Simon Pegg reveals he wasn’t expecting fan “furore” over a shirtless photo recently posted by his trainer of the “Shaun Of The Dead” star.
The image, posted to Instagram in March, shows Pegg with ripped abs and lean arms. His new body resulted from a workout regimen by personal trainer Nick Lower, who helped the actor get in shape for a role in the movie “Inheritance”. Lower posted the pic on his personal account:
Pegg, 49, was shocked by the reaction, telling British GQ the photo “wasn’t meant to be an aspirational thing.”
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“The response from that picture was so weird. Some people said, ‘You look ill,’ which is what my wife thought. Others were saying, ‘Well done,'” the “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” star says in the new interview.
“I trained for three months with only one day off a week. Obviously, nutrition was a big part of that, too. Nick always says you can’t outrun a bad diet and that is completely true. No matter how many sit-ups you do, you’ll never get a six-pack if you don’t manage your macro-nutrients properly.”
“It was a snapshot that my trainer took and I really didn’t expect the furore that followed. All I can think of is that people still think of me as that schlubby guy from ‘Shaun Of The Dead.'”
Pegg has made more than just a physical transformation since his “Shaun Of The Dead” days. Last year, the actor disclosed his long struggle with mental health, depression, and alcoholism. Addressing the wait to go public with his personal life with GQ, Pegg says he just “wasn’t ready” to talk about it earlier.
“Before then, I hadn’t really been prepared to give that much of myself over. It isn’t something I think should be seen as shameful. It’s something that a lot of people suffer with. And what was nice was the response I had from a lot of people who said, ‘Thank you for saying that, because I felt that way, too.’ And that’s what I would have hoped for.”
Encouraged by his wife Maureen, Pegg entered rehab in 2010 and stopped self-medicating his depression with alcohol.
“It’s a strange thing and I have had conversations with other people about this, that when you quit drinking the universe starts to give back to you a little bit. Maybe it’s because I figured out why I was drinking, which was to combat the depression and so I was able to get on top of what was the real issue,” he explains. “I spoke to people and got proper help. That’s when you realize you don’t need to get drunk because you don’t need to escape from things. By actually confronting it, my reward has been these last 10 years.”