit me.

He acted a little strange at Comic-Con.  Actually, he was a lot more pretentious.

Did he wear his sunglasses all the time at Comic-Con?

He did. I thought he might have a drug problem.

Yeah, he has a terrible, terrible drug problem. Aspirins.  Can’t get enough of them. He likes the chalky taste.  No.  Nick never fails to amaze me how he grows as an actor and, as a professional person, he takes it all in stride. He does an accent in Hot Fuzz because he is playing someone from the west of England and there is a different accent there. So he was really doing a character part, where Ed was very laconic and a man of few words. Danny, Nick’s character in Hot Fuzz, is far more like a little puppy whose tail is constantly wagging and he is brilliant in the film.

How long did it take you to write Hot Fuzz as opposed to Shaun?

Shaun happened over a longer period of time because we were kicking the idea around awhile as we were doing Spaced. Hot Fuzz probably took eighteen months.

We spoke a while ago, actually, and you mentioned to me that you had turned down a lot of projects to work on Hot Fuzz and to get the script right. Are you at that point now that you want to keep on writing, or are you looking forward to just performing, being an actor?

It’s funny, at that point when we spoke the last time I was feeling like that because we had been writing for a long time.  I love writing and I feel privileged that I can write stuff and be in it. As an actor you are very lucky if that is the case as you have a little bit of control over what you do. But when it came to the end of the writing, getting the script into a state in which it could be filmed, that is when I went away and I did MI3, Big Nothing, The Good Night and then Hot Fuzz.  So I have had four acting jobs since I said that, and now I feel like I could write a film again and I am going to. After the next film I do, I am going to write a film with Nick, and I will tell you about that in the future. The feeling that I haven’t acted in awhile has now been quieted down. I had felt really trapped.  I had been in an office, and I wasn’t doing what I really love doing, which is acting.

That definitely came across when I spoke to you last time.

Now I feel okay. And also you worry that it is not long before suddenly you’ve got five films coming out, and you are thinking that people will start to think “Oh great, him again. I don’t want to go see that.” I have realized how delicate the whole industry is.  You’ve got to be careful not to be too ubiquitous.  Then again, you still have to work as you need to pay the bills.

There is also the Ben Stiller thing, where he has been in so many movies in that short period of time that there was talk that he was almost too exposed. Let’s be honest, you haven’t reached that point of over exposure. None of the films have come out yet.

That’s true. I think the thing with Ben Stiller is a lot of the stuff he has done has been extremely enjoyable and it has fuelled, there is no danger that people don’t want to see his new film about the Museum, it is going to be huge.  No matter how many films he has been in, people are still going to go and want to see it. I think there is a way of doing it but it is a delicate business, you’re lucky if you can negotiate that.

Talking about toys for a moment, in the background of where we are talking I see a Shaun of the Dead toy. As someone who has been very passionate about Star Wars, what is it like having an action figure?

It’s awesome (laughter). I got that yesterday. I just needed to see it because it is on sale here in the states at the moment, it is not quite in the U.K. yet, and I know we are getting sent over a big consignment of them so we can give them to our friends and family.  But I was really keen to see it. This is a huge moment in my life to be an action figure.  I had boxes of Star Wars figures that I would play with daily, and the idea of actually becoming one is extraordinary. NECA has done a fantastic job, compared to those old little Palitoy Kenner things that we used to play with as kids this is like a work of art. 

And you were telling me that there is a twelve inch version coming that speaks.

I do have a twelve inch (both of us laughing) it is coming out right now. (tons of laughter) Yeah, there is a twelve inch talking Shaun, and it will be on sale in the Hustler store very soon.

Is there an Ed coming?

Yeah, there was a prototype down at Comic-Con and they were thinking about having an interchangeable head so you could have him as a zombie or as normal Ed. What I think they are going to do now is have a proper zombie Ed coming out later on and start out with normal Ed right now. Because I know there is going to be a Shaun in battle gear, in Hoth, in Bespin gear with the tie around my head and stuff. Yeah, it is great.  I am so thrilled about that, and it is not lost on me the joy about it.

And Hot Fuzz figures?

They would be great. Throughout the film there are obviously different police uniforms that I have to wear, and you could have one of me in my little tighty whiteys.  And you could dress me up in different outfits.

Did you think about the whole Star Wars thing, how there are different outfits and did you actually say I need a new costume for the new figure? Did that ever go through your mind?

You know, when I had my costume fitting I tried on every single costume.  Even if you see me very quickly in a montage or something wearing different kinds of outfits, when I tried everything on and I had all the pictures of me in the different outfits, I just thought that is an action figure waiting to happen. There is like cycling cop, and there is riot Angel (his character name in Hot Fuzz) and cycle Angel and all these different Angels, its great.

Let’s talk about Spaced for a split second. It aired here in the states on BBC America. I heard you talking tonight about how it is different than the British version.

It is a little different, as it had to be squeezed into the time slot and they removed some of the language. You know, I am so happy that it is on over here, and I am very grateful to BBC America for carrying it, but it is a little frustrating at times when they will just whip out an entire plot thread just so the commercials can be played, and, thus, remove some nuance from the show. The best way to watch Spaced is on DVD.

Is there going to be an American release? 

This has been on the cards for such a long time and it was really close recently. The whole problem with it was the music in the show not cleared for North America.  Most people know that.  We got it down to six tracks that we have to change for it to work in North America, and I think (Simon’s phone starts to ring)… and, yes, my ring tone is the music from Rushmore.

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