Nick Frost’s love for Star Wars began long before he was cast as the voice of SM-33, a rusty pirate droid with a few wires loose.
In the summer of 1978, Frost and his cousin spent their weekends perusing the toy shelves of a local store in their Welsh village having just discovered the galaxy far, far away. “My auntie Sandra would take me and my cousin to a little shop where they sold Star Wars figures and on Saturdays, we were allowed to buy one figure each,” Frost recalls. “That was our life — and not just for a summer. I mean, [Star Wars] was just my whole life for 10 years. Even now, I still feel exactly the same way. Certain pieces of music take me back in time and I know that picture of Luke Skywalker in front of the twin suns as well as I know photographs of my family. It is ingrained in me.”
With the two-episode premiere of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew on Disney+ December 3, we’ll meet Jude Law’s Jod and the rest of the crew on an all-new Star Wars adventure. Today, Frost pulls back the curtain on voicing surly SM-33 before you get to see him in action.
Nick Frost – SM-33
You may know Nick Frost best from his work in comedy alongside longtime friend and frequent collaborator, Simon Pegg, the voice of Unkar Plutt in Star Wars: the Force Awakens. Frost started his career in the acclaimed British comedy Spaced, before he and Pegg went on to star in The Cornetto Trilogy of movies directed by Edgar Wright — Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. Frost and Pegg also wrote and co-starred in Paul, an alien adventure comedy that became an international box office hit.
When it came to getting invited into a Star Wars story, Frost was fully committed from the moment he got the phone call offering him the role of SM-33. But nothing could have prepared him for seeing the character for the first time. A peg-legged droid with a rat-like creature living in one eye socket, SM-33 boasts a unique new droid design with a backstory we can’t wait to uncover. “It's a dream. Once they show you, ‘Hey, this is what SM-33 looks like,’ and he's a mashed-up robot and he has a rat in his eye? I'm like, ‘Oh my God, I'm so in!’”
As SM-33, or Thirty-Three to his friends, Frost teases that his character’s personality will grow beyond his programming in the series. “He is a charming metal rogue with a heart,” Frost says. “At the same time, he's kind of bad to the bone.” If droids had bones, that is.
Frost took inspiration from the droid’s aesthetic design, but didn’t let it define him. “I love the fact that he looks really scary and fearsome, and despite how he looks, the kids still like him,” he says. “He looks like a horrible pirate. And I think to make him nice and cheeky and lovable and a character that people will warm to, that was a nice thing for me to try and do.”
As for the creature poking out of his head, Frost always likened their relationship to “a Star Wars Ratatouille…I think a lot of the whimsy that he finds is him malfunctioning and kind of enjoying it. I always imagine that it makes his brain tickle and you can hear him laughing to himself in his quarter sometimes at night,” Frost says. “A robot with a rat inside its brain? I've been watching films for 50 years and I hadn't seen that.”
And the weight of the Star Wars legacy — also approaching 50 years since the first film debuted — isn’t lost on Frost. “You’re the guardian of something that people hold really dear,” he says. We trust Frost to make SM-33 a memorable and beloved new addition.
Read Jude Law’s introduction to Jod and check back here for more insights and introductions from the stars of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew later this month.
All episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew are now streaming, only on Disney+.
