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Simon Pegg notches another 'Mission'

Donna Freydkin
USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Leave the movie star maneuvers to Tom Cruise.

Simon Pegg is up for a sixth 'Mission: Impossible,' he says. "I’d be disappointed if that didn’t happen," he says.

Simon Pegg is perfectly content being his buddy Benji Dunn, the wide-eyed tech whiz in the latest Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (in theaters Friday). The film, the fifth in the franchise, is about a scrappy team of troubled Impossible Mission Force agents trying to bust up a global syndicate.

“I tend to play regular guys because I am one,” says the 45-year-old British actor.

This is, after all, the guy who flopped his way through a marathon to win back his love in 2007’s Run Fatboy Run and grappled with a zombie apocalypse while also trying to get a handle on his messy life in 2004’s Shaun of the Dead.

Now, Pegg has stepped things up big time. In December, he’s got a role in the clandestine blockbuster-to-be Star Wars: The Force Awakens, about which he says nothing, and he co-wrote and is playing Scotty in Star Trek Beyond, directed by Justin Lin and set for a summer 2016 release.

“It’s insane. People have this opinion of me that I somehow won a competition or finagled my way into something. It’s not true. I worked really hard,” says Pegg. “That’s like Benji. He suddenly finds himself working for the IMF. He’s right in the thick of it. He’s the voice of reason amidst all this insanity.”

The same applies to Cruise, who, it must be said, is one of the nicest people you could ever meet.

“Tom has built this life — he’s elected to be this person, this movie star in the most classic sense. On day to day, just working with him, it’s fine,” says Pegg. “I’m the first person to bring it up about how weird it is. He’s totally forgone normality in his life. I’ve never seen anyone so comfortable hanging with the fans.”

His co-star Jeremy Renner, who plays an agent, says he and Pegg connected in every sense. "The characters bounce off each other really well," he says. "And Simon is the kind of guy you want to keep in your pocket. He’s got a wonderful disposition. He’s very self-deprecating. I love him as a human being. We have a very similar sense of humor."

Simon Pegg as tech genius Benji Dunn in 'Mission: Impossible.'

Pegg is married and the father of Matilda, 6, who came with him to Manhattan for the movie’s premiere. She’s spent the day hitting a toy store and the Empire State Building, while Dad does the promotional circuit. Like Benji, “I’m a lover of the gadgets. But don’t ask me how they work. I’m a bit of an Apple whore. I quite like that stuff. I got the (Apple) watch.”

He's hoping there's another installment of the franchise, but Pegg does have one quibble with Mission: Impossible, which features an impressively tenacious and physically arduous performance by Rebecca Ferguson, as a stealth operator who can brawl with her bare hands.

“When the posters came out, it was me in a jacket, Tom in a jacket. Jeremy in a jacket, Ving (Rhames) in a jacket and Rebecca in leather with her (butt) sticking out. It was like, ‘No, don’t do that,’ ” says Pegg. “We’re doing something good here. Trying to, at least.”

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