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Sideshow: Overnight success for veteran Simon Pegg

Simon Pegg? A big star At 45, Simon Pegg finally has arrived! He costars with Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, opening Friday. He'll reprise his role as Scotty in Star Trek Beyond, and he's been cast in the forthcoming megablockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

With a little help from a Philly friendLocal rock pioneer Charlie Gracie met with Paul McCartney before McCartney's show at the Wells Fargo Center in June. In this photo just released by McCartney's organization, the two rockers have a copy of Gracie's new autobiography, "Rock and Roll's Hidden Giant," which contains a forward by McCartney that attests to the South Philadelphia native's influence on the Beatles. MLP Communications
With a little help from a Philly friendLocal rock pioneer Charlie Gracie met with Paul McCartney before McCartney's show at the Wells Fargo Center in June. In this photo just released by McCartney's organization, the two rockers have a copy of Gracie's new autobiography, "Rock and Roll's Hidden Giant," which contains a forward by McCartney that attests to the South Philadelphia native's influence on the Beatles. MLP CommunicationsRead more
    by Tirdad Derakhshani, Inquirer Staff Writer | Columnist
    Published 

Simon Pegg? A big star

At 45, Simon Pegg finally has arrived!

He costars with Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, opening Friday. He'll reprise his role as Scotty in Star Trek Beyond, and he's been cast in the forthcoming megablockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The fifth Mission film has Cruise jumping, punching, etc., while Pegg does the real heavy lifting as tech genius Benji.

The thesp landed his first TV show in '95 and won a cult following in his native Britain as co-writer and star of the 1999 sitcom Spaced and the 2004 zombie apocalypse action comedy Shaun of the Dead.

"I tend to play regular guys," he says, "because I am one."

Time for 'bye

Little Bit Country fiddler Zach DePue is leaning back toward the classical, phasing out of Time for Three to focus on being concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. So reports the Curtis Institute of Music graduate on Facebook. Nikki Chooi - also a Curtis grad - is taking his spot in Tf3, the crossover trio that traces its origins to Curtis.

- Peter Dobrin

Journos size up Trevor Noah

South African comic Trevor Noah, who takes over The Daily Show in September, admits he's nervous to be stepping into Jon Stewart's sandals. "The biggest pressure for me is living up to the expectations that Jon has of me," Noah, 31, said Wednesday at a media confab in Beverly Hills.

"I never dreamed that I'd be sitting here in this chair talking . . . about hosting this show. I guess Jon knew something about me that I didn't. There's an immense pressure for me to live up to that legacy."

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