Fanboy goes to Hollywood in Simon Pegg's memoir

LONDON — A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — the west of England in the 1970s — there lived a boy named Simon Pegg.

He loved zombies, "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Star Wars," and dreamed of traveling far from his home to a remote and exotic world. Eventually, he got there: Hollywood.

The writer-actor behind geek-pleasing comedies "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz" and "Paul" — as well as young Scotty in the rebooted "Star Trek" film franchise — Pegg has come a long way from the provincial town of Gloucester, a journey he recounts in the new memoir "Nerd Do Well."

The book offers a view of the movie industry from someone who is both an insider and an unabashed fan. It's also a journey through Pegg's formative influences, complete with digressions, flights of fantasy and strongly held opinions.

For Pegg, zombies are the greatest monsters ever, "Star Wars" a "childhood obsession" and a major creative influence — and George Lucas' lackluster 1999 prequel "The Phantom Menace" a personal betrayal.

"I felt indignant," Pegg said, still nursing the sting more than a decade later. "I felt I'd put all that work in, spent all that money on merchandise, all the time and emotional investment — and it was crap. It's a terrible film, and I think it retroactively damaged the first three."

"Phantom Menace" is the only thing Pegg is negative about in a book that hints at emotional turbulence (his parents' divorce, a painful early romance) but charts an upbeat course through childhood, drama school and university. It also shares his stint as a struggling standup and his fortuitous meeting — at a suburban London Tex-Mex restaurant — with friend, collaborator and co-star Nick Frost.

Pegg, 41, finds it hard to be downbeat for long. He has never gotten over the thrill of being a fan, even as he has acquired fans of his own. In the book, he recounts signing autographs at the Comic-Con convention in San Diego, then lining up to get an autograph from Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia from "Star Wars," whose picture he had kissed every night before bed as a child.

It's fair to say Pegg's career has exceeded his expectations. He has been the lead in "Run Fatboy Run" and "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," appeared alongside Tom Cruise in two "Mission: Impossible" films and voiced a swashbuckling mouse in "The Chronicles of Narnia: the Voyage of the Dawn Treader."

Next, he plays a bumbling detective in "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" — directed by another childhood hero, Steven Spielberg.

"Somewhere in me," Pegg admits, "there is a little kid leaping up and down going, 'I can't believe this is happening!' "