Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost is playing one of the most beloved Harry Potter characters for the new HBO TV show

The cast of the Harry Potter TV show is growing. Longtime comedy star Nick Frost is reportedly going to portray Hogwarts caretaker Hagrid in the upcoming adaptation.

This comes from Deadline, which states a deal is getting close for Frost to join the school for witchcraft and wizardry. He's the fourth major actor to be lined up for the production after John Lithgow, who’s portraying Professor Dumbledore, Janet McTeer, who'll be playing Professor McGonagall, and Paapa Essiedu, who's stepping into the role of Professor Snape.

Frost rose to prominence in the mid-2000s for being Simon Pegg's recurring screen partner in several movies, including Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End. Those three, directed by Edgar Wright, form the Cornetto Trilogy, a set of standalone genre films, each featuring Frost and Pegg in different roles.

Their success is what propelled Frost into the mainstream, where he's had roles in The Adventures of Tintin, The Huntsman movies, Fighting With My Family, and plenty more besides. He's actually back on the big screen quite soon, with a part in the How to Train Your Dragon live-action upcoming movie coming out on June 13, 2025.

The Harry Potter TV series is intended as a decade-long commitment, to cover the seven books of Harry's time in Hogwarts. It's being produced by HBO for Max, which means it'll likely be available on Sky for British viewers.

The approach is considerably different from the Harry Potter movies starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. Beyond being a different medium, the cast is utilizing American talent, when the original films resolutely used British actors.

Francesca Gardiner, a former producer on Succession and His Dark Materials, is writer and showrunner, and Mark Mylod is director and executive producer. There's no release schedule as it's still early days in production, but it appears everything is coming together. In the meantime, why not catch up on the best shows on Max?

It is important to note that the upcoming HBO Harry Potter series has been the subject of criticism and debate due to the show's executive producer and author J.K. Rowling's very public and harmful stance on gender identity. It was a similar situation with the Hogwarts Legacy launch. For more, read more about the Hogwarts Legacy controversy.