Simon Pegg Says Women Write Men Better Than Men Write Women

In an interview on the BBC Radio 5 program Wittertainment, Simon Pegg extolled the virtues of women screenwriters writing roles for men. This is coming hot on the heels after he called for better roles for women in movies, so yeah, Pegg is totally winning some rad points here. Not that he was in short supply, anyway.

Pegg was on the radio program to speak about his role in the upcoming romantic comedy Man Up, written by Tess Morris. He absolutely gushes about the script, and when one of the hosts, Zoe Ball, points out that men love this film and that it’s “not just a girl’s film,” he agrees. He even explains his views, saying, “Romcoms shouldn’t be [a girl’s film]. If it’s a heterosexual romcom, it should be for men and women. It’s about both sides of the coin, you know.”

Expanding his answer further, he also said:

And I think the truth is–and this is something I’ve thought about recently, and this’ll get me into trouble I’m sure, but I think women write men better than men write women. Cause men tend to write women as their fantasy, and women tend to write men as what they really are. And I also think women tend to understand men better than we understand women. It just means that the character Tess wrote for me in this movie is far more rounded.

… Whereas guys will tend to write the girl they want to date rather than the girl who’s really out there, who is flawed, who is a bit unpredictable. Why not celebrate that part of being a person?

Pegg is speaking from personal experience, as he’s mentioned before when he and Edgar Wright were writing Shaun of the Dead, he said:

Me and Edgar [Wright] always said that our Achilles heel was writing women. I think with Shaun of the Dead, we worked so hard not to make Liz the voice of reason, or a drag, or an obstacle to Ed. Ultimately, the romance in Shaun of the Dead was about Shaun and Ed and not Shaun and Liz.

You’re too cool, Simon Pegg. Just too cool.

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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