He went from corporate training videos to Hagrid because Simon Pegg needed a flatmate who could make him laugh, and the industry never stopped borrowing him.
At a glance
- Known for
- The Cornetto trilogy (*Shaun of the Dead*, *Hot Fuzz*, *The World's End*) with Simon Pegg
- Before fame
- Waitered at a Chiquito restaurant where he met Simon Pegg over a post-shift curry
- Off-screen
- Diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD, OCD, and dyslexia at 47; paints oil canvases instead of taking medication
Rise to Fame
A post-shift curry at a Chiquito restaurant is the entire origin story. He was waitering in North London. Simon Pegg's girlfriend was waitering too. Pegg tagged along for dinner and left with a new best friend and flatmate.
Pegg and Jessica Hynes wrote him into Spaced because they needed an army-obsessed layabout, and Frost was doing that for free in their living room. His only prior screen credits were corporate training videos, including a Dixons sales tape. Shaun of the Dead turned the friendship into a $38.7 million zombie comedy on a $6.1 million budget. Hot Fuzz doubled the gross. By the time The World's End wrapped the Cornetto trilogy, he'd been in the room for over $165 million in worldwide box office on a part Pegg and Hynes wrote for him.
In the Spotlight
The Pegg partnership was always the engine, but it stalled publicly. Truth Seekers, their Amazon comedy, got cancelled after one season. Frost called it 'a massive kick in the willy.' Sony liquidated their production company Stolen Picture in early 2025.
Franchise work didn't just fill the gap, it dwarfed the original partnership. Gobber in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon put him inside a $636 million hit. Hagrid in HBO's Harry Potter is an even bigger bet. The teaser pulled 277 million views in 48 hours, and the casting forced him to disable Instagram comments after fans dragged him into the Rowling controversy. 'She's allowed her opinion and I'm allowed mine,' he told The Observer. At 53, the comedy sidekick became a franchise anchor. Almost nobody pulls that off.
Side Notes
At 47, he got diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD, OCD, and dyslexia, all at once. He's said the depression started around 17, which tracks: his parents' furniture business collapsed when he was 15, his mother had a stroke and struggled with alcoholism, and his father never fully recovered. His older sister had already died of an asthma attack when Frost was 10. The lovable comedy bloke was carrying all of this the entire time.
He gave up the medication over addiction fears and paints oil canvases in his garden shed instead. He sells to US collectors and cites Basquiat as an influence. An outsider artist who fell into acting because his flatmate needed someone to split rent feels about right.