‘Mission Impossible’ star Simon Pegg opens up about his alcoholism

Simon Pegg has opened up about his struggles with alcohol addiction on the set of the Mission: Impossible film franchise. Pegg, who starred as Benji Dunn in 2006’s Mission Impossible III, spoke of his experience during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, saying he shrouded his alcoholism in secrecy while filming the Tom Cruise-led action film. 

“You become very sneaky when you have something like that in your life,” Pegg said (per The Guardian). “You learn how to do it without anyone noticing because it takes over.” The interview chronicles Pegg’s struggle with alcoholism throughout the early 2000’s, with the actor saying the addiction “wants to sustain itself and it will do everything it can to not be stopped.” Pegg acknowledged the need for recovery upon the birth of his child in 2009.

“Eventually it just gets to a point when it can’t be hidden, and that’s when, thankfully, I was able to pull out of the dive,” Pegg recalled. Mission: Impossible III was one of multiple films Pegg worked on during that period, having also starred in titles like Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead and Run Fatboy Run between 2004 to 2007. 

Pegg previously spoke of his experience with alcoholism on the Mission: Impossible set in a 2018 interview with The Guardian, saying that when he rewatches the film, he “can see where I was then, which was fairly lost, and unhappy, and an alcoholic.” The actor also revealed he had entered recovery around the time that filming for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol had begun. 

Elsewhere in the BBC Radio 4 interview, Pegg spoke of his relationship with Cruise, describing their friendship as “just very simple and amiable.” He continued: “It’s always been a very easy relationship. I think you realise, when you meet the person rather than the thicket of mythology that’s built up around them, it’s a different experience.”

Pegg revealed that he often jokes with Cruise about the extent of his fame, saying he “always make[s] fun of him for it” and that Cruise “kind of appreciates the ridiculousness of it sometimes.” Elsewhere, fans have called for Pegg and his Shaun of the Dead co-star Nick Frost to reunite ahead of the film’s 20th anniversary next year, while the actor celebrated having wrapped filming for the fourth season of Prime Video’s The Boys.