The voices behind The Boxtrolls
Michael King The Boxtrolls boasts big-name actors voicing its quirky and fantastical characters. Read on to find out more about the film’s stars:
SIR BEN KINGSLEY (Archibald Snatcher)After earning an Academy Award, two Golden Globe awards and two Bafta awards for his riveting portrayal of Indian social leader Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Ben Kingsley has continued to bring unequalled detail and nuance to each role he portrays, remaining a coveted and ubiquitous talent.
Steeped in British theatre, he marked the beginning of his professional acting career with his acceptance into the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967. He performed in the RSC productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and – playing the title roles – Othello and Hamlet, among others. Over the years, his diverse theatrical portfolio has also encompassed stagings of The Country Wife, The Cherry Orchard, A Betrothal and Waiting for Godot.
Kingsley’s film career began in 1972 with the thriller Fear is the Key, directed by Michael Tuchner, but his first major role came a decade later in Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough; in addition to his Best Actor Oscar, the epic won seven other Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Eleven years later, he starred in another Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, for which his performance as Itzhak Stern brought him a Bafta nomination. He was again an Academy Award nominee for his portrayals in Barry Levinson’s Bugsy, Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast and Vadim Perelman’s House of Sand and Fog.
Among his many other feature films have been David Hugh Jones’s Betrayal, adapted by Harold Pinter from his play; John Irvin’s Turtle Diary, again from a script by Pinter; Thom Eberhardt’s Without a Clue, as Dr Watson to Michael Caine’s Sherlock Holmes; Brian Gibson’s TV film Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, in which Kingsley portrayed the real-life hero and for which he received an Emmy Award nomination; Ivan Reitman's Dave; Steven Zaillian’s Searching for Bobby Fischer; Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden; and, as Fagin, Oliver Twist; John Schlesinger’s TV film The Tale of Sweeney Todd, for which his performance in the title role earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination; Phyllis Nagy’s TV film Mrs Harris, for which he was again an Emmy Award nominee; Brad Anderson’s Transsiberian and Stonehearst Asylum; Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness, which won the Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival; Isabel Coixet’s Elegy, for which he received a London Critics Circle Film Award nomination; Gavin Hood’s Ender’s Game; and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Hugo, as cinema pioneer Georges Méliès in the latter, which won five Academy Awards.
Kingsley’s notable television work includes Anne Frank: The Whole Story, directed by Robert Dornhelm, which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries. His portrayal of Anne Frank’s father Otto brought him a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Last year, he starred in his first $1 billion-grossing movie, Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, as The Mandarin. Returning to the Marvel universe, he expanded on the unique characterisation in the short film All Hail the King, written and directed by Iron Man 3 co-writer Drew Pearce.
Among Kingsley’s forthcoming movies are Anton Corbijn’s Life, in which he portrays Hollywood studio mogul Jack Warner; Robert Zemeckis’s To Reach the Clouds, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit; Eran Creevy’s Autobahn, starring alongside Anthony Hopkins; Tarsem Singh’s Selfless; Ridley Scott’s much anticipated epic Exodus: Gods and Kings; Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; and Learning to Drive, reuniting him with his Elegy director Isabel Coixet and co-star Patricia Clarkson.
In 1984, he was honoured with the Padma Shri civilian award by Indira Gandhi and the Indian government. He was knighted by the Queen in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List. This year, Kingsley was honoured by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with its National Leadership Award, recognising his exceptional contributions to keeping Holocaust memory alive.
ISAAC HEMPSTEAD WRIGHT (Eggs)Isaac Hempstead Wright, 15, who was born in Surrey, began his acting career early this decade.
While The Boxtrolls marks his first leading role in a motion picture, he has previously appeared on screen in Nick Murphy’s acclaimed thriller The Awakening, alongside Rebecca Hall and Imelda Staunton; and in John Crowley’s Closed Circuit with Eric Bana and Hall.
He is known to millions worldwide for his continuing role as Bran Stark in the global phenomenon Game of Thrones, having been part of the ensemble since the TV series started in 2011.
ELLE FANNING (Winnie)The Boxtrolls
is one of four movies this year starring 16-year-old Elle Fanning. She was most recently seen alongside Angelina Jolie as Princess Aurora in the blockbuster fantasy
Maleficent
, directed by Robert Stromberg. Soon to be released is Jake Paltrow’s sci-fi thriller
Young Ones
, with Nicholas Hoult, Michael Shannon and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Due out in the autumn is Jeff Preiss’s
, for which Fanning won the Best Actress award at the 2014 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; in the autobiographical story she portrays real-life writer and memoirist Amy Albany, opposite John Hawkes as Amy’s father, celebrated jazz pianist Joe Albany.
She began her acting career at the age of two, starring opposite Sean Penn in Jessie Nelson’s I Am Sam as the younger version of the character played by her sister Dakota. Her first lead role was as the title character in Daniel Barnz’s independent feature Phoebe in Wonderland, in which she starred opposite Felicity Huffman, Patricia Clarkson and Bill Pullman.
Fanning’s other films include Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Academy Award-nominated Babel, opposite Academy Award nominee Adriana Barraza; Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo; J. J. Abrams’ Super 8; Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt; and David Fincher’s multi-Oscar-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, portraying the younger incarnation of Cate Blanchett’s character, opposite Brad Pitt.
She received British Independent Film Award and Critics’ Choice Movie Award nominations for her performance in Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa, with Alice Englert, Christina Hendricks, Alessandro Nivola and Annette Bening.
Fanning’s forthcoming movie projects include starring for director John Cameron Mitchell in How to Talk to Girls at Parties, an otherworldly coming-of-age film adapted from the Neil Gaiman short story of the same name.
The Boxtrolls marks her fourth film for Focus Features, after Tod Williams' The Door in the Floor, opposite Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger and Jon Foster; Terry George’s Reservation Road, with Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly; and Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, in which she starred alongside Stephen Dorff and which won the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival.
In addition to her film work, Fanning is an ambassador for the United Nations’ Ending Hunger campaign.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER (Fish; Wheels; Bucket)Dee Bradley Baker is one of the most versatile and sought-after voice actors working today, and has been heard in hundreds of television shows, video games and movies.
Baker appears regularly in many Disney Television animated series: he currently voices Perry the Platypus in the smash Phineas and Ferb, and the beloved dwarf Dopey in The 7D.
In the Daytime Emmy Award-winning Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, he portrays not only Captain Rex but also an entire army of clone soldiers; his ability to maintain subtly distinct personalities among the latter has earned him two Annie Award nominations (the animation industry’s equivalent of the Oscars) for Best Voice Acting in a Television Production.
His recent television work also includes the hit animated series American Dad!, as Klaus the goldfish; Avatar: The Legend of Korra!, voicing Tarrlok, Pabu and Nala; SpongeBob Squarepants, giving voice to Squilliam and Perch Perkins; and Adventure Time, as Cinnamon Bun. In Nickelodeon’s classic 1990s game show Legends of the Hidden Temple, Baker voiced the rock god Olmec.
Among the top video games that he has been a voice in are Batman: Arkham City, as Ra’s Al Ghul; Portal 2, playing all the co-op bots; and, incarnating all manner of creatures, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, Diablo 3, Left 4 Dead 2, the Gears of War series and Halo 2 and 3.
Baker has worked with such notable movie directors as Gore Verbinski, on Pirates of the Caribbean as a parrot; Zack Snyder, on Dawn of the Dead as zombies; Joe Pytka, on Space Jam as Looney Tunes legends Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil; and George Miller, on the Academy Award-winning Happy Feet as the penguin Maurice.
STEVE BLUM (Shoe; Sparky)In 2012, Steve Blum was inducted by Guinness World Records as Most Prolific Voice Actor in Video Games, as he has recorded for nearly 300 of them.
With hundreds of credits in that field as well as in television shows, he is well known as the voice of Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop; Wolverine, from several incarnations of X-Men, including animated movies, games and the Wolverine and X-Men television series, among others; of Orochimaru, Zabuza and others from Naruto; the Green Goblin, from the Spectacular Spider-Man series; Heatblast, Vilgax and Ghostfreak, from Ben 10; Grayson Hunt, from Bulletstorm; Grunt, from Mass Effect 2 and 3; Zoltan Kulle, from Diablo 3; Abathur, from Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm; Tank Dempsey, from Call of Duty; Killer Croc, from Arkham Asylum; Oghren, from DragonAge; Vincent Valentine, from Final Fantasy VII; Leeron, from Guren Lagann; Jamie, from Megas XLR; Storm Troopers and other characters in most of the Star Wars games; and Zeb Orrelios in Star Wars Rebels.
On the Daytime Emmy award-winning Transformers: Prime, Blum can be heard as the Decepticon Starscream, while on Transformers: Rescue Bots! he voices Heatwave. Other recent television series voice work includes Devil Dinosaur, on HULK and the Agents of SMASH; several characters on Ultimate Spider-Man, including Wolverine; Doc McStuffins; and, as the terrifying anti-bender Amon, Avatar: The Legend of Korra!
Fan support returned him to the helm of the great star cruiser Absolution, reprising his role as TOM, the robotic host of Cartoon Network's Toonami, on Adult Swim. Blum has also been the voice of the 7-11 store chain.
TONI COLLETTE (Lady Portley-Rind)With a proven ability to transform into the characters she plays, Toni Collette has impressed audiences and the entertainment industry alike in the past two decades.
She made an indelible impression on moviegoers worldwide with her breakout performance as the title character in P.J. Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding, which brought her a Golden Globe award nomination. More recently, she won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her portrayal of a woman with multiple personalities on the television series United States of Tara, which ran for three seasons.
Collette was an Academy Award nominee for her performance in M. Night Shyamalan’s sleeper phenomenon The Sixth Sense, which was nominated for five other Academy Awards, including Best Picture. She subsequently starred in another Best Picture Oscar nominee, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s Little Miss Sunshine, the surprise hit of 2006. Collette received Golden Globe and Bafta nominations for her performance, and shared with her fellow actors from the ensemble the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Acting Ensemble as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Her many other movies have included Todd Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine; Norman Jewison’s telefilm Dinner with Friends; Roger Michell’s Changing Lanes; Paul and Chris Weitz’s About a Boy, for which she received a Bafta nomination; Stephen Daldry’s The Hours, for which she was a Screen Actors Guild Award nominee with her fellow actors from the ensemble; Sue Brooks’s Japanese Story, opposite Gotaro Tsunashima, for which she won Best Actress honours from the Australian Film Institute and the Film Critics Circle of Australia; Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes; Bharat Nalluri’s TV miniseries Tsunami: The Aftermath, for which she received Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations; Alan Ball’s Towelhead; Adam Elliot’s animated feature Mary and Max, in voiceover alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman; Mental, reteaming her with director P.J. Hogan; Sacha Gervasi’s Hitchcock; Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s The Way Way Back; Megan Griffiths’ Lucky Them; Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said; Ben Falcone’s Tammy, with Melissa McCarthy; and Peter Chelsom’s Hector and the Search for Happiness.
Collette was a Tony and Drama Desk Award nominee, and a Theatre World Award winner, for her Broadway debut in George C. Wolfe and Michael John LaChiusa’s musical The Wild Party. This year, she returned to Broadway in Will Eno’s play The Realistic Joneses, directed by Sam Gold; with her fellow actors from the ensemble – Marisa Tomei, Tracy Letts, and Michael C. Hall – she shared the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. Her additional stage credits include productions with the Belvoir Street Theatre and the Sydney Theater Company.
Born and brought up in Australia, she was a student at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.
JARED HARRIS (Lord Portley-Rind)A classically trained stage actor and former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Jared Harris has garnered acclaim for his film and television projects.
His memorable portrayal of Lane Pryce on the multi-Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning television series Mad Men brought him an Emmy nomination, as well as – with his fellow actors from the ensemble – a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
His other television credits have spanned Britain and the US, and include his highly acclaimed TV film performances as Henry VIII, in The Other Boleyn Girl directed by Philippa Lowthorpe; as John Lennon, in Two of Us, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg; and as Simon Mann, in Coup!, directed by Simon Cellan Jones. In the US he has been a guest on such hit shows as Fringe and Without a Trace.
Harris has performed with renowned theatre companies in London and New York. His first production with the RSC was Ron Daniels’ staging of Hamlet, starring Mark Rylance. He made his American stage debut as Hotspur in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2. He then went on to perform with the company in ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore and King Lear.
His other East Coast stage credits include the New Group’s Obie Award-winning production of Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy; the New Jersey Shakespeare Company’s experimental production of Hamlet, in which he played the title role; the Almeida Theatre’s production of Tennessee Williams’ Period of Adjustment; and the Vineyard Theater’s production of More Lies About Jerzy.
He has incarnated icons both factual and fictional on film, including Andy Warhol, in Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol; Professor Moriarty, in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; and General Ulysses S. Grant, in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
Among his other movies are The Rachel Papers, which was his film debut as well as the directorial debut of his brother Damian; Todd Solondz’s Happiness, for which he shared with his fellow actors the National Board of Review award for Best Acting by an Ensemble; Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans; Jonathan Nossiter’s Sunday, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival; Wayne Wang’s Smoke and Chinese Box; Burr Steers’ Igby Goes Down; Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man; Michael Almereyda’s Nadja and Trance, for which he was named Best Actor at the Sitges-Catalonian International Film Festival; Christine Jeffs’ Sylvia; Mary Harron’s The Notorious Bettie Page; Paul W. S. Anderson’s Pompeii; John Pogue’s The Quiet Ones; and David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which Harris shared with his fellow actors a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Born in London, he is the son of the Academy Award-nominated Irish actor Richard Harris. He attended Duke University, North Carolina, where he majored in drama and literature; after graduation, he studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
NICK FROST (Mr. Trout)Nick Frost came to prominence in the award-winning Channel 4 sitcom
, playing Mike Watt – a character he had originally created to amuse his real-life best friend Simon Pegg. In addition to teaming the two friends, the show also marked Frost’s first collaboration with director Edgar Wright, and the trio went on to make the hit movies
Shaun of the Dead
– for which Frost was a British Independent Film Award nominee and a Fangoria Chainsaw Award winner – and
The World’s End
, on which he was an executive producer.
Ever since, Frost has become one of Britain’s most sought-after actors. He has hosted a series of his own for Channel 5, Danger! 50,000 Volts! and Danger! Incoming Attack!; appeared in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books; starred in the BBC sketch-comedy series Man Stroke Woman; and played the lead in the BBC Two sci-fi comedy series Hyperdrive.
His other movie credits include Rupert Sanders’ blockbuster Snow White and the Huntsman; Richard Curtis’s Pirate Radio, aka The Boat That Rocked; Julian Jarrold’s Kinky Boots; Mark Palansky’s Penelope; Nick Moore’s Wild Child; and Joe Cornish’s award-winning Attack the Block. He was recently seen starring and dancing opposite Rashida Jones in James Griffiths’ Cuban Fury, on which he was also executive producer and for which he conceived the original story idea; and next stars in Ken Scott’s Unfinished Business, with Vince Vaughn.
With Pegg, Frost wrote the original screenplay Paul, which they starred in under the direction of Greg Mottola, and for which he received a National Movie Award nomination in the UK. Frost and Pegg subsequently voiced Hergé’s beloved detectives Thomson & Thompson, respectively, for Steven Spielberg’s epic feature The Adventures of Tintin.
Frost’s lead performance in the BBC adaptation of Martin Amis’s Money, directed by Jeremy Lovering, garnered acclaim from critics and the author alike. Frost recently starred in the title role of the 1960s-set Sky Atlantic television series Mr. Sloane, from writer-director Robert B. Weide, alongside Olivia Colman and Ophelia Lovibond.
RICHARD AYOADE (Mr. Pickles)Acclaimed as a comedy performer, Richard Ayoade is also a Perrier Award-winning writer and director.
In his native UK, he co-created and directed the Channel 4 spoof horror comedy series Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, of 2004, in which he also appeared. In 2006 there was a Channel 4 sequel series, Man to Man with Dean Lerner, which he directed, co-wrote and appeared in. He concurrently performed in the celebrated comedy series The Mighty Boosh, also doing script editing on the show.
Ayoade’s role in the International Emmy Award-winning comedy series The IT Crowd brought him a Bafta. He was in every episode of the show over its five-season run, starring alongside Chris O’Dowd and Katherine Parkinson.
He has directed music videos for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Super Furry Animals, Kasabian, the Last Shadow Puppets, Vampire Weekend and Arctic Monkeys; and directed Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo, a 2008 feature-length concert film.
He will soon be seen in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., with Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander and Luca Calvani in the long-awaited big-screen update of the 1960s television show; and in Gil Kenan’s Poltergeist, a contemporised reimagining of the 1982 classic thriller, with Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt.
He next directed the feature film Submarine, released in 2011, which he adapted from Joe Dunthorne’s novel. The coming-of-age dramatic comedy starred Craig Roberts, Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine, and Yasmin Paige. Ayoade received nominations for a BAFTA and Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards, and won the British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay. The film’s other honours included the London Critics’ Circle Film Award for Young British Performer of the Year, voted to Craig Roberts.
His most recent feature as director was the darkly comedic fable The Double, which he adapted with Avi Korine from the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel. The 2014 release starred Jesse Eisenberg, Wallace Shawn, Cathy Moriarty, James Fox, and Mia Wasikowska, who received a British Independent Film Awards Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance.
TRACY MORGAN (Mr. Gristle)Tracy Morgan starred on all seven years of the series run of NBC’s beloved multi-Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning comedy
, with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. For his portrayal of “TGS” star Tracy Jordan, Morgan was an Emmy and NAACP Image Awards nominee, and shared with his fellow actors the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, among other accolades.
He was first introduced to television audiences in a recurring role as Hustle Man on the hit Fox Network comedy series Martin. Upon joining NBC’s Saturday Night Live troupe in 1996, he created such memorable characters as Astronaut Jones and Brian Fellows. After his seven-year stint on the show, he starred in his own comedy series The Tracy Morgan Show; and voiced Spoonie Luv on Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers. He will be returning to television starring on FXX in an untitled comedy series created by RCG Productions.
Morgan’s feature films have included Kevin Smith’s Cop Out, in which he starred alongside Bruce Willis, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Neil LaBute‟s ensemble farce Death at a Funeral; David E Talbert's First Sunday, with Ice Cube and Katt Williams; Craig Mazin’s Superhero Movie; Peter Segal’s The Longest Yard, with Adam Sandler; Keenen Ivory Wayans’ Little Man, with Marlon and Shawn Wayans; Chris Rock’s Head of State; Phil Dorling and Ron Nyswaner’s Why Stop Now? opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Melissa Leo; and Dito Montiel’s drama The Son of No One, with Channing Tatum.
Moviegoers have also heard him as the voice of the bulldog Luiz in Carlos Saldanha’s blockbuster animated features, Rio and Rio 2. These followed his voiceover work in another hit, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced G-Force, directed by Hoyt Yeatman.
A stand-up comic who has packed venues across the country and abroad, in April 2014 he filmed a standup special for Comedy Central, Tracy Morgan: Bona Fide, bringing the network its largest viewership for a stand-up special for the year. A previous stand-up special, Tracy Morgan: Black and Blue, aired on HBO in November 2010.
Morgan hosted the 2013 Billboard Music Awards live on ABC. Another milestone for the performer was reached in 2009 with the release of his first book, I Am the New Black, a compilation of anecdotes and the more serious moments that shaped him and his career.
SIMON PEGG (Herbert Trubshaw)Actor/screenwriter Simon Pegg’s breakthrough success was the Channel 4 sitcom
. With Jessica Hynes, he co-wrote and starred in the show, which was directed by Edgar Wright. A second series was commissioned before the first had even been broadcast. The show was nominated for Best Sitcom, and he for Best TV Newcomer, at the British Comedy Awards, and the programme also received BAFTA, Montreux and International Emmy Awards nominations.
He and Edgar Wright then co-scripted the feature Shaun of the Dead, in which he starred opposite Spaced alumnus Nick Frost. The zombie tale opened in the number two spot at the UK box office and found success in the US. Pegg was honoured with the Peter Sellers Award for Comedy from the Evening Standard British Film Awards. The movie was also nominated for two BAFTA awards, including Outstanding British Film of the Year; and won the British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for Best Screenplay.
After conquering zombies, award ceremonies and the US, Pegg next co-scripted with director Edgar Wright the übercop action comedy Hot Fuzz, in which he again starred with Nick Frost. The picture opened at number one in the UK box office and was also a hit in the US. Pegg was an Empire Award nominee for Best Actor, and the movie won Best Comedy at the National Movie Awards.
The trio capped off their “Cornetto Trilogy” with The World’s End, the apocalyptic reunion tale that Pegg co-scripted with Edgar Wright, executive-produced and starred in alongside Nick Frost with Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, and Rosamund Pike. The movie was one of the best-reviewed films of 2013 and found box office success in the UK and then in the US, surpassing the returns on the two earlier movies. The movie was named Best British Film at the Empire Awards, where Pegg was honoured with the Empire Hero Award. His performance in the film brought him nominations for the Critics’ Choice Movie Award, as well as a Saturn Award; he was also a Saturn nominee for the screenplay.
With Nick Frost, he co-scripted the science-fiction adventure Paul, in which the duo starred under the direction of Greg Mottola, and which was voted Best Comedy at the National Movie Awards. Among Mr. Pegg's other works as screenwriter are Run, Fatboy, Run, in which he starred for director David Schwimmer.
Audiences worldwide have seen him starring alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, directed by J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird respectively; and in J.J Abrams’ Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. He is reuniting with Tom Cruise for a new Mission: Impossible movie being directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
Pegg’s other starring on-screen roles include John Landis’ Burke & Hare; Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell’s A Fantastic Fear of Everything; Robert B. Weide’s How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; and, most recently, Peter Chelsom’s Hector and the Search for Happiness, in which he played the title role. Pegg will also star in the fantasy comedy Absolutely Anything for director Terry Jones.
His voiceover work as actor includes the Ice Age series; and, with Nick Frost, Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin.
Aside from Spaced, Pegg starred as a series regular on such sitcoms as Faith in the Future and Asylum, which marked his first collaboration with Edgar Wright and Jessica Hynes; guest-starred on Doctor Who and I’m Alan Partridge, among other shows; and in the sketch series Big Train, for which he received a Royal Television Society Award nomination for Best Entertainment Performance. His other notable television appearances include the classic mini-series Band of Brothers.
Prize draw: win a family holiday in Somerset »
You may also be interested in:
• In pictures: the quirky world of the Boxtrolls »
