‘The World’s End’ a toast for 3 filmmaking friends
LOS ANGELES — It’s not the end of the world, but “The World’s End” marks a creative conclusion for Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright.
For the British trio behind “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” Friday’s release of “The World’s End” completes a trilogy. The longtime friends have no future collaborations planned as each heads into new projects that match their growing profiles. Wright is writing and directing Marvel’s “Ant-Man.” Pegg will star in “Hector and the Search for Happiness,” while Frost is starring (and dancing) in the upcoming comedy “Cuban Fury.”
It’s fitting, then, that their final film together (for now) is a toast — 12 times over. In “The World’s End,” Pegg and Frost play former friends among a group reunited to take on “The Golden Mile”: A dozen pubs in their old U.K. hometown, downing a pint at each.
The real-life friends gathered at a Sunset Strip hotel (over ice-waters) to talk about movies, friendship and beer.
Q. Is it bittersweet to complete this trilogy?
Pegg. It feels like we’ve done something we set out to do ... We know we’ll probably work together again. Highly likely, in fact.
Frost. At the heart of what we do is that we’re all best mates, so it’s not like that’s that, we’ll never see each other. We’re friends first and foremost.
Wright. I feel the sense of satisfaction that we made good on a promise. We made a promise to ourselves as much as we did the fans of making three movies, so to actually finish the movies and have a film that we’re really proud of — three films that we’re really proud of — British films and pretty uncompromised, is huge for us.
Q. What was really in the glasses during filming?
Frost. It was like a sugared water: A water colored with burnt sugar with cream soda on top for the head. But the shots were Sambuca.
Pegg. It had to be water because we had to drink so much of it. It couldn’t have been anything else. It couldn’t be apple juice or tea ... It tasted a little bit like weak-tasting lemonade, I guess, and we put away pints of the stuff.
Q. What is the beer that you name in the movie?
Wright. Crowning Glory ... We named it in the script, and then we found this local brewery that said (they’d) make a beer and call it Crowning Glory. So they have actually released it. It’s like an ale. The one that’s named in the movie ... is now real, which is hilarious.
Q. How did the two of you (Pegg and Frost) becoming fathers change your drinking habits?
Pegg. I don’t drink at all now. I gave it up completely.
Frost. I try not to drink. Because what if I woke up and he’d eaten a knife?
Q. What would Ant Man drink?
Wright. I think he’s probably a lightweight because he’s so tiny, but then so am I.
Pegg. He could probably still drink more than you.
Q. Will you all work on “Ant-Man?”
Wright. I like our collaborations together to be ones that we write. Not that I haven’t written “Ant-Man,” but it’s an adaptation. So I think when we reconvene it should be for (a) completely original screenplay.
Frost. So in five years’ time, when we get back together to do “Rhino Man and the Abs,” people will enjoy it more.