New Hagrid Actor Nick Frost Says He Landed HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Series After Watching All Eight Movies and Writing ‘Hagrid’ Down 7,000 Times

Nick Frost recently told The Guardian that he manifested playing the role of Hagrid in HBO’s upcoming “Harry Potter” series reboot by watching all eight “Harry Potter” movies on television and writing the name “Hagrid” thousands of times by hand. As drastic as that may sound, the universe clearly listened as the “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead” favorite landed the role of Hogwarts’ beloved groundskeeper, previously played by the late Robbie Coltrane on the big screen.

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“I’ve seen all the films. We go through them all as a family during Christmas every year,” Frost told the publication. “We start on December 20. and finish a week and a half later. Before I was cast as Hagrid, my partner suggested trying to manifest it. So last Christmas, I watched all the films back to back on the Sky ‘Harry Potter’ channel, while writing out the word ‘Hagrid’ 7,000 times.”

Speaking to Collider earlier last year, Frost praised Coltrane’s Hagrid performance and told fans not to expect a carbon copy.

“I’m going to try and do something, not ‘different,’ I think you have to be respectful to the subject matter, but within that, there’s scope for minutia,” Frost explained. “I always read Hagrid as he’s like a lovely, lost, violent, funny, warm child. I think the beauty of being able to do a book a season means I get to explore that a lot more, and I can’t wait.”

Original “Harry Potter” director Chris Columbus made headlines last year during an interview on “The Rest Is Entertainment” podcast in which he questioned HBO’s reboot after he saw set photos of Frost as Hagrid.

“So, I’m seeing these photographs… and [Nick Frost is] wearing the exact same costume that we designed for Hagrid. Part of me was like: What’s the point?” Columbus said. “I thought the costumes and everything was going to be different, but it’s more of the same. It’s all going to be the same. It’s very flattering for me, because I’m like, that’s exactly the Hagrid costume that we designed. So, part of it is really exciting, so I’m excited to see what they’re going to do with it. Part of it is sort of deja vu all over again.”

In a separate interview with The Standard, Columbus said he had recently run into Nick Frost and he got honest with him: “ I said, ‘This is very surreal for me — you have to understand, Robbie Coltrane and I were so close.’ So it’s just weird, bizarre.”

HBO’s “Harry Potter” is set to debut sometime in 2027.