‘Hot Fuzz’ confidential

When British actor Simon Pegg wielded a cricket bat to fight zombies in the 2004 cult hit comedy “Shaun of the Dead” -- co-written with director Edgar Wright -- a new variant of genre-tweaking English humor was born. Or at least it was born larger, following Pegg and Wright’s beloved 1999 Britcom “Spaced,” about pop culture-delusional slackers.

Now the same creative team, including Pegg’s costar and best bud Nick Frost, are back with “Hot Fuzz,” their explosively funny and literally explosive salute to the American canon of buddy action flicks. Pegg plays London supercop Nicholas Angel, exiled (he’s so good he makes his colleagues look bad) to a sleepy village, where he’s teamed with equally dim-witted and good-natured constable Danny Butterman (Frost).

Like their movies, this close trio banters with a mixture of reverence and cheekiness, and on a recent promotional stop in Los Angeles, they took time out to parse genre sensibilities and extol the virtues of buddy love.

Simon and Edgar, you’ve said you watched 138 action films before writing “Hot Fuzz.” What did such total immersion reveal?

Edgar: That the same four plotlines crop up all the time, the same twists. The amiable boss who turns out to be corrupt is in “Magnum Force,” “Code of Silence” ...

Simon: “L.A. Confidential”!

Edgar: See, an Oscar-nominated classic like “L.A. Confidential” and Chuck Norris’ “Code of Silence” have the same plotting. Not to take anything away from James Ellroy ...

Simon: Or Chuck Norris. There is a weird trend where Norris movies do a below-par preempt of other films. “Silent Rage” has this unstoppable guy, pre-”Terminator.”

Edgar: And “Code of Silence” has the spectacle of Norris with a robot partner. He must have been pissed off when he saw “RoboCop”!

Simon: It’s like good writers thought, “What are we going to do?” They watch a Norris movie. “Oh, that’s an idea.” And go write a superior film.

Edgar: Anyway, it was like attending college. But there were two parts. Half was watching the films, the other was interviewing real police. The gulf between the two -- the reality and mundanity of being an officer in the country compared with the escapism of a “Bad Boys II” -- was “Hot Fuzz.”

Your other great theme is male bonding -- the DNA of the movies “Hot Fuzz” honors.

Simon: We always cite the Mel Gibson/Gary Busey fight in the rain at the end of “Lethal Weapon,” with Danny Glover holding a half-naked Mel. It’s virtually Caravaggio.

Edgar: I think the second unit director was Derek Jarman.

Nick: Mel even faints a bit, and Danny has to pick him up. He swoons.

Edgar: “Lethal Weapon” and “48 Hrs.” are like romantic comedies for guys. Love stories in inverted commas. They virtually have the same beats as Hepburn and Tracy, or “It Happened One Night.”

Simon: What we’re fascinated by is the inability of straight men to deal with their feelings for each other. Which is why things always end up in massive fights. The only way they can sublimate their affection is to turn it into destruction. Angel and Danny have this genuine, heartfelt love for each other, and when they’re on the sofa together it looks like Danny’s going to kiss him. So we do play with the homoerotic sense a bit.

Simon and Nick, you’ve been best friends nearly 15 years. Talk about your on- and off-screen chemistry.

Simon: It’s very easy. We’ve spent a long time being roommates, been with each other through thick and thin, and are just very close. We got past the homosexual panic because we ended up having to sleep in the same bed for a while.

Nick: Eight months.

Simon: We got easy with proximity. First it was “Eww! Gay! You touched me!” By the end it was just ... [throws his arms around Nick and rests his head, eyes closed, on his shoulders].

Nick: We’d read big books together. He’d have one side of the book, I had the other. Usually about Christmas or geography or something.

Edgar: [surprised, laughing] Really? What would happen when you’d have to turn the page?

Simon: [to Nick] “You finished?”

Edgar: Did you ever read aloud to each other?

Simon: Every Christmas I’d ask Nick if I could read him “A Christmas Carol.” He said no. But you know, when you sleep in the same bed as a well-built hairy man for eight months, you tend to come to the conclusion that if you’re not gay, you’re very very straight.

Nick: Sometimes we just have to have a cuddle. But then the three of us are like that.

Simon: Although Edgar tends to hump you rather than cuddle. He gets over-affectionate.

How do the friendships play out when work has to get done?

Nick: I’m Edgar’s jester on set. I sense when he’s down, when he needs a pick-me-up.

Simon: It’s like this. Edgar and I fly in formation for the writing period. Come to set, Nick joins us, and then we break away from Edgar, and Edgar becomes the director. He’s often deep in thought all day, and Nick and I do the job of keeping cast and crew happy.

Edgar: I get so focused, I sort of go into a three-month frown.

Simon, you lost weight for “Hot Fuzz.” It’s not often people diet for comedy.

Simon: It struck me as important that the humor be in the right place, that it wasn’t funny that I was playing [a cop]. I wanted to look like that guy. It was three months of solid cardio, and I really enjoyed it.

Edgar: Change your name to Simon Pecs.

Nick: [to the other two] Will you write me a nice thin role next time? They’ll probably arrest me here because I’ve violated weight laws.

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weekend@latimes.com