Hot Fuzz is a really clever spoof, but also an affectionate homage, and it's very good at both things. How difficult is that do to?
Pegg: I think you've got to never, never look down on your source material. Always hold it in high regard, because then you won't be tempted to make fun of it. With Hot Fuzz we're kind of saying a little about the genre, but with Shaun we were just employing the genre. The comedy in Shaun of the Dead wasn't because there were zombies in London. It wasn't funny in 28 Days Later. There were other things at work. With Hot Fuzz, we're drawing attention to the formal quality of action movies by sticking it in a different context, so there is a gentle ribbing, but it's all done with a complete reverence.
There was a long list of movies you looked at to prepare for this, and a lot of them good, and some of them were terrible. How did you avoid looking down on the terrible ones?
Wright: We watched Steven Seagal in Out for Justice, and it was actually quite fun. There are so many things that are terrible about it, but then there are the odd flashes. There are little moments in there. There's that Chuck Norris film Code of Silence, which is pretty good up until his robot partner at the end, the Prowler. It's so bizarre. But its worse aspect is also its best bit.
Pegg: That's also a message in our film, which is that there's a place for that. It shouldn't be frowned upon. It's often dismissed by the cineastes as being ponderous, but as long as it's balanced out with good things, and you watch stuff that makes you think. A diet of simply hamburgers will kill you, but it's nice to have one every now and again.
You're both credited with the script. What's your writing process like?
Wright: We sit opposite each other and hammer it out. To quote another of my favorite films, we're "spectacularly anal." There are so many lines that recur, and there's foreshadowing, but then Nick [Frost] is the first actor to see the script. When we rehearse it, we rehearse it with Simon and Nick first and go through everything, and then improvisations come out of that, and there are at least three or four great zingers, Nick Frost copyright. Those are then written into the script, so then on the day, that's the script. But we don't improvise on the day because we don't really have time.
The relationship between Simon and Nick's characters in Hot Fuzz is decidedly homoerotic. There isn't even a female romantic interest.
Wright: Well, the homoerotic goes through most buddy films.
Pegg: Absolutely. Sometimes you wonder, "surely they must realize." Being a woman, Kathryn Bigelow [Point Break] had a level of detachment that really enabled her to bring that to the fore. But with other films, like Lethal Weapon, I don't know how they couldn't have been laughing.