Este mês marca o fim de uma era para Simon Pegg. Após duas décadas a interpretar Benji Dunn na saga cinematográfica de grande sucesso Missão: Impossível, chegou a altura de Pegg se despedir do papel, com a saga a chegar ao fim. «Sinto-me bem, passaram exatamente 20 anos desde que entrei para a saga», conta-me Pegg numa breve chamada telefónica a partir do sul de França. «É gratificante para mim. Deu um impulso à minha carreira, mas, se nunca fizéssemos outro filme, sentiria que este capítulo ficou encerrado. Sinto-me realizado.»

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."

O último filme proporcionou-lhe alguns momentos memoráveis. «Fazer estes filmes tem sido uma aventura constante», conta-me. «Em Final Reckoning, nadámos com tubarões, filmámos no Ártico a 40 graus negativos e também em África.»

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 revela que não serão as acrobacias aquilo a que estará desejoso de voltar, mas que sentirá sobretudo falta das viagens. «Disso e das pessoas», acrescenta. «Fiz grandes amigos, vamos todos manter-nos em contacto, não há qualquer dúvida quanto a isso, mas poder vê-los diariamente é diferente.»

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.

Para a noite, em que o Festival de Cinema de Cannes exige traje de gala (e o código de vestuário acabou de se tornar muito mais rigoroso), optou por um smoking Paul & Joe. Adornou-o com broches de diamantes da Piccadilly Vaults. «Este fato tem uma espécie de debrum branco incrível», explica. «Completei-o com estes fantásticos broches de diamantes e um grande laço preto, largo e descaído, ao estilo dos anos 70.» Quando lhe perguntam como compara o seu estilo com o do seu colega Cruise, responde: «O Tom veste-se de forma bastante conservadora, simplesmente porque acho que tem de ter cuidado, pois as pessoas estão constantemente à procura de um pretexto para falar dele. É como se, por ele ser muito reservado, estivessem sempre à procura de alguma coisa, e por isso ele constrói cuidadosamente uma imagem. É um enigma.»

Pegg, por outro lado, só quer divertir-se com a forma como aborda o seu estilo. «Gosto de ver atores mais velhos quando começam a encontrar o seu próprio estilo», explica. «Jeremy Irons e Jeff Goldblum encontraram esse sentido de diversão e essa irreverência que são sempre muito cativantes. Nota-se quando alguém está a usar uma peça só porque lhe disseram para a usar.»

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

Cabelo e maquilhagem por Tara Hickman

Styling Arabella Boyce

Veja agora os homens mais bem vestidos da Met Gala 2025