Pegg on Portraying Scotty

According to Simon Pegg Scotty is more than just a Scottish stereotype.

As reported by The Underwire, Pegg believes that Scotty is a beloved, popular character, in spite of the generalizations. "In some respects he's a racial stereotype," explained Pegg. "But, I know plenty of Scottish people who like a bit of a drink and have the surname Scott. It's very important to be sensitive and not make generalizations about groups of people, but you can be oversensitive. Scotty's a very affectionate stereotype. He's a popular character in Scotland. He's not a negative stereotype. He's a fun stereotype. The differences between ourselves can be very funny. But Scots are the first people to laugh at the fact that they drink and fight a bit."

Pegg went on to explain that it made perfect sense to make the chief engineer of the Enterprise Scottish. "It's also not an accident that the chief engineer on the Enterprise is Scottish. An enormous amount of extremely important inventions came out of Scotland. The Scottish engineer is in the tradition of John Logie Baird, who invented the TV, or Alexander Graham Bell."

Playing Scotty means doing his own take on the character. Pegg began though, by approaching the part of Scotty as James Doohan once did. "I approached the part like James [Doohan] did when he got the part. To look at who he is. He's an accomplished engineer, a bit cheeky, likes a drink and a brawl."

When asked how he could play Scotty with mimicking Doohan, Pegg said, "How are all these other actors going to take on characters where the actor is as famous as the character? Shatner and Nimoy, they inhabited those roles with such conviction and such skill. All you can do is play the part in the spirit of those actors, not take it lightly or parody it. Watching Chris Pine, and all the actors, I had skin-tingly moments. I saw them doing their stuff and thought: They've got this so fucking right. Chris had that swagger, and confidence, and big-balls-ness, and I think he nailed it."

To read more, head to the article located here.

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