In the film “Hot Fuzz” by-the-book supercop Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is sent from London to the sleepy village of Samford because he’s too good of a cop. He’s partnered with the affable Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), who is itching to live the life cops do in the movies. The pair stumble upon a village secret, and have to deliver some shotgun justice.

Like the crew's first hit, "Shaun of the Dead," the new film blends genres. This time, the trio combines comedy with popcorn-magic action sequences and quotes (from which this article got its title) from movies like "Bad Boys 2" (from which the title of this article gets .

Marin Perez sat down with Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright at a round table Q & A. The film opens April 20.

Edgar, unlike many comedies, “Hot Fuzz” is visually impressive. How do you balance the technical and comedic aspects of the film?

Edgar Wright: It’s a challenge, it’s something I’ve always been interested in the idea. It began by watching films like “Raising Arizona,” or the Coen brothers’ films, and seeing how brilliantly shot they were and wondering why all comedies aren’t like that. Most comedies are flatly shot, or were then, the reason for that is because it’s difficult to get that balance. It’s about knowing when our shot should be about the performance or whether it should be about the camera shot, or just trying to marry the two ends together. Most of the stuff I’ve done has been like that, trying to make things look very visually stylish while making sure the performances aren’t hindered by that. So that’s it really. It’s something I hope to have pulled off.

Simon Pegg: It kind of works with the way we work because when we come to the set we have a script which is completely laid out. It’s exactly how it’s going to be shot. It’s not like we improvise much on the set because the camera and the script work together so much that everything has to be in the right place at the right time. Whereas with improvisational comedy you can lock up the shot and just have the actors make it up. The way we work is a little bit more precise in terms of we have to hit things at a certain time... it’s not as loose as it might seem.

How do you expect this film to do in the United States? I know it was a big hit in the U.K., but after “Shaun of the Dead,” which was somewhat of sleeper hit over here, how do you expect “Hot Fuzz” to be receive?

EW: We’re hoping to do at least $400 million dollars.

(laughs)

And that’s just the first three days.

SP: We hope it’s the most successful film ever made.

Nick Frost: If we don’t beat ″The Last Mimzy” there will be a problem.

(laughs)

Are their higher expectations because of the success of “Shaun of the Dead?”

SP: We would hope so because “Shaun” was a modest theatrical success, and has since gone on to be a popular DVD. We would hope that everybody who bought it on DVD will go and see “Hot Fuzz” in the theater. We don’t know exactly how many people bought it on DVD because we’ve never been told, but we figure it must be a few people because everywhere we go people seem to know it and like it. On this tour when we’ve walked into theaters for our Q&A’s and intros, we’ve been greeted with the most wonderful responses and a lot of really lovely people. It’s been nice to go into every city and find out we have friends there. So, I don’t know what to expect, I honestly don’t. We’re pretty new to this business, really.

EW: We’d like to think that “Shaun of the Dead” has seeped into some kind of public consciousness by the fact that this man dressed up as Shaun and didn’t even realize it. [he points to a reporter whose white shirt and red tie make him look like the protagonist of “Shaun of the Dead”]

You were talking about the DVD of “Shaun,” when is the UK version going to be released here with all the extra features that we don’t have?

EW: I don’t think it was missing that much. There were a couple of commentaries that weren’t on there, but I don’t know. We got asked to do a special edition in the U.K., and for various reasons we didn’t really do one (in the United States).

SP: It’s going to be a lot of work and we don’t really see anything from it, other than being a labor of love, which we all are for. A lot of what we do we do is for an enormous amount of love. But it gets to the point where you get tired of doing something for nothing, you know. That might sound a little mercenary but we felt like we’ve been publicizing ″Shaun” for a very long time and we felt like we really wanted to get going on “Hot Fuzz.”

Apparently, I don’t know if this is true or even right, but apparently there are Web sites where you can unlock the codes to your DVD player and maybe, make them region-free, and maybe go to Amazon.co.uk., and maybe buy the British DVD. I’m not saying to do that, but maybe you can.

In the show “Spaced,” the main character Simon played was similar to Shaun from “Shaun of the Dead.” But in “Hot Fuzz,” Nicholas Angel is a completely different character. What was the inspiration for this dramatic change?

SP: I think a couple of people have said ‘All he does is play slackers,’ and that stung. So I put it right in their face and played someone who is the absolutely the opposite of a slacker, who’s the antithesis of slacker-dom, and that’s what Nicholas Angel is. “Shaun of the Dead” is a film about a guy who’s learning to take responsibility, and “Hot Fuzz” is about a guy not willing to let go of it. I just wanted to play somebody different. It was kind of difficult for me because I couldn’t be goofy. I had to be serious, and that was hard.

NF: Like Mickey.

SP: Like Mickey? Mickey Who?

NF: Mickey Mouse. You said you couldn’t be Goofy.

(silence)

SP: That is good, that is very good.

(laughs)

NF: Tough crowd.

SP: It was a conscious decision to get away from playing those kinds of guys. Similarly, Danny (Frost’s character in “Hot Fuzz”) was nothing like Ed (Frost’s character in ″Shaun”). Ed was a far more cynical character than Danny, Danny’s like a puppy.

NF: He is a big puppy. You could computer map Danny out of that film and put in the puppy of a boxer dog and it would work perfectly well. I played him like a police dog as well.

SP: There was a scene in the film where he humped my leg but we had to cut it out.

NF: That’ll be in the deleted scenes.

(laughs)

Nick, did your perception of cops, or police, change after making the film? What was it before, and did it change after?

NF: Absolutely. I was a very different person when I first met Simon and my respect for the police wasn’t so great. But, you get older, you buy a house and you start to like them a bit more. And then after working with them, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a police officer really. The amount of shit they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis is phenomenal. But what I took coming away from working on this film is that it must be nice, in a way, to be a police officer because it’s like being a member of the country’s biggest rugby club. Your support group is enormous and it’s country-wide. But what a tough job. Especially in England, where the crime is going up and gun-crime is going up. And they don’t have guns, and they can’t fall back on the use of a firearm.

SP: Which we’re kind of okay with. It means less people will die unnecessarily.

NF: I think the balance that’s struck between the police and the public in the U.K. is entirely based on the fact that they don’t have guns.

But crime is less in the U.K. than in the United States.

NF: Yeah, but it’s getting worse, violent crime is on the way up. I would say pro-active street crime is worse. New York is much safer than London. But the tension for deadly force from the law enforceement community is not there.

They (UK police) will bring in armed officers and they come in with big guns, machine guns, if you call in a tactical support unit and they really are armed.

EW: I think if someone’s going to shoot a police officer they’re going to shoot a police officer whether or not they have a gun.

Have you received any reaction from the police about the film?

NF: That’s why we left the country. We can’t go back for a while.

(laughs)

EW: We interviewed a lot of officers for the film, we did a lot of research and questionnaires. We visited stations and hung out with cops in London and in the country. A lot of those people we kept in touch with and invited to see the finished film. We had a police screening in the U.K. and I think they really liked it because even though there’s an element of satire, the cops come out on top at the end. Even though they’re shown as being idiotic and corrupt in places, it’s still more positive than not. The point [of the film] is that they’re basically heroes.

SP: The comment we make about [the higher-ups] massaging the figures and sending Angel away because he’s too good, they would probably appreciate it because a lot of their performance is rated on vague statistics. On the DVD, and I sincerely hope it will be on the American version, there is a commentary by four police officers who I specifically instructed to tear the film to pieces. It’s interesting how it was received in different places. We tried to get all the details exactly right – like the use of appropriate vocabulary, and the specificity of procedure because Angel is a stickler for that.

You were talking about satire earlier. What is it about ″Point Break” and ″Bad Boys 2” (which play a key role in the film) that made you want to include them in the film?

EW: The message of the film at that point is that’s Nick’s character tells Angel that he should learn how to switch off and here’s a good way to switch off. In a way the film has a message that there’s brainless entertainment and it’s okay to watch them. Some things are just entertainment, it doesn’t have to be high art. That’s sort of why we picked those two because “Point Break” and “Bad Boys 2” are the ultimate in dumb, popcorn fun - where you switch off your brain and enjoy. We kind of have our cake and eat it too, because that’s the kind of film “Hot Fuzz” becomes at the end.

Did you take anything from working on the set of ″Mission Impossible 3”? (Pegg was in that film)

SP: Some smoothies, and some egg-white omelets. No not really, the script for “Hot Fuzz” was already written when I did “Mission Impossible3.” I had already put together first final draft of “Hot Fuzz,” but I did explain it to J.J. [Abrams, the director] and Tom Cruise and they found it kind of funny, so hopefully they’ll see it when we screen it in L.A.

The one thing I did take, partly, was Tom Cruise’s run. I’d say my run in ″Hot Fuzz” is 70 percent Robert Patrick from ″Terminator 2” and 30 percent Tom, because that man can run with a serious face.

NF: There’s some [Forrest] Gump in there too.

SP: You think?

(Laughs)

NF: Isn’t there a little Gump in everybody?

How do you separate being an actor and writer? [Pegg and Wright co-wrote the film]

SP: You do it almost organically, it’s kind of weird. When you’re a writer, that’s what you are and that’s what you’re doing. And often you’re an actor you’ll pick up the script you’ve written and think ‘You bastard. Why did you write that for?’ Then you’ll spend the whole day running around a village looking like 70 percent Robert Patrick and 30 percent Tom Cruise. I always feel Edgar and I start the journey running along the same track and then at a certain point we peel off in different directions and Edgar become the director and I become an actor. And we occupy those roles. Occasionally, we have to put our writing hats on set.

Very occasionally, you do have to switch back into your old role. It does feel like you occupy that one role until a certain point and then the new role will take over. It’s a very set role, and I think both of us have learned how to deal with that.

I’m going to switch gears for a second. You’re branching out into different projects - I’m thinking “The Simpsons” and “Grindhouse.” [this wasn’t me, by the way]

EW: “The Simpsons?”

SP: That was Ricky Gervais.

NF: Cheers guys. (Gets up and pretends to leave)

(laughs)

Well then, what about of “Grindhouse.”

NF: That’s Ricky Gervais too.

(laughs)

EW: I did write and direct a trailer, and Simon and Nick are in it, and a lot of the cast of "Hot Fuzz" are in it. That came about after “Shaun of the Dead,” Quentin [Tarantino] and Robert [Rodriguez] were very big fans of “Shaun” and asked me to do one of the trailers in it. I wrote the trailer back in 2005 but I didn’t get a chance to do it until “Hot Fuzz” had opened in the U.K. So I didn’t get to do it until four weeks ago.
It was weird, kind of like handing in homework. I shot it and edited it in between doing press in the U.K. I handed it in and then two days later they put it in the film

How different is it shooting it knowing it’s going to be a trailer?

EW: It’s such fun. The trailer I’ve done is for a film that doesn’t exist. It’s a blast because you’re just filming the best bits. It’s brilliant and cheesy because you knew that no shot was going to be longer than two seconds. I’m very pleased with it, and a lot of people have said it looks authentic.