Simon Pegg tucks into South Indian lamb chops

Dish is on high alert as we’re joined by the ‘food shark’. Fresh off a flight from New York, we’re delighted to welcome Simon Pegg. An English actor and comedian, Pegg is loved for his iconic TV and movie roles, be that TV sitcom Spaced, the Mission: Impossible franchise or The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), in which he stars alongside good pal Nick Frost, who we know as a great onion chopper. Simon joins Nick and Angela to talk about the return of Channel 4’s The Undeclared War, which sees him resume his role as Danny Patrick, the Director of Operations at GCHQ. The tense technological thriller, which centres around the threat of cyber attacks and digital sabotage, is available to watch from 21 July. Angela serves Andhra chintakaya chaap, a recipe for a rich and flavoursome lamb chop curry, created by Maunika Gowardhan. This is paired by the Waitrose wine experts with a bottle of Beaujolais Cuvée Des Vignerons Franc. Nicknamed ‘the food shark’ by his family, due to his opportunistic approach to dinnertime, Simon is fantastic company. We hear about high-concept dining with Nick Frost, get the final word on eating scones, and Angela learns all about the Tom Cruise cake. We also discover Simon’s favourite moment from completing the ‘nerd trifecta’. You can watch full episodes of Dish on YouTube and on Spotify. All recipes from this podcast can be found at waitrose.com/dishrecipes The recipe for Andhra chintakaya chaap was created for Waitrose by Maunika Gowardhan. A transcript for this episode can be found at waitrose.com/dish If you want to get in touch with us about anything at all, contact [email protected] Dish from Waitrose is made by Cold Glass Productions 00:00 Welcome! 00:41 Let’s chat Chef Whites 04:00 A moment for mustard powder! 05:19 Simon Pegg is here! 06:46 Fresh from NYC! 08:30 Simon’s food likes 11:15 The perfect way to cook a steak? 13:49 Beware of the food shark! 14:37 Simon’s food dislikes 16:25 Simon the barista! 18:49 The great scone debate! 20:23 Nick Frost appreciation 23:30 DJ Pegg! 25:16 Food is served! 27:53 Wine pairing 28:26 The Undeclared War is back! 30:55 The AI era 34:15 Time spent at GCHQ! 35:06 The Nerd Trifecta & the Star Wars set 36:50 Meeting Carrie Fisher & childhood crushes! 40:04 The scale of film productions 44:06 Tom Cruise cakes! 44:59 Fast food quiz 46:20 End of the show question Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  After Faye Fruits Yogurt, I'm never going back. So fruity, so thick, so gorgeous from the packet. Called Faye Fruits Yogurt. It's a smooth and fruity snack. Gimme, gimme that Faye. Passion fruit or strawberry flavour, my way. And taste the coconut, gimme that Faye. Go down the shops for this fruity snack after Faye Fruits Yogurt. There's no going back.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass production. This podcast may contain some strong language and adult themes.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Hello, welcome to Dish from Waitrose. I'm Nick Grimshaw.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  And I'm Angela Hartnett.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Today on Dish, Simon Pegg.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  Simon Pegg?

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  Good friend of Nick Frost.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Yes, we had a great time with Nick Frost.

• 1:15Speaker 03

  He was brilliant, yeah.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  We had a cut-off with him, do you remember?

• 1:17Speaker 03

  A chop-off. And he beat me, quite easily. He's very good, frighteningly good. But he's really into his food and cooking. Anyway, we're not talking about Nick Frost, because he's already been on.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Forget him, Simon Pegg today. So he'll be here soon. I wanted to talk to you about chef whites.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Okay, interesting.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Obviously, we see you in your...

• 1:37Speaker 03

  In a black top.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Regular outfits. But yesterday, we got to see you in your chef whites.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  You've seen me in my chef's whites before?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  I don't think I ever have.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, you have.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Have I?

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Maybe in your restaurant?

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't wear them out while I'm coming round to your house, do I?

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Dog walks, yes, it is me.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would absolutely...

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Down your local Waitrose.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  I would so love that to be the only thing I wore all the time. And you didn't have to worry about anything else.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  With the hat as well. Because I was watching that Gordon Ramsay programme.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Being Gordon Ramsay.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Being Gordon Ramsay, yeah. And he takes Tilly.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Yes, it's Dorothy, yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  To get her chef whites.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  And they go to like a chef white superstore.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Superstore.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  And it's just loads of chef whites. And they were trying them on and I was like, correct me if I'm wrong. These all look the same.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Like the shop was just like.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  White.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  White. So it was like, any is fine. But is there a difference? Is there a hierarchy?

• 2:37Speaker 03

  It's the quality of the cotton.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  So you can get your standard chef whites, which, you know, are fine. And it's nice cotton, but it's quite heavy.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  Um, I always get a brand called Braggard. And they're a French company that make them. But there's other companies make them and I've just used them. And it was years and years ago when I first started working for Gordon. And I'd cycled into work and we always started at seven. And I got to work and I realised I'd forgotten my chef's jacket. I was like, oh God, there's nowhere I can go home. And Uber wasn't around then where you can say throw it in an Uber and get it done. So I saw Gordon's beautiful chef's jacket hanging up in the little office. I thought, I'm going to put that on. So all the guys like, you can't. I said, but I haven't got a jacket. I've got to wear something. So I put the jacket on and wore it. And it was this beautiful Egyptian cotton, really light. And I thought, oh, this is so nice. Then Gordon came in the kitchen and I run out to him and I say, Gordon says all right. And he goes, don't worry about it. It's all in. You can wear that all day. And he goes, nice, isn't it though?

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Nice, isn't it?

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  I said, it's very nice.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  He went topless.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  He had two jackets.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  He had two.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  He had two. He's prepared.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  So say you get to work at seven o'clock in the morning. You've got your chef whites on.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  You open an HP sauce.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  And it goes everywhere.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but normally you've got an apron on. So that's the whole point of wearing an apron over your chef's whites.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  But not up there.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  These days now, we provide chef's jackets. So if someone did that.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 3:53Speaker 03

  They would go and get a new one. Yeah, we've got spares, you see. Yeah, like Peking. Yeah, exactly.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Okay, good. And then you have one a day because you obviously got changed.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Of course, yeah, yeah. And sometimes you might have two a day because you've been working hard.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  And who's washing it?

• 4:05Speaker 03

  We pay for ours to be laundry for all the teams. But I have my own and I do them at home. Yeah, hot wash, lots of, you know, soap detergent. Nice, dry them out on the washing line.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Fascinating, isn't it?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  No, but I just never really thought about it. And then when I saw it yesterday, I was like, it's not the colour to cook in, really, is it?

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's quite odd, actually, yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  You should go for like camo.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. And do you cook in crocks?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  No, I have, um...

• 4:31Speaker 02

  What's that about?

• 4:32Speaker 03

  I don't know why they wear crocs. I think, yeah, I don't know. Clogs people used to wear, you see, cloths. And now crocs is a different version of it.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  But no, I wear shoes. I always like pumps, like trainers, sort of thing. Yeah, stilettos, yeah. Jimmy Choo's, really. I'm there tottering around.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Shout out to Braggard and Jimmy Choo.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Choo's, there we go. Thank you.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  So before we get Simon Pegg in, let's talk about today's star ingredient. And that we're gonna be, we are gonna be using when we cook later in our chef vibes.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Mustard powder.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Have you, um, do you have this in your cupboard at home?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  I do have mustard powder in it.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  What do you use it for?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  What do I use it for? Definitely a dressing for something or a sauce. It was, it was something for a recipe.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  It's lovely to go in things like if you did chicken wings or something and you wanted to marinade them, you'd put mustard powder, you could put a bit of garlic powder, certain seasonings and stuff. It's, it's basically mustard powder, obviously, so it tastes like mustard. Um, so you can put it in dressings. My mum always used to, before we sort of got jars of mustard, she'd put it in her vinaigrette and you'd have a little half a teaspoon. It's quite strong.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Very strong.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Grating things like macaroni cheeses and stuff like that. Or dry rubs, you know, on meats, you know, if you're doing some, um, some like ribs or something and that's fantastic for it. We have it. I like it a lot, actually. It's a good kick. You know, like you put a bit of Dijon or something, or you put English mustard. That's the same. Just gives a good little lift to certain dishes. Works brilliantly with cheese on toast. You could put it into your cheese on toast mix where I think it's great.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Which would, you know, again, it's that little kick.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  So you're gonna be using it today?

• 6:02Speaker 03

  In our, in our marinade, yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Yum. Well, shall we get him in?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Yep, let's do it.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's get him in. Uh, let's welcome Simon Pegg to dish.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  How are you? Hi. Welcome. Very nice to see you. How are you?

• 6:15Speaker 03

  You too. Hi, Simon. Nice to see you.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Nice to see you too. I'm, I'm all right. I'm all right. I got, I, I've, I, I just arrived from, uh, uh, New York.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  I flew in on the red eye and I have that punchy jet lag.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  You must be exhausted.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Do you know what's really good for jet lag?

• 6:32Speaker 04

  What, not flying?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  About eighteen people getting in a room being like, "Yay!" My actually.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, they'll bring me out of the stupor.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  What a good meal, mate, Hal.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  I am very excited. The last thing I ate was plain food, so literally. So, yeah, this is great.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Well, let's get you sat down.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  It can't be worse. Actually, it can't be worse. Can't be. Come in here. We'll come in and sit down.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Thank you, thank you.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Get you some food.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  I watched your chop off with Nick Frost.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Oh, he took it very seriously.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  But, you know, and he's far better than I was. I was ready to say, "Come and work for me every Saturday."

• 7:07Speaker 04

  I think it was because he's a bit of a super fan of you, so he was like... You know, he obviously constantly meets kind of famous people.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  He was starstruck.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Oh, bless his top stocks.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Time now to welcome to the podcast a screenwriter and an actor who made the line, "Want anything from the shop?" More iconic than this podcast could ever be.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  It's very true.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  It is the superb Simon Pegg, everybody! Hello.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Welcome.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  How are you?

• 7:39Speaker 04

  I'm buzzing. I'm ready to go.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, good. Good. Respect for landing straight from New York and coming to see us on the podcast.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Of course, yeah, I didn't want to miss it.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, thank you. I like to, and if I do long call, is just be at home and feel weird for four days.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  And then do something.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  And then maybe speak to someone.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, then maybe speak to someone.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  Not three hours.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Not three hours. So, thank you for being here, yeah. What was going on in New York? What were you doing over there?

• 8:03Speaker 04

  I was at the Tribeca Film Festival. I had a film at there, so I was doing the, you know, the kind of press thing and screenings. And I saw Taxi Driver, because it's fifty years old.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  And Scorsese and De Niro and Paul Schrader and Jodie Foster were there to do like a Q and A, which was insane.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  That must have been incredible.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  It was amazing. And the guy, the moderator got De Niro to say, "You talking to me?"

• 8:32Speaker 03

  No.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  I thought he'd never get him to do it. And he did.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  He did.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Oh, God, do you think about Jodie Foster, how young she was when she made that?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Oh, that is just insane.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  It was fantastic. And then we saw Disclosure Day as well, the Spielberg one, it was great. It's like peak Spielberg, you know, it's sort of wondrous and John Williams did the score and he's ninety-four.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  I know, I know, incredible.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Wow, come on, John.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, but how old Spielberg now?

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Spielberg's seventy-eight or nine, I think.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  That's amazing. God, they're real stars out there this, no, Tribeca.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Old people know how to do it.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  They know how to do it. They know how to do it. They know how to do it. And well, today we're going to be talking about your show, which is back with a brand new series, which we want to talk about soon. But first, we thought we would start with your likes and dislikes.

• 9:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  You start with a five-letter word that is dear to all of our hearts. That word was pizza.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  And I was just in New York as well, so I did.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Do they like pizza?

• 9:34Speaker 04

  I made that joke when I was there.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Do they like pizza here?

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Do they like pizza?

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's just one of those kind of, I mean, it's, it's just the best. I love it, you know? And it's, I, I, I try and not eat it too often because I feel like it's so special that you don't want to just get tired of it.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Do you have a spot where you go, was there a place in New York where you're like, non-negotiable, yeah, Spielberg, but first I need, I need to go here.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  There is, but I didn't go there this time for some reason, because we were quite busy. We were on the go, so we'd find some little joint nearby. There's a place called John's Pizza on Bleaker Street, which is very famous. The pizzas are just numbered. They don't have names. And you just choose your number. I like number fourteen.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  And they're huge.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Do you have a spot? Because Andrew's brother lives there.

• 10:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get, not pizza, I get, I sort of, my nephew's there, so they take us for a New York slice. And I basically follow those wherever they go, two-dollar slice, I like that.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  But I haven't found a special one that I like, but I may go and try. I think I know the one you mean, actually, because they're down that way, Tribeca way, so.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, and there's one uptown as well that is quite famous.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  But they are. I do think pizzas are brilliant. It's one of my favourite foods, actually.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  Where's the best pizza of your life, do you think?

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Oh, I think when I've been in Italy, I think at a place that.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  They do them as well, yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  They do them, right, yeah. It's amazing, yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  New York and Italy do it.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. No, up north, actually. And partly it's the romance of where it is. Cause it's the village where we all come from and it's where we've all been going since we were this high. It's the Baracca. And you sit at a massive long table and I think he's about seventy or eighty, the man who makes them.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  You know, his wife's in her seventies and they've got this fantastic pizzeria. And, you know, I always have my ham, my prosciutto, no pineapple.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Oh, no, no, no, no.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Thank you, Simon, thank you.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  Such a weird thing.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  You know, ham, mushrooms, olives and, you know, tomato sauce, mozzarella.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like anchovies and olives.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Anchovies, I love a little anchovies, the marinara. Yeah, that's good, yeah. Well, you're having pizza today, anyway, sorry, Simon.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  Anyway, you like pizza, but you're not having it. I'm all pizzaed out.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Alongside your other loves, we had steak tagines and a marinated lamb cutlet. We're gonna have a bit of lamb today. Oh, we're gonna be doing that. And do you have like a way to marinate? Is there anything that you'd love to do at home when you are cooking?

• 11:52Speaker 04

  I don't cook that often. I do, I like cooking, but I have a terrible attention span. And so when I go into the kitchen to make dinner, it's always the quickest thing I can do. You know, so I'll make a chicken salad or a, you know, steak's good, cause that's pretty quick.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  I wanted to pick your brains about the perfect way to cook a steak.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Oh, right, okay.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Because I'm, I'll do like two minutes, two minutes, one minute, one minute. But I never quite know.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  What steak, what cut?

• 12:16Speaker 04

  Like rare, like a rump steak.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Like a rump steak, okay. I think hot pan always.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  Um, I, some people won't season the steak, but I season it salt and pepper. Make sure it's at room temperature before you put it in the pans. It's not coming straight from the fridge.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Um, and then I put a knob of butter, get that foam in. And then, um, depending, you know, if it's probably about this thick, I'd say probably, I'd say about three minutes on each side is probably enough. And then rest it for at least three minutes as well.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  And if I've got a massive steak like a ribeye in the oven, I'll put a skewer in and feel that it's hot in the centre, then I know it's ready.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  If you really want to, use a, I'm sure, um, Nick will have one, a thermometer, like a temperature probe.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  I think we do have a meat thermometer.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, there you go, so you can tell. But I think what you're doing is right.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Great, that's all I wanted to know. Bye.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  My dude, thank you, Simon.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  And I do the same thing. I'd never do three minutes. I will do two, two, one, one. And I don't know why.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  But that's what Simon says.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  No, that's what I do, rather than a solid three and a three.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  But I think when you're cooking, you tend to turn it anyway.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I like to spoon the butter on it.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Spoon it, yeah, render the fat down. If it's a nice sirloin steak, you've got that fat on it. Render that down as well, so, yeah, that's it, lovely.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  There we go.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  You know what, Joe. Let me hit some of your favourite regions.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Japanese and Korean food, Indian food, Mexican, central and South American foods. This is the whole world.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  That's just a continent, yeah. But all the, the sort of food come from visiting the regions.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Traveling, yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  You get to go and try like the best of the best, I guess.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  Of course. I mean, if we're on like a press tour or something, because that is like hopping around the world. You, you do often have a, you know, a meal in the evening or you go out at the cast or whatever. And we generally get taken to nice places. So I had, I was in Mexico and I had a Magway worm taco. Which was like literally worms in a taco. Like those little maggoty worms.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  Which looks repulsive, but tastes amazing. So I thoroughly recommend it.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Wow, I've never, and, and cooked, obviously.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  No, they're just squirming away on your taco. No, yeah, cooked.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, cooked.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  I know, but you never know.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  You never know.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  That's very, I'm not sure, yeah, but, oh, well done, that's great.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  It was tasty, yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  A log of taco. The paragraph ends from Simon Pegg are pretty much eat anything and often do.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Sea worm taco.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Sea worm taco, yeah. And we heard about the family nickname that you have around the table.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Which is?

• 14:43Speaker 04

  The food shark.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  The food shark.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Shark, why?

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Because I, once I finish my food, I start looking at my wife and daughter's plates.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Oh my God, are you a very quick eater?

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, my mom says I inhale food.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Right, okay, yeah.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Because I think I grew up feeling like your plate should be empty.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  I, I get a weird guilt about, particularly in restaurants, if I'm with someone who doesn't finish their food, I feel like I get anxious.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  And so when Tilly finishes her food, I'll eat her food. And then particularly when we're on holiday, you know, she has a terrible habit. But when they know that I'm there,

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  they're very fiercely protective of their food.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Basically like this.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  The food shark's here. The food shark's here.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's there. And now you had no dislikes.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  And apart from you found out there was some food that you shouldn't be eating.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  I tend to eat everything. There are some textures I don't get on with. Like, I love, love, love Japanese food.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  I was in Japan for a while and it was hard to find bad food there.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  You know, like even the little scuzzy hole in the walls have amazing food. But some sushi, some sashimi, like squid particularly, is quite slimy.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  And I find I don't get on well with slime.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. That's fair enough.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  No one's like, mm.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Slimy. Yeah, I know what you mean, certain ones.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  I also feel like you can hit like a texture limit. So you could maybe have like one, two, and then

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  more, you're like

• 16:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  I'm okay with oysters and things, but it's just No, but I decided to do a food intolerance test.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just, I saw it on Instagram and I thought, oh, I'll do that. And

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Very me.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, are you Nick's best friend or something?

• 16:26Speaker 04

  You target marketed all the time.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Oh, Marcus' dream, yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  Straight to the, straight to your eyeball.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  And what did they say?

• 16:32Speaker 04

  And so I got it back and I was surprised to find that and none of this is allergy, so it's not like you can't eat it. But like all milk, apart from buffalo milk, peanuts, which I love.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  And a few odd things as well that I just didn't expect. But it was, you get like a red and a yellow and everything green is fine.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  But it's just stuff that your digestive system has a little bit more

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Struggling with, yeah, yeah. Has it made you stop eating then like peanuts and

• 16:58Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  But nice to do the test.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  I just know that, yeah. I know that, you know, there might be some wind to follow.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Just warning you, I've had some peanut butter tonight, just checking.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  I'm gonna carry on eating those, you see, have you ever done that, Ange?

• 17:13Speaker 03

  No.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  No, don't do it.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  I don't wanna do it.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  And one thing that we heard that you really loved as well is coffee. You're a big coffee fan. Are you someone that when you are away and travelling, you'll seek out a good spot?

• 17:25Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. And I'm always particularly heartened if there is like a coffee machine in the room.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  That's one of my, I have a checklist of things for a hotel room.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Gotta be sockets near the bed.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  Gotta be the proper coat hangers, not those ones that you can't steal.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Oh, I hate them.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  They think, it's like an insult, they're saying you might steal our coat hangers.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  It's so annoying.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't want your coat hangers, I'm not gonna steal them.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  A coat hanger's so annoying to steal, like, it's all, no.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's quite obvious, just stealing it as well.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  It'd come out in the back of your jacket.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  I love you when you did Desert Island Disc, your luxury item was your coffee machine.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  It's a lot.

• 18:10Speaker 04

  I relish that. In the morning, I wake up and I get the dogs up and all that kind of stuff. And then I just have 15 minutes, cup of coffee.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  You know, check the news and then I start making breakfast and.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  So like a little routine, isn't it, I think, and it's a wake up thing.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  I've built it into my morning sort of preschool run time.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  And do you have like a proper one where you're like, you're a barista?

• 18:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, bean to cup.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Bean to cup.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  And it has all like little implements, you know.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Wow, yeah.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Do you have a coffee in the morning before you leave?

• 18:40Speaker 03

  I don't drink coffee anymore, I've off coffee. No.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Oh, coffee?

• 18:44Speaker 03

  I just started, I didn't.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Time life.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  No, I just stopped after, I sort of went for this reset, you know, didn't go on social, but went away for a few days on this retreat thing. And realised, because I was having two cups a day in the afternoon, I'd have these real lows.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  Oh, really, like a crash?

• 18:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I stopped drinking it. I drink green tea, which is equal amount of caffeine.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  But I just, it's really slow release, you say.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  It's not as kind of edgy.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I still have the same, but I think it's that morning process. I do drink it when I'm in Italy or I'm on holiday.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  But I did, I absolutely get, because I used to love that, going down in the morning. And we don't make the machine, but we percolate it like, you know.

• 19:18Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  It's something like, and it's just, it takes about five, 10 minutes. And you're just in that moment where you're waking up.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  And it's making that little noise in the background.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. And I, so I get that. So I think those morning rituals where it's tea or coffee are important.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  And I don't do, I, I, cause I don't drink, I don't smoke. I'm, I'm so straight edge and I need something that's kind of.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  You're allowed coffee at least.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Now, scones, often discussed, which way to do it? I never knew this was a thing, but it's a thing where people are like the jam or the cream, the cream or the jam. I can't remember which counties do what, but you have a great analogy.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Well, I, this, I was in Cornwall recently. I went, I was in Cornwall to, at a festival and I was talking to a Cornish person, assuming that they would think the same way as me. Cream is like butter, you know, it's like a dairy, it's a spread almost thing. So the, the, you wouldn't put jam on bread before you put the butter on top.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  So with this, with the scone for me, always cream first and jam on top. But this Cornish person was like angry at me for that. She said, well, she said, we can't be friends. And I was like, what, what are you talking about? And apparently they do jam first.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, they do. No, I'm with Simon. To me, the, the, it's the dairy, it's the butter, you know? Whether it's clotted cream or even whipped cream, it's got to be it. And then the jam is on top.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, and also.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  I think Devon, they do it like that and Cornwall, they do it the other way, I think.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  I think when you put the jam on first, because it's sort of, you know, like an emulsiony.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  The cream sort of slips off.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  So. Yeah.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  The cream anchors to the scone.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  And then you, but you're, you're jam on top.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  It's the way to do it.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  I mean, do you want?

• 20:57Speaker 03

  I sort of sympathize with that, but you know, I can't be friends with people who put pineapple on pizza. So I'm, you know, we've all got our things, haven't we?

• 21:03Speaker 04

  I'm married to one.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Simon, Simon, Simon. We may need to have a chat later. Right, on that note.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Now, while Angela is putting the finishing touches to our delicious meal, we want to talk about when we had Nick Frost on and we had such a great time with him. Of course, he had the chop off with Ange, which has gone down in dish history.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  I know, I was kind of, I, I gotta say, Angela, I was, I was kind of, come on, Nick, come on.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Thanks, Simon.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  It was amazing, it was amazing. But we wanted to talk about pie in a bowl. Can you talk us through, this is when you guys lived together?

• 21:38Speaker 04

  We used to have this dish and it was always so welcome. Because often we'd be in a state of mind where we wanted to eat a lot.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 04

  I'll leave that there.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Long day.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. And Nick would make, I think it was like a Freibentos pie. One of those ones in a tin.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  And then he'd kind of put it in a bowl and then mash it up.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  Sometimes we'd have like smash with it as well, you know, that desiccated potato. And then loads of white pepper, he loved white pepper.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  And sauce, you know, like ketchup and brown sauce, whatever. And it would be almost like a sort of a goulash by the time you mashed it all up, you know. But oh my goodness, the savory gloriousness of pies in a bowl.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Pie in a bowl, just a pie.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, in a bowl.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, in a bowl. Yeah, pie in a bowl.

• 22:30Speaker 04

  I mean, the Freibentos pie is essentially a pie in a kind of metal.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  But we'd transfer it to a ceramic bowl. Come on.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Bit of class.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  But then now, obviously, he's a great cook, he loves to cook.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  He always has been, you know.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, pie in a bowl.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, pie in a bowl. But when he was like, that was kind of late night, we're hungry.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Can't, it's something quick, something tasty, that was pie in a bowl. But when I met him, he was working at Chiquito and he'd often worked the line in Chiquito. And as we sort of, you know, grew up together. He just really loved his time in the kitchen and that became, like he loved making be stroganoff because it was a dish that his mum made. And I think as he matured into a man and had a family and stuff, that it just ignited his.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Just happened.

• 23:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. He makes a great roast.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Does he?

• 23:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  He's big on his gravy, isn't he?

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  I read his book, actually, and I just, and I love the way he talks about food. I mean, he reminds me a bit of myself in the sense that when there's crises and stuff.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  And like, I use food to show my love.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  My sisters, really, she can do the chat and the empathy, I just turn up with the stew. There you go, thinking of you.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  There you go, says it all.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  But you know, but he talks about that. He sort of says, well, with his children and stuff, how he, you know, his love is, you know, through the food and what he cooks, which I think is pretty lovely, actually.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's lovely. I think also because it means something to him from his childhood and now he's got the capacity to do that for his kids, you know.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  What do you like to do, like if you had, you know, Nick coming around or someone who you know can cook?

• 24:04Speaker 04

  Well, Nick cooks.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  But that's not us, you know, he'll, he'll, I'll do it, you know, like he'll come around, bring the ingredients and he'll cook. Because I mean, what's the point of not having the best chef do the job, you know?

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Love that, get him round immediately. And I also found out that you, you've started DJing, or you taught yourself to DJ.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  I have, yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  How have you been doing that?

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Every year we go to the Big Feast Ball, which is Alex James's festival, which is a big sort of food and music festival. And then one year, about four years ago, he asked me to DJ and I did it on my sort of computer with some DJ software and it was so much fun that I just thought, I want to, I want to learn this properly. So I bought myself some CDJs and a mixer and I've got this little room in the garden where I go and I studiously.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Oh, I got fun.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  You know, I've learned, I've taught myself to mix and then, so every successive year I've been back to the Big Feast Ball, I've got better and better and better. And then I posted something on Instagram, I was doing a mix of a track by Joe Keira's band and Norman Cook messaged me and said, how do I book you? And I, and I was like, really? And, and, and so he put me to the, to the All Back to Minehead last November, which I didn't realise was actually like an audition to open for him at the Big Beach Boutique in Brighton this year, which Nick and I went to in 2002. There's actually footage of me and him in the crowd and it was the biggest free party ever, it's famous, you know, because there were 300,000 people or something like that.

• 25:32Speaker 04

  And so in a weird moment of circularity, I'm gonna be DJing on Brighton Beach.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  No way, that is so fun.

• 25:38Speaker 04

  I know, I'm very, like, I build a set, it's not like, I mean, my favourite DJ is like, you know, Tall Paul and Seb Montaigne and Norman.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Wow, that looks insane, thank you.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  They can just freeform it and like, you know, I'm, I'm still quite studious about it because I use a lot of loops and, and stuff and so it's quite technical and I get more nervous doing that than I ever do acting.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  And tell us what we have here, please, in front of us.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  So we have a lamb chop curry called Andhra Chintakeya Chap.

• 26:17Speaker 04

  Oh my god, that's amazing.

• 26:19Speaker 03

  And the recipe is by Monica Gordon. So it's a South Indian curry and basically you take your lamb chops, marinate them in this ginger puree for, I think, an hour or so. Not even that long, really. Probably at the same time while they're marinating, you've sliced about three onions, really finely sliced, in some ghee or some vegetable oil and cook those down until they nicely start to brown and caramelize lovely. Then take your lamb chops out of the fridge where they'll be marinating, colour them off in the pan, the same pan you have the onions in. Then after that, you add your mustard powder and your Kashmiri chilli powder. Mix that all in with the onions and the lamb chops. Add a touch of water, about 50 mils, and then you cook them for about 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes, until they slowly cook through.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Then after that, you add your tamarind paste, add a touch more water and cook for another 10 minutes. And then you're left with this beautiful, lovely, sort of juicy sauce. Finish it with some coriander and serve with some, you know, little poppadoms, et cetera.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  What is ghee?

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Ghee is basically clarified butter.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Right, okay.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  So basically, all the impurities have come out of it, so it doesn't burn. That's why you use the ghee.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Do you clarify it yourself?

• 27:27Speaker 03

  No, you can buy it. You can buy it all there.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, because that's the thing I always find when I cook with butter is that it's hard to stop it from going brown.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, when you do it with things like steaks and stuff, always add a little oil and then it will stop the butter burning.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  Right, right, right.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  But all you basically, yeah, it always goes to that point where it starts to go a little bit browner, yeah.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  Well, we've done lamb cutlets because we heard that Simon was a fan of lamb cutlets.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  But these are lamb chops.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  This is a lamb chop, yeah. So what's the difference in terms of cooking a cutlet and a chop?

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Well, lamb chop is slightly thicker, on the bone, obviously. So a cutlet, cutlets are like the finer end of the best end. So you have this best end piece of lamb and you've got the chops, the slightly thicker part of it, and then the fine pits are your best end pieces. And, you know, and best end's always considered like the fillet of the lamb, if you like. You know, it's the tenderest part. But chops add probably more flavour, lots more fatiness on them and so that's why they work. And because they'll cook down slowly with this curry, you get all that lovely lamb flavour through it, you see.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  It's really flavoursome.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  Fantastic.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  It's really good.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  I'm going to food shock you guys, you know that, don't you?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  When I finish, I'll be like, please, there's loads more.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  It's movie.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  I do like a bit of fat, I've got to say, like, on a steak, that moment when you bite into the fat bit is always my favourite.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  It's really good. There's a wine pairing at Beaujolais that goes with it, a nice light-bodied red wine, which would be perfect to have with some sort of spicy, saucy red meat.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  It would.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Like this. If you want to try this dish at home, you can. Waitrose.com/dishrecipes, all the ingredients are on there. You can get the recipe, the how-to is all on there. Have you done a video?

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Done a video.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  You've done a video as well. You can watch the music video of Angela making this very dish.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  Like Madonna's new music video.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Like Madonna's new music video. It's exactly like that.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Shall we talk about the undeclared war?

• 29:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Let's talk about it. We have the return of the undeclared war on Channel 4. It is back for season two very soon and sees you return in your role as Danny. Tell us about the show. For those who have not seen this, what can we expect? Please?

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Well, undeclared war is all about GCHQ and about the sort of cyber warfare. You know, we've been kind of fighting World War III since the internet started on, in the cyber world. In the first series, it was all about an attack from Russia, you know, on our cybersecurity, and it was mainly about Hannah Khallebrand's character Sarah, who was like an intern, who is an incredible talent when it comes to coding, and she recognized certain secrets in the malware, and then she met an old college friend who turned out to be working for the FSB, which is the Russian intelligence. And we ended that series with seemingly Russian aircraft in our airspace and, you know, all hell about to break loose.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 04

  That was the cliffhanger two years ago, so people, and we kind of pick it up from there. And this season kind of focuses on Danny and his wife Barbara, played by Sharon Brooke. And it's such a fun show to do. Paul McGugan directed this one, he's a fantastic director. I think he did the first film I ever did, actually, which was a weird film called Morality Play.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  In which I played jailer.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  Literally as a jailer, with the limp and keys.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  And yeah, and it just gets more intriguing and the story opens up and you know, there's more to it. And we actually went to GCHQ to show the, because it's great showing it to them, because they laugh at stuff that no one else will get, you know. Because we try and be as faithful as possible to that. The coding language is all written by proper coders and stuff. But I don't think I'm giving away any state secrets when I say that this season, the set looks a little more like the real thing.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  So did you know anything about like that world before? Because it's quite mad intriguing.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  When you find, it's terrifying actually, when you find out about, I'm going to continue eating.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  You know, all the nations that are kind of, you know, cyberactive have what are called exploits in each other's infrastructure. So there are kind of, we all have, it's like the old nuclear deterrent. It's that we all have things that we could activate in our, you know, adversaries' infrastructure and they in ours.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Ian Rankin, the author, I think I've said this, I went to a talk of his, and he writes loads of books based in Scotland about police detective.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  And like you were saying, you know, he wants to make sure it's really authentic, like you were saying about GCHQ. And everyone said, you know, you do your research. He goes, of course I do. I wanted to make sure I talk about the police correctly. And he picked up the phones and he said, these things, he goes, this is it. They don't trust them. They are tracking everything. And we know that.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  A lot of people are being scammed with AI, you know, because you could literally get a call from a relative.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  And it would sound like them.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:19Speaker 04

  And they could be in trouble. I need some money. It's terrifying, really. We are in a sort of post-truth era now where we have to be very, very careful.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  I know. I had a text message that said, oh, they obviously didn't realise I didn't have kids, but they said, oh, dear mum, I've lost my phone. Can you send me this? You know.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Welcome.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  That would be you.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  What, I've lost my phone?

• 32:44Speaker 03

  It was basically, you know, "Mum, I've lost my phone, you know, can you send, you know, I'm gonna send a taxi round", you know, something, you know, "Can you put thirty quid or something", you know, that sort of, whatever it was, I can't remember. But it was like, well, obviously not for me, and this is someone who's just making it up and thinking I'm gonna, but people, yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  I do think it's bad that the phones listen.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  But.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  You love it.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  It does help with targeting marketing.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  If you need some curtains, and you're saying that, "We really need some curtains", and then all your adverts are curtains, I'm like, well.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Quite helpful.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Quite helpful.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  AI is still, no matter how realistic it looks or sounds, it still has no anima. So there's no spark in it, you know, like, when you see AI actors in things, I see them on Instagram all the time, it just sounds so robotic and without any emotion.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 04

  I doubt any computer could capture your spark.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Thank you, Simon.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Ditto.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Ditto, ditto, ditto. My mum got her eyes done by a robot.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  That's fair.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  That's what it should be.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  She said she took her head in a computer and then she came out and she could see. She said a computer, yeah, true story, yeah. Lens replaced, she said, "I put my head in a computer and came out and I could see".

• 33:51Speaker 04

  She's probably an android.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, she is.

• 33:53Speaker 04

  They just downloaded her personality on to her.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hang on a second, she's got wheels now.

• 34:00Speaker 04

  I saw a new, I saw, there was a robot in, I was in New York the other night, and there was a robot cowboy walking down the street, like a little robot cowboy, coming, and there were people around it kind of operating it, and it was just like shit-talking everybody.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  No!

• 34:13Speaker 04

  It was crazy.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Wow, like a proper New Yorker.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  But it was so strange, and kind of, even though it was a, you know, a kind of thing, but just to see a robot walking down the street felt like, we're in the future.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  We're in the future. Do you have a robot hoover? We used to.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  We used to, and we called it Fenton.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  Oh, Fenton.

• 34:34Speaker 04

  After that dog.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  After that dog, yeah, Fenton, Fenton.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Because it would always go off somewhere and go, "Hey, Fenton, come back".

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Robot Hoover, yes. Robot cowboy?

• 34:45Speaker 04

  No.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  We don't need it. No, we don't need it. What would you have if you had to robot up the kitchen?

• 34:51Speaker 03

  Chopping onions.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  On Nick Frost?

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Well, no, but really fine. Chopping a soprito, really fine. You'd want someone to do that. I mean, you can do it with a machine, but it's not as good. You want someone to do it properly. That would be good.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  We'll make it happen.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  We'll make it happen.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  So then, when you've done the show and you're saying you show it to the guys that are actually doing this, how do you do that? Do you just email it over? Is it a screening? Are they there?

• 35:13Speaker 04

  We were allowed in and you're rigorously vetted. You go inside. In GCHQ is the most successful Greg's in the country.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  That's a nice little fact, isn't it?

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Because, I think because the entire community there, the intelligence community, they all go to Greg's. So it's constantly busy.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  And all the people that work in Greg's and the various other places there, they have security clearance, obviously, because they've got to come in. And then, yeah, and we go to this room and we sit with all the spies and we show them the telly.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  You can see the brand new series of The Undeclared War. Season two is going to be out very soon. Now, Simon, amongst all your accolades, you really have described, well, you've done something incredible that you've described as the nerd hat trick.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  That was someone else. It's called the nerd trifecta.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Oh, right. Apologies.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  But I didn't, I wasn't my, I didn't coin that.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  And tell us about the three heavy hitters that you've hit in your excellent career.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  The nerd trifecta is Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Huge.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  And I find myself connected to those three things.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Did you have one that was one more, you know, important to you when you first saw them, let's say, one of those?

• 36:30Speaker 04

  Star Trek was amazing because we were, you know, because we were playing characters that I'd watched growing up. And, you know, Scotty was, I remember Scotty from the TV show. But for me, being on the set of The Force Awakens, in which I play like a blobfish for five minutes, I'm hardly in it. But because Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, you know, people that I idolized as a kid, they were walking around in costume. And Chewbacca, you know, and the droids. I just used to go down there and hang out. They called me the Star Wars squatter. Because I would literally just go and I'd just sit and watch it all. Because it felt like, even more than watching the movie actually, that it felt like the Star Wars that I'd grown up with as a kid.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  You know, a lot of the iconography was there and the Millennium Falcon and all those things. So for me, it was an amazing thing to have cared so much about these films when I was a child. And for that, they meant something to me, you know, they kind of, they changed me in a way. Cause they developed my imagination and my love of cinema and all these things. So to be there in it for real was.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Truly quite mad to be on the set of Star Wars and then walking around. And then Carrie Fisher was like your childhood crush.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  She was, she was. Obviously, I was immediately wanted to talk to Carrie and stuff. And she had this great little dog called Gary Fisher as well. Who went.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Gary Fisher.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Who was like a little Frenchy or something. He used to take her with her. But we were walking around the base, you know, the kind of rebel base, resistance base it was called. Arm in arm, which is for me like dreaming. And we were just chatting and talking about stuff. She was super smart, Carrie. She was so kind of humorous and I think that the experience of being back in Star Wars was quite overwhelming for her because it was like this thing that had been a blessing and a curse in a way. You know, the kind of attention that she got, but also the attention she got, you know, both sides of that coin. And we stopped and we sort of faced each other and we were talking. And I kind of got a bit lost in her eyes.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Because, because, and I remember having this realization that it was the same eyes. You know, it was the same eyes that I'd watched hundreds of times as a kid and a picture I had by my bed and all this stuff. And I just kind of fessed up to her and I said, look, you know, I've always loved you, don't you? And she grabbed me by the hand and she looked at my wedding ring and she went, fuck you.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  So good.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  And I was just like.

• 39:05Speaker 04

  Cloud nine.

• 39:08Speaker 04

  It was just the fact that if I hadn't been wearing a wedding ring.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, who knows?

• 39:13Speaker 03

  You made a shark in her play a feet.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Have you ever met your, have you gone face to face with that, your childhood crush?

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Well, Martin Kemp, I had a huge crush on.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Oh, we have Martin Kemp on here.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I, and I.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Did we tell him?

• 39:28Speaker 03

  I think we sort of did. And I remember going up, I was, I was invited to the GQ Awards one year. And Brian Ferry was probably where Tom was.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  And I loved Roxy Music when I was younger.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  And I was with a friend and I said, watch this. And I just ran over to him and I, I said, I think you're amazing, Rattle.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Oh, God, Anne.

• 39:48Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  And I sort of, you never, you know, you know, I mean, I don't know if you'd be in a security would probably jump on me now or something if I did that. But I sort of thought, when are you ever, when am I ever going to meet Brian Ferry?

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  And then I might run off a bit pissed and go, think you're great, run off with it. That's it. So.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  Martin Kemp has aged like a fine wine.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Oh, he's still beautiful. He's still handsome.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Take your breath away.

• 40:08Speaker 04

  He's a perfect boy. He does, doesn't he?

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Very gorgeous.

• 40:12Speaker 04

  He is gorgeous.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  He is.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Better now.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 04

  Definitely better now.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's not wearing those frilly shirts anymore. Pirate look.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, he does not sort of new romantic. The salt and pepper and, yeah. And he's obviously a sweet guy.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Very nice.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  You love Martin Kemp.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  I love Martin Kemp.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  We had an epiphany.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  The get carried, isn't it?

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Hang on a second. But it's quite a surreal, rare thing, I think, to like meet, you know, someone that you like, looked or like loved as a child or teenager.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  Or anyone that you kind of like idolized or respected to suddenly be in their, be in their presence is amazing.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Very weird.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  I know.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  I love that story. And we had John Favreau on recently.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  Oh, did you?

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And we had such a great time with John. We really, really did. And he was like, you know, talking about the, the, the scale of these films and what they're like to go and work with and stuff. And they must be like mind blowing because of the. You know, caliber of actors, the characters that of course we know. But then how does it affect you after? Does it make you wanna go and do like more and more and get bigger and bigger? Like, how is life when you're on one of those sets?

• 41:17Speaker 04

  Well, it's weird, cause like, like I said, the last two Mission Impossibles, we shot kind of back to back and Covid slowed them down and there was an actor strike. So the whole two films, which kind of felt like shooting one film to us, like one long film, was five years.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Oh, cracking.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  And that, that's a chunk of life, you know?

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  And I came off, finally promoting that film and got home and an offer came in from a Welsh filmmaker called Jamie Adams. And he said he was gonna make a feature film in six days. And I was like, yes.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  I wanna do that.

• 41:50Speaker 04

  And we made this movie all handheld, all totally improvised.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  So Jamie writes the story, but all the dialogue is improvised.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Oh, fantastic.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  And it was me and Sophia Butella, who we mentioned, and Quentin Tarantino and Charlotte Gainesborough. And Lizzie McAlpin, the singer as well. And, um, and we made this movie in six days and it was so freeing and nice to be right back in the kind of basic, uh, sort of area of filmmaking where the crew's quite small. You're working every hour that you get during the day. I'd, I'd spent more time in my trailer on Mission Impossible than it took to make that film. And then to be able to take it to Tribeca, that was the film that we had out.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  It was so great and it just reminded me of, of why I love making films and, and reminded me of back in the day with Edgar and Nick and, you know, when we were making our movies, when you just, you work, work, work, work and it's a family and it's great.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  And you just get on with it.

• 42:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. How do you sort of pass the time when you are around other sets? Cause we have actors who come on and be like, you know, your week's doing a scene like, and they're like going mad and they can remember what they say.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Is it what do you like to do when you're, in your downtime? Are you learning lines or are you zoning out?

• 43:01Speaker 04

  No, because, well, sometimes if that lights, but then you're on Mission, you get handed nine pages of dialogue in the morning you've gotta shoot it, you know? So then you're like.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Just the nine?

• 43:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I, I.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Seems a bit disorganized. Well, well. It's so given, that's why it's taken them five years, you know? They gave you the lights up.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  That's right. You really are quite incisive, actually, I gotta say. What happens next, sir?

• 43:26Speaker 04

  It's, that's not for me to comment, but yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  I don't know, I just, I play games on my phone. I find that focuses me.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  And then when you got the call, didn't you get the call? Because J.J. Abrams was like a fan of Shaun of the Dead.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Is that right? So you saw Shaun of the Dead and was like, I'm calling someone.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he just rang up and said, do you want to come and be in Mission Impossible 3? And I'd kind of done a casting for Mission Impossible 3, another version of it that Joe Conahan was directing. And I didn't get it and I didn't think anything of it. And I even said something in an interview about, well, I'm not going to go off and do Mission Impossible 3. And then, and then J.J. called and I was like, okay.

• 44:04Speaker 04

  So I just, yeah, and I thought I was just doing like a kind of stunt cameo kind of thing, you know? Almost like a sort of a novelty performer. And then, and then the call came in for number four and then five and then six and then seven and then eight, so.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 44:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  It's crazy.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  Crazy, I know.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  No, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. And then like, you know, these huge blockbusters that has sort of become like cinematic events. And it's like, it must be such a fun world to be part of.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  It's amazing. You know, the, the time on the last one was challenging at times just because, and that wasn't all our fault. There were, there were things, and we fought through it, you know? We kind of figured out how to shoot a movie in a pandemic.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  But there were wonderful, wonderful experiences in like, we went up to Svalbard and in the Arctic Circle and South Africa and it was just, it's kind of like an adventure. I just wish it happened in a shorter space of time.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  We'd like the adventure, but like.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Do you know about the Tom Cruise cake?

• 44:57Speaker 03

  No, I don't.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  You know, this like when, is when he's had like a nice interview, a nice interaction, he sends someone a cake?

• 45:02Speaker 04

  He's like a feeder, Tom, like he's very careful of what he eats. That's why he's in such good shape. That's why he's Martin Kemp levels.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, of hot ice.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  That's what they call him.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Don't they? Oh, Hollywood's Martin Kemp.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Hollywood's Martin Kemp.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  That's what they call him.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  That's what we're gonna call him now.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Smoking up.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  But you, we get a, I get a cake on my birthday and I get a, we get a gingerbread house at Christmas. Like a real, but this is because he's known my daughter since she was a baby. And to him, she'll always be a baby.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Because he loves her and, and I keep wanting to say, just give us the damn cake. I don't want a gingerbread house. Nobody eats it, it just sits there looking cool.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  But yeah, he's very generous like that.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Simon Pegg, it is time for your fast food quiz. What is your favourite way to eat eggs?

• 45:54Speaker 04

  Poached.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Favourite sandwich filling?

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Uh, chicken.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  What is your favourite form of potato, if you don't mind me asking?

• 46:03Speaker 04

  Roasted.

• 46:04Speaker 03

  Favourite herb?

• 46:05Speaker 04

  Basil.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  What is the best crisp on the market?

• 46:08Speaker 04

  I think a walker's plane.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Very much like that.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Chef's choice, that.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  What's your dish that you miss the most when you're away from home?

• 46:16Speaker 04

  My daughter makes amazing Korean food, and I miss her when she makes that.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  What is the best pasta?

• 46:23Speaker 04

  Fusilli.

• 46:24Speaker 03

  Fusilli? Favourite Sunday roast?

• 46:28Speaker 04

  Beef.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  What is the best beverage?

• 46:32Speaker 04

  Sparkling water.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  And the favourite toast topping?

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Marmite.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  And with lots of butter.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Always, gotta have the butter.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  And carefully spread, you know, people... It annoys me when they give marmite on toast to like, you know, like, say there's like an American actor who's come up and go, "Try this British food," in a British voice. And they go, "Yeah." But you spread marmite very carefully. You don't... It's not thick.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 46:57Speaker 04

  It's dusty.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  She's delicate.

• 46:58Speaker 04

  She is delicate. She's a delicate lady.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  They do do that, don't they?

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  You know what? They want viral views, like this.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  Exactly. Like we do.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Like we do.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Let's do the end of the show question.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  For your chance to win this waitress goodie bag here, Simon Pegg.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  All you gotta do is, uh...

• 47:20Speaker 04

  Ooh, look at that.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Answer the question within this envelope, written by a wonderful crew here on Dish.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  Hi, Simon. Thanks so much for coming on to Dish. We've been to the shop and got you a bloody bag. To win it, we have one question. If you could rewrite the end of a film or TV series, what would you choose and how would you rewrite it? Thanks, Team Dish.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  I would rewrite the end of Lost.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 47:45Speaker 04

  And I'll tell you what.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  I love well done. Tony, is that well done? Well done.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  So insane. I loved Lost. In fact, when J.J. Abrams called me about a mission, he'd just finished the first season of Lost. And he sent me the whole season on individual DVDs, before it was on TV, to watch it, to see his stuff, you know, to kind of like check him out as a director. But at the end of it, it just, the end was just like, oh, spoiler alert if you haven't seen Lost, but they were, you know, they were dead all along. It was like, well, that's what everyone thought in the first series. But then what they started to do in the, in towards the end was they had this weird thing where they'd flash sideways. They'd always flash back to the characters in the real world, you know, off the island, and you'd learn about them as people, and that would reflect how they were on the island. But then they did this thing where they started flashing sideways into like an alternative universe.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  And I thought it would have been really good if, in order to get off the island, they had to die on the island, and then they would be transported to the alternative universe. So they'd be, there'd be this amazing dramatic irony because they'd be desperately trying to survive, but we'd know that you've got to die to make it.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's good.

• 48:53Speaker 04

  And then they'd, and then eventually it'd end up with Jack, you know, Matthew Fox, and he would, you know, be fighting for survival, but then he'd die. But then they'd all be in this alternative universe in different roles. I just felt like there was something interesting there. That's the bad version of that idea. But instead, it was just like, dead all along.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Dead all along.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  I was like, this is seven years of my life, but it's that?

• 49:15Speaker 02

  And that's why we're on four. That would have been really good, right? Because then, yeah, they're like desperate to survive, but actually they'd be living.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  And every time you get the drama of seeing one of them die, but also know that they would materialize in this

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, somewhere else.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Alternative universe, that's good. Let's shoot it. Let's shoot it. Have you got five years?

• 49:38Speaker 02

  And the goodie bag is yours, Simon.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  Wow, look at this.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Reshooting Lost.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  Simon, thank you so much. Bring the applause.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Yes, Simon. This is so good. Thank you.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  If that episode has left you wanting more, find us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search Dish.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  If you want to make any of the meals I cook on Dish, head to waitrose.com/dishrecipes for all the ingredients and the recipes.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  Email your questions, thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].

• 50:16Speaker 03

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass production.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  Waitrose, the home of food lovers.