In May 2025, Simon Pegg appeared on Virgin Radio UK’s The Chris Evans Breakfast Show and told a story about his daughter. She had been offered a place at the UK premiere of Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, one of the biggest films of the year. Tom Cruise, who has known her since she was a baby, told her she did not need her GCSEs. She sat them anyway.
That is Matilda Pegg.
She is 16 years old, the only child of Simon Pegg and his wife Maureen McCann, and she has spent her whole life inside a world that would give most teenagers a distorted sense of what is normal. Her godfather is Chris Martin. She sang backing vocals for Coldplay at Glastonbury at the age of six. Tom Cruise calls her by name and she once called him “the blanket man.” Her father describes her as the single greatest thing that has ever happened to him.
And she has never once sought the attention that comes with any of it.
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Who Is Matilda Pegg?
Matilda Pegg, known to her family as Tilly, is the only daughter of British actor Simon Pegg and music industry publicist Maureen McCann. She was born on July 1, 2009, making her 16 years old as of May 2026, with her 17th birthday this July.
| Full Name | Matilda Pegg |
| Nickname | Tilly |
| Date of Birth | July 1, 2009 |
| Age | 16 (turns 17 on July 1, 2026) |
| Birthplace | St. John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, California |
| Nationality | British and American (dual) |
| Father | Simon Pegg |
| Mother | Maureen McCann |
| Siblings | None |
| Godfather | Chris Martin (Coldplay) |
| Family Home | Essendon, Hertfordshire, England |
Her parents married in Glasgow on July 23, 2005, with Nick Frost as best man. Her mother, who goes by Mo, works as a music industry publicist and stays almost entirely out of the public eye. The Pegg family has kept Matilda’s life private since the day she arrived, and by most accounts, that has served her well.
Born in California, Raised in England
Matilda Pegg was born at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California, on July 1, 2009. Simon Pegg was in Los Angeles filming the comedy Paul when Maureen went into labour. He flew back. They stopped for a Starbucks on the way to the hospital.
She was born while “Girl” by The Beatles played in the room. The first song that came on after he cut the cord was “Tomorrow Never Knows”, his favourite Beatles track, and he danced around the operating theatre to it. They stayed for four days, ordering pizza and watching the July 4th fireworks from the hospital window over a curry.
Pegg has referenced this story in almost every major interview since 2018. Matilda’s response, in his telling: “Oh shut up dad, I know, you had a Starbucks, you went to the hospital, blah blah blah.”
Because she was born in the United States, she holds dual British and American nationality. Before her arrival, Pegg joked to reporters: “It struck me that, technically, he or she could eventually become President of the United States. The potential is there.”
The family returned to England and, around 2012, moved out of Crouch End in North London. Crouch End is where Shaun of the Dead was filmed and the recognition on the street had become hard to live with. They settled in Essendon, Hertfordshire, where Matilda has grown up.
Six Years Old on the Glastonbury Stage
On June 26, 2016, Coldplay closed their Glastonbury headline set with “Up&Up.” Chris Martin invited his children, Apple and Moses, on stage for the backing vocals. Matilda Pegg was up there with them.
She was six years old, with her seventh birthday five days away.
Simon Pegg recalled the moment in an interview with NME at Glastonbury in 2022:
“On her first Glastonbury she sang backing vocals with Coldplay. Chris Martin is an old, old friend and Tilly’s godfather. He invited her up on stage with his kids and their friend to sing the backing vocals on ‘Up&Up’. I was an incredibly proud dad that day.”
Chris Martin is Matilda’s godfather. Simon Pegg is godfather to Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter Apple, alongside Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland. The friendship between the two men stretches back many years before either had children.
Six years later, in June 2022, Matilda was back at Glastonbury as a 13-year-old in the audience. Pegg mentioned it to NME backstage: “I’m here with my 13-year-old daughter who has great music taste and she’s been showing me some stuff.” They watched Billie Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers, Wolf Alice, and Wet Leg together.
The Role She Played in Her Father’s Recovery
Simon Pegg has been open about his battle with depression and alcohol dependency. He described his state during the filming of Mission: Impossible III in 2006 as being “fairly lost, and unhappy, and an alcoholic.” Directors JJ Abrams and Brad Bird arranged support for him on set throughout that period. Matilda’s birth in July 2009 shifted things further.
He told The Guardian in 2018:
“It was the most cosmic experience of my life. I thought it would fix things and it just didn’t. Because it can’t. Nothing can, other than a dedicated approach, whether that’s therapy or medication, or whatever.”
He went to Alcoholics Anonymous. He has been sober since 2010.
Speaking to Rolling Stone UK in May 2025, ahead of The Final Reckoning’s release, he put it plainly:
“Having a kid really helps you because it puts another heart beating in the world that belongs to you. That’s been everything and having Tilly was just a life-changing event for me. As soon as I got out of the weeds of that, the emotional quicksand I was in, it gave me a real anchor to pull myself out.”
Tom Cruise, a Blanket, and Her GCSEs
Tom Cruise has known Matilda since she was a baby. Pegg filled in the full picture during that same Chris Evans Breakfast Show interview in May 2025.
When Tilly was around two years old, Cruise gifted the Pegg family a blanket. Later, when Simon left for another Mission: Impossible shoot, young Tilly worked it out: her father was going away again with the man who brought the blanket. She started calling Tom Cruise “the blanket man.” Pegg described Cruise as someone who “really loves” his daughter.
By 2023, she was old enough to attend the UK premiere of Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, and she was there on the red carpet.
Two years later, for The Final Reckoning premiere in May 2025, she was not. She had her GCSEs. Cruise, when he found out she was skipping it for school exams, told her she did not need them.
Pegg’s account on the Breakfast Show:
“She can’t come to the premiere ’cause she’s got her GCSEs, and she’s being incredibly noble about that, and she knows that’s what she [should do].”
She sat her exams. Her father told the story on national radio with clear pride.
On K-Pop and Her Own Opinions
In October 2021, Simon Pegg hosted an Instagram Live that Tilly joined. The conversation moved to BTS, specifically to member Jin (Kim Seokjin). Tilly said she would love to see Jin act. Pegg agreed, noting that Jin has a degree in acting and backing his daughter’s read on his talent. They discussed Jin’s upcoming original soundtrack for the Korean drama Jirisan, both of them looking forward to it alongside the fans commenting in real time.
The clip circulated widely in K-pop media after it aired. For anyone curious about who Matilda Pegg is outside of her surname, it gave a clear picture: a teenager with her own views, comfortable in front of an audience, happy to hold a conversation without needing her father to carry it.
Life at Home in Hertfordshire
The Pegg family home in Essendon is, by everything Simon Pegg has described, a settled and quiet place. Three dogs live there:
- Cookie, a cockapoo
- Willow and Branwell, two Schnauzers, inspired by his affection for the breed after working with Ada, the dog who played Colin in Spaced
He told High Life Magazine in March 2025: “In the evening, we all lie around watching TV together like a big pride. Dogs, people, squirrels.”
He keeps a personal rule of never being away from home for more than four weeks at a time. He writes in a garden office packed with film memorabilia, including a bloodied shirt from Shaun of the Dead and the door numbers from the house in Spaced.
Matilda has no confirmed public social media presence. The Pegg family has kept that line in place since 2009.
By May 2026, she is 16, a year past her GCSEs, growing up in a Hertfordshire house with three dogs and two parents who chose a country field over the London spotlight long before she was old enough to have a say. The details that are publicly known about her, the Glastonbury stage at six, the K-pop opinions at 12, the school exams over the red carpet at 15, all point in the same direction.
The story of Matilda Pegg, so far, is mostly just about her.
