At Cannes Film Festival Simon Pegg hangs up his pistol

This month marks the end of an era for Simon Pegg. After two decades playing Benji Dunn in the blockbuster Mission Impossible film series, it’s time for Pegg to step away from the role, as the franchise comes to an end. “I feel good, it’s been exactly 20 years since I joined the franchise,” Pegg tells me via a quick phone call from the South of France. “It’s satisfying to me. It boosted my career, but if we never made another one I would feel closure. I feel content."

For Pegg, Mission Impossible has supplied a series of highlights. “There’s been banner moments, whether it’s shooting in Prague, Dubai or Vancouver for Ghost Protocol or the Moroccan car chase in Rogue Nation, or New Zealand for Fallout. The whole of the Dead Reckoning location as it was right in the middle of the pandemic it was such a roll your sleeves up and get on with it, but it was such a valuable experience as we were huddled together in Venice, Rome and Norway."

The last film has provided some standout moments for him. “It’s been a constant sense of adventure, doing these films,” he tells me. “For Final Reckoning we were swimming with sharks, filming in the arctic in minus 40 and filming in Africa.”

The Mission Impossible cast, notably Tom Cruise, is renowned for performing the majority of their own stunts. “That's the rule! I mean, Tom shoulders most of them, but anytime you see Benji getting into the shit that’s me. We’ve always said the stunts are real, and no one has ever said you have to do this, but because Tom sets the bar high and because his are so in excess, we all feel like we ought to be doing our best.”

Pegg shares that it won't be stunts that he's gagging to get back to, but instead he’ll miss the travel most. “That and the people,” he adds. “I’ve made such good friends, we'll all stay in contact with each other, there's no doubt whatsoever about that, but getting to see them on a daily basis is different.”

And while the film is wrapped, and there’s a pause on stunts for Pegg, there’s still a press tour to be had, which means he isn’t saying goodbye to his co-stars-cum-friends just yet. He’s just made a stop at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning. On Wednesday night Pegg, along with Cruise, walked the famous red carpet on La Croisette. “I enjoy the sort of getting ready and the dressing up before a red carpet,” he explains from his hotel room at the Carlton on the Cannes seafront ahead of him gracing the most famous carpet in the world. “Red carpets can be quite intense. They're sort of dizzying. You're being pulled between, you know, the press and the fans, and you kind of want to make sure you’re doing your bit for everyone.”

For his stopover in Cannes, Pegg turned his game face on. Now a veteran of his field, he’s used to getting dressed up and it’s something he really enjoys doing. “Whenever these occasions come around, it's just an opportunity to really dress up and my stylist Arabella Boyce and I have worked with each other for over 10 years,” he shares, citing British designer Joshua Kane as a go-to for ornate suiting. “We just have so much fun because she knows me really well and she knows how far to push me. She'll bring something in and I'll say ‘it's a bit plain’ and she goes ‘yeah I know, so try this’ and then she'll pull out this insane fuchsia suit.”

For the daytime Cannes photocall, he went bold in a cream Edward Sexton Seventies-leaning, skipping a shirt and showing off his chest under a waistcoat cut from the same hued cloth. On his chest there’s a pistol-shaped, diamond-encrusted medallion. “I was toying with wearing a replica of Sid Vicious' padlock necklace just to give it a little punk edge. But then when I put it on, it was just, it didn't quite look right. There was something about it. It didn't quite go with the look. So my stylist went out and sourced a load of things. And I think the pistol for Mission Impossible just felt kind of right, you know?” he says of the Susannah Lovis necklace. “The cream suit is very Riviera. It's got a kind of South Of France vibe to it. And then the black tie in the evening might be a bit unexpected for me.” His look is finished off with hands that are adorned with rings from Giovanni Raspini.

For the evening, where the Cannes Film Festival requires black tie (and the dress code just became a lot stricter), he went for a Paul & Joe tuxedo. He adorned it with Piccadilly Vaults diamond brooches. “This suit has got this amazing sort of white piping on it,” he explains. “I've accessorised it with the amazing diamond brooches, and this big old 70s floppy black bow tie.” When asked how he compares his dress sense to his co-star Cruise, he says “Tom's dress is quite conservative, just becauseI think he has to be careful because people are constantly looking for an angle on him. It's like they constantly, because he's very private, wants to find something and so he curates an image. He’s an enigma.”

Pegg, on the other hand, just wants to have fun with the way he approaches his styling. “I like seeing older actors when they kind of get into a groove with their style,” he explains. “Jeremy Irons and Jeff Goldblum have found that sense of fun and that playfulness which is always really appealing. You can see when someone is just wearing something because they've been told to wear it.”

But, once the Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning tour is wrapped, he’s heading back to his house an hour outside of London. “I'm actually a real homebody,” he says. “I like to stay home and I'm not the kind to attend celebrity bashes that I'm not attached to in any way. Yeah, I don't go out for the sake of it. And when I’m at home, I definitely don’t dress like this!”

Photography by Aidan Tanner

Grooming by Tara Hickman

Styling Arabella Boyce

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