(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Simon Pegg knew his latest movie Paul was a success after Steven Spielberg praised it.

The British funnyman wrote and starred in sci-fi comedy Paul, which sees Simon and Nick Frost playing two comic book nerds befriending an on-the-run alien, voiced by Seth Rogen. The film features director Steven in a cameo role.

"He sent me a lovely email saying he loved it," Simon told Empire. "But he thought the guy playing Steven Spielberg was terrible! But he really liked it, which was nice."

The decision to include Steven in a small role came after Simon and Nick worked on the director's forthcoming screen adaptation of famed comic book series The Adventures of Tintin. When the pair told Steven their new film was influenced by his earlier work like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind he demanded a cameo.

Speaking in March, Simon explained: "We talked about Paul with him. I showed him a picture on my phone of us with the alien head bust that we took on our road trip with us and he goes, 'Wait, what is that?' I said, 'We're making this movie about this alien called Paul who you've had a direct hotline to over the years and he gave you the idea for E.T. and Close Encounters, and he's like, "I love that."

"He started riffing on the idea and he said, 'Maybe I could be in the film. Maybe I could do like a cameo,' and we were like, 'Did you just say that?'"

Simon and Nick couldn't get the idea out of their heads, so Simon eventually rang Steven to hold him to his promise. He told the director he was "legally obliged" to follow through with the idea as they had his comments on tape. (C) Cover Media