29 November 2015
Newsdesk
Simon Pegg's six-year-old daughter leaves him "agog with admiration" with her incredible and unique sense of humour.
The 45-year-old actor is father to Matilda with wife Maureen McCann and as he discussed a recent report that said men's humour is more appreciated than women's, Simon insisted funny women should never have to reign in their humorous side.
In an exclusive column for Britain's Glamour magazine, Simon admitted he has always had a "thing" for funny women, and used three names in particular as examples.
Top of the list was Matilda, who Shaun of the Dead star Simon said makes him laugh every single day.
"I'll give mention to the female that makes me laugh most profoundly and consistently, my daughter," Simon wrote. "At six years old, she has 'it', whatever 'it' is. Not just saying and doing the things that children do but knowing what makes me laugh, knowing how to send me into fits of giggles, when I'm trying to be serious or strict. I hope she has it forever, I hope nobody ever tells her that it's wrong or makes her feel like she shouldn't."
Simon has worked with some of the industry's most hilarious actresses in films including Paul and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. His career began in sitcom Spaced, alongside Jessica Hynes, who he said "made me laugh so much and still does".
Another of Simon's comedy heroines is Kristen Wiig, who he teamed up with on alien comedy Paul in 2011.
"Kristen Wiig on the set of Paul became my favourite person to hang around with," he continued. "She has the capacity to interpret humour in a vast spectrum of ways, from the super subtle to the utterly absurd. Her work on Saturday Night Live was peerless."
"I love funny women, I always have. Funny women are beguiling and make me giddy and self-conscious. There is something at once familiar and alien in their humour and it makes them magical to me. My early crushes were mainly on funny women: Madeline Khan, Diane Keaton, Terri Gar, even Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia had a degree of what was referred to at the time as 'spunk'. Maybe that's what it is, wit doesn't just imply intelligence, it implies strength, and that's what really unnerves insecure men."
