SIMON Pegg’s latest silver screen incarnation, Sidney Young, is sitting in a tuxedo at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles next to a glamorous young actress.

Simon’s voiceover explains that as a child, Sidney had always imagined Hollywood as a Shangri La to which only a favoured few were granted access.

In real life, Simon has certainly got his passport to the promised land.

With the role of Scotty in the next year’s Star Trek film and now as the star of How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, Simon is quickly emerging as the new British golden boy of Hollywood comedy.

But today, the 38-year-old is quick to play down his achievements.

“I don’t really have a gameplan. I’m not trying to make it in America particularly, I just want to keep doing good stuff and working with good people. Inevitably as an actor you’re going to gravitate to Hollywood.”

His latest film, How To Lose Friends... is based on the 2001 memoir by British journalist Toby Young about his failure to make it in the US working at Vanity Fair magazine.

Simon portrays a vaguely likeable character, who after a series of excruciating cock-ups, including killing an actress’s dog, manages to gain the respect of Sharps’ magazine editor and get the girl, played by Kirsten Dunst.

“I did actually meet Toby a few times before we started shooting,” says Simon, “but I made a decision quite early on not to play him. I had free range to play the part from the page, rather than from the man.”

Known in the UK for hit comedy series Spaced and films Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, it was the first time Simon had played a role with such serious character development.

But he credits screenwriter Peter Straughan with making the role simple to play.

“The book is a series of very funny anecdotes, knitted together with musings on meritocracy but it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a screen version.

“Peter took that and extrapolated a film structure and the journey Sidney makes from being objectionable to perhaps someone with humility was all on the page.”

As a Brit filming across the pond, did Simon empathise with Toby’s real-life struggle?

“There were definitely parallels,” he admits. “You do realise when you spend a lot of time over there that you are a foreigner.

“It’s tempting to believe that we’re part of the same continent because we speak the same language, but we’re not. You are taking a foreign film to America and you have to do a lot of convincing.”

How To Lose Friends plays like an indictment of celebrity journalism. Sidney eventually has to suck-up to stars’ agents so they’ll allow him to do interviews, before he finally realises he’s a sell-out.

Rather fittingly perhaps, Simon likes to avoid the media spotlight altogether.

“I hate it. Well, no, I don’t hate it. But it’s difficult sometimes. It’s easier to be an actor and play characters than it is to be yourself answering endless questions, but it’s part of the job so I guess you have to do it. If I could have it my way, I would make a film, then have it on DVD, give it to my mum and then go make the next one.”

Simon’s co-star Kirsten was also avoiding the media spotlight – she didn’t do any publicity in the UK for the film.

But Simon was full of praise for the absent actress, who plays Sidney’s long-suffering Sharps colleague Alison.

“She’s a wonderful actress and a remarkable person in terms of the experience that she’s had. She’s been working since she was three. She has all the wisdom that will bring her, but she’s only 26, so she’s that odd mixture of youth and wisdom, but she’s also enormous fun and we had a great laugh.”

He also sticks up for Kirsten, who was reported to be in rehab earlier this year, suffering from depression.

“She takes some schtick sometimes from areas of the media, which I don’t understand and which I think is totally unfair and horrible.”

Simon also shares some hilarious scenes with rising starlet Megan Fox, who plays a beautiful young actress that Sidney is obsessed with.

“When they called cut on her first big scene everybody was surprised because there was a palpable sense of ‘My God, she can act’.”

Simon admits his life is full of ‘pinch-me’ moments.

He says: “In LA, you constantly find yourself in those kind of weird situation, but it’s always surprising to me. Working on this movie and doing those scenes with Jeff Bridges – I remember going to see him in Tron when I was seven, so to be there acting alongside him was amazing.

“To go from being born in rural Gloucestershire and winding up doing those kinds of things is amazing, and I hope it always is amazing. I hope I don’t get tired or find it boring.”