EXCLUSIVE: Nick Frost on the secrets behind his new Star Wars: Skeleton Crew character, the creature in his brain and a shocking revelation from Hot Fuzz

Nick Frost has more in common with the latest character he plays than you might think. Which is interesting, considering the character in question is a droid with a rat living in his head.

Frost stars in the new live-action Star Wars TV series, Skeleton Crew. He voices janky droid SM-33, a robotic space pirate who happens to have an interstellar rodent taking up residence in his metallic skull. Think Ratatouille in a galaxy far, far away, as Nick tells us. In Skeleton Crew, SM-33 - or, Thirty Three, for short - will join the ranks of iconic Star Wars droids like C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 as he joins a ragtag group of kids and Jude Law’s force-sensitive Jod Na Wood in a Speilbergian coming-of-age adventure among the stars.

But, as the Sean of the Dead star tells Shortlist when we sit down to talk about his latest blockbuster role, the droid is more human than he looks. Or maybe, Nick is more droid. After all, he reveals, he has been entrenched in Star Wars fandom since he was seven.

Here, Nick reveals the secrets behind SM-33, the weird thing they have in common, and a surprising revelation about frequent collaborator Simon Pegg. You heard it here first…

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Shortlist: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is so reminiscent of classic family films from the 1980s. What was it about it that really appealed to you?

Nick Frost: It’s like The Goonies directed by Steven Spielberg, and I loved it. I love the colour palette, I love the warmth. I love the way that SM-33 is a fearsome, dangerous-looking droid, but he's also kind of human, and he malfunctions - spiritually, emotionally and physically. He protects the kids, and they protect him back, because he's a bit of a person. And he's got a rat inside his brain, which I really loved.

SL: Tell us more about the rat…

NF: When I first saw the rat in his head, I pitched to the guys that maybe Thirty Three is just a physical manifestation of the rat spirit, and he's like Remy from Ratatouille. Because I think that's how my body works. I think there's a little creature inside my brain pulling levers and pressing buttons, and it makes me walk and say things. I love that about Thirty Three.

SL: What's the creature living in your brain, then?

NF: Also a rat.

SL: How do you get into character to play a droid with a rat in his brain? What does it take to be a droid?

NF: Absolutely nothing. I just say the lines in a piratey manner. It's that easy. Often we'll go back once we finish, and we'll do the first 10 cues again, because you get to a sweet area where you realise, this is him, this is a good place to be. I’d try lines to see if they’re funny too - sometimes it's funny in the room and it makes everyone laugh, but it's not right. Even that's quite fun. We’d all have a bit of a laugh, and that's a nice place to work.

SL: You’re voice acting in this, so how do you approach giving SM-33 his unique personality through your voice alone?

NF: It's a process. When we started doing this three years ago, he sounded completely different. He wasn't as much a pirate. He was like a cranky old man. Then you try something, and people say, this is actually pretty good, this is, this is probably better than what we've got. So, you tinker with it, and six months later, you get another call, and you go back in, and redo everything you've done with that in mind. Part of that process is also that Thirty Three - yes, he's a navigator, and he's a fighter, and he's a kind of vicious protector, and he's not human, but he has human qualities, so that I wanted the kids to not be afraid of him. I wanted them to want to protect him, and in doing so, that too, makes him seem more human.

SL: Were you a Star Wars fan before?

NF: My whole life I’ve been a fan of Star Wars. Ever since I was five, when Star Wars came out - me and my friends and my cousins, it just took us over. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. When I got the part of SM-33, there was a little child in me that said, ‘He wouldn't be allowed in the bar in Tatooine that Luke goes to!’ I still think about my life in those terms.

SL: What are your earliest Star Wars memories?

NF: Getting action figures with my cousin. It was a small farming community, and it was a shop that was like a department store, but tiny, so you could buy a diary or milk, and they had a small section that sold toys. So, every weekend we were there, we were allowed to buy a Star Wars figure, and we'd spend hours outside with them playing. My whole life was that. My favourite was always a Storm Trooper or Boba Fett, he was cool. But then we lost Boba Fett’s helmet. When you're seven, losing Boba Fett’s helmet is a big deal.

SL: You’ve starred in some of the most iconic British comedies ever. Are there any parts of those performances that you brought to this role?

NF: I guess it's odd saying that, being the voiceover of a Star Wars droid, I want him to be human — but I want him to be. I want people to sympathise with him and like him. Even though he's a bit naughty and cranky, he's a likable character. Part of that is for me to give a bit of my humanity. I think in every character I've ever played, there's at least one per cent of me in it, and hopefully one per cent of me in Thirty Three makes him believable as a character.

SL: Is there anything that surprised you about joining the Star Wars universe that you weren't prepared for?

NF: Yeah. If you go to do a voiceover, they pick you up in a TIE Fighter. This morning we came in a TIE Fighter, which is great. Also, you don't have issues with traffic.

SL: Simon Pegg is also in the Star Wars universe, having appeared in The Force Awakens. Did you chat about joining it with him, and did he give you any advice?

NF: Nothing at all. I doubt he even knows that I'm in it now, to be honest. It’s a little surprise for him. It’ll be a little easter egg for him if he watches it.

SL: Skeleton Crew is set in the same time frame as The Mandalorian. So, would you be up for SM-33 appearing in a future series of The Mandalorian?

NF: Yeah, absolutely, of course I would. He's a really fun character to be. Even SM-34, and 35, I can voice those too. I'd like to be there in person. I'd even wear a helmet, and could do my own weird voice acting. I'd like to see more of him.

SL: What would you say has been your defining role when you look back at your career so far?

NF: I tend to not look back. Maybe I haven't found that role yet. But, in terms of doing Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End, those films changed my life and my career path, but with everything I do, I think I'm lucky enough to be able to do parts in films and write and produce films where I really love what I'm doing. So hopefully there will be a career defining role, but in the next 30 years. I'm yet to get to that point, hopefully.

SL: What’s something no one knows about, the Cornetto trilogy which you can reveal now?

NF: Halfway through Hot Fuzz, sadly, Simon lost his life in a hang gliding accident. So Simon is, in fact, a droid. A really good one. No one knows Simon, at the time, was very much into hang gliding, and he lost his life when a thermal stopped and he just fell from the sky. His droid is called PE 99. But don’t tell anyone.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew launches on December 4 with the first two episodes, exclusively on Disney+.

Main Image Credit: Leon Bennett / Stringer /Getty Images for Disney

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