We’ve all felt professional jealousy at some point in our lives. I, for example, am still apoplectic with rage that in six years working as a film journalist, I’ve never met The Rock despite having had colleagues who’ve met him multiple times. Simon Pegg, meanwhile, has admitted to getting jealous when his friend J. J. Abrams went to make a Star Wars movie.
“When I found out that J.J. Abrams was doing Star Wars, I got an email about it,” he told Jim Norton & Sam Roberts. “I was feeling kind of jealous, like ‘Oh, dad’s leaving us for the other kids.’ Because he directed Star Trek, he’s gonna f*ck off to Star Wars now. That’s nice.”
So how did they make up? Well, Abrams offered him the role of Unkar Plutt – the Jakku junk dealer who was looking after Rey in The Force Awakens. “But then we had dinner,” Pegg continued. “And he said, ‘Oh, do you want to come and play a blobfish?’ I was like, ‘Sure.'”
Pegg’s not got much to be jealous of these days. He’s carved out an impressive career appearing in the Mission: Impossible movies, the rebooted Star Trek trilogy, not to mention cameo appearances on hit TV series like The Boys.
Abrams, meanwhile, made The Rise of Skywalker, the worst Star Wars movie. If you love Star Wars or Star Trek, check out our list of the best science-fiction movies.