We went all the way to London to interview Nick Frost. He costars in Pirate Radio, the American version of The Boat That Rocked. Based on true stories of DJ’s who broadcast from the sea when the UK banned rock n’ roll, Frost plays Dave, a ladies man mentor to the boy who must come of age in this iconic era. It’s from Richard Curtis and the Love Actually crew. In a roundtable interview, Frost talked about the film and his upcoming projects Paul, Tintin and The World’s End. 

Q: Your hair’s long now. I love it. 

Nick Frost:  Thank you very much.   

Q:  Is that for a role? 

Nick Frost:  No.  Well I had it for Paul. 

Q:  It was already long in the movie. 

Nick Frost:  Yes, it was, it was done with a kind of '60s cut but I kind of didn’t have to cut it after The Boat That Rocked and it just got to a certain length and, so I kept it fairly long for Paul and now we've been wrapped on that for six weeks so it’s just kind of grown out.  And the next thing I'm doing is set in the '80s so I can keep it at this length. 

Q:  You've got a period thing going here, don't you? 

Nick Frost:  The '80s are big right now, the '80s are bigger now than they were in the '80s.  There’s a lot of '80s around.   

Q:  You mentioned that you're keeping your hair for an '80s film, would that be World’s End? 

Nick Frost:  No, no, I mean World’s End hasn’t even been written yet.  So, you know, Edgar’s busy editing Scott Pilgrim and we’re still obviously a long way away from Paul. 

Q:  What's the '80s piece then? 

Nick Frost:  It's a thing I'm doing for the BBC.  Have you ever seen or have you ever read Martin Amis’ novel Money?  No? Well you should. It’s amazing.  It’s a great novel set in kind of Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s New York, and it’s about the kind of excess that was around in the early '80s. So if you get the chance to read it, you should.  But even before I was an actor, when I was 23 I read the novel and I thought fucking hell. I could be this guy This feels like my life that he's writing about.  So 15 years later to be offered the part of John Self is quite fortuitous, I think.   

Q:  Even within your work with Simon and Edgar, you’ve gotten to play very different characters. Was that your design? 

Nick Frost:  It’s just how it is between the three of us. Even though I didn't write Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, as a threesome we all have such a lot of input and they allow me a lot of input on what we do and that kind of, with each film, that gets more and more until now Simon and I have co-written Paul.  And I think that is going to carry on in to The World’s End. I'm not sure if the three of us are going to write this one or if Simon and Edgar will give another first pass and then I’ll script-edit. But I think it’s important to not get bored with us as well, because I think what we do is, I'm not going to say it's special, but I don't think there are many British groups of three making weird, little genre films. And I think it's important that we mix it up and to keep it fresh.  And in Paul, Simon and I’s dynamic has changed from Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead because I think I wouldn't want people to get bored of what we do onscreen. Because even that is what we do in real life, that relationship you see is our actual relationship, it means a lot to Simon and I personally, so for people to perhaps look at that and think eh I'm bored.  I'm bored of these two, I think that would upset us slightly.  So I think it’s important that we don't bang films out every year and we take out time. And when a Simon, Edgar and Nick joint comes out, then people think oh this is good. We haven’t seen this. We wanted to see another film. 

Q:  So is World’s End definitely the third Cornetto film? 

Nick Frost:  Yes, it’s the blood and ice cream trilogy, is what it’s going to be called. I don't know whether it’s going to be a mint Cornetto, We had strawberry for Shaun of the Dead because of the blood. Vanilla in Hot Fuzz, which had a blue and white wrapper to mirror the blue and white color of our police uniforms.  So the third one may be mint chocolate chip. 

Q:  How tight were those spaces on the boat? 

Nick Frost:  They got tighter when I got in them, put it that way.  They're small. The sets were so intricate and perfect that that was a tiny bathroom and it was really small. 

Q:  But even the cabins with the bunks were like… 

Nick Frost:  Tiny.

Q:  Could you even stand up in there? 

Nick Frost:  It was tight.  They had to do that kind of clever thing that they took pieces out and shot in and through.  But the sets were amazing. The only time I got seasick on the whole project was when we were in the studio, because they built a giant set of the ship. When I went through that set before we started shooting and I was opening every drawer and cupboard, and every drawer and cupboard was full of period food, of period cups, of everything.  And I thought why?  Why?  I mean you're never ever going to see in here.  And then sure enough, when they set the rocker to seven and the thing’s doing this and everything’s coming out the cupboards, you think oh right, OK, this is why they built it so precisely.   

Q:  And also on the Blu-ray you can see it. 

Nick Frost:  Yes, yes, as well as my nut which, if you pause at a certain point on Blu-ray, you will see a slither of nut.  Just two hands couldn't contain my rage.