On The Red Carpet With Nick Frost And Simon Pegg

It's a righteous geek's paradise under the old shot tower at Melbourne Central. The World's End, the final film in Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's Three Flavours Cornetto triology, is premiering. Like in the first two films, Shaun Of The Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), there are pubs, small English villages, murderous locals, and the kind of genre-bending horror-comedy that has turned these three guys into superstars.

But there's a long wait before we see them. Nothing can happen until Melbourne Central's massive singing clock strikes 6pm and gives us three ear-splitting minutes of Waltzing Matilda.

Things are tense here on the edge of the red carpet. A guy who looks like Dave Grohl's table game-playing brother stands next to me sweating. Across the way a dude wearing make-up, a bow tie, and braces, and holding a fluro microphone twitches. Behind me, about 250 teenagers, some in cardboard robot costumes, cameras at the ready, crane their necks.

Then, out of nowhere, they're here and the place erupts. They're led to a cardboard cut-out pub and microphones, and Wright asks the crowd “is this the shopping centre where Mr Nice Guy was filmed?!” All the Jackie Chan fans say 'yeeeaah!

Wright goes on to explain why they're called the Cornetto films. “When I was at College, I got very drunk on rum one night and in the morning I ate a Cornetto and felt a lot better. It's not medically proven, but in Shaun Of The Dead Nick Frost's character ate a Cornetto on a Sunday morning and it became a theme, and a way of getting free ice cream.”

With such a winning through-line, it seems ludicrous to stop at just three films. “It's the end of this,” Frost interjects, “but it's not the end of us. It means we can move on to other ice-cream related films.”

The three are then consumed by the crowd. They sign autographs and pose for photos. But this little reporter managed to nab a second with Nick Frost, who plays Andrew Knightley. 

What were they were burning to accomplish with The World's End, that they hadn't with the first two films? “I just enjoy working with Simon and Edgar,” Frost says. “It was just really important that we finished three films – that was the important thing to us.”

“It's difficult to get three films funded in the UK – so to get three out that's a pretty cool thing. To make three films that we wanted to make, and to feel like we weren't compromising. It's a hard thing to do,” he says.

They've been working together for over ten years, and it seems the bond between them has only improved. “It just happens subconsciously. It's not like, okay now we have to say this. It just happens.”

And, how does Frost eat a Cornetto? “You go first – slowly, slowly – nibbling all the way down. Then you get to the end, which I like to call 'finishing the Cornetto.'” This is at stark odds with his technique in Hot Fuzz, where he just kind of rams it in there, but I don't raise the point.

Then comes Simon Pegg, who stars in The World's End as 40 year-old Goth, Gary King. The PR lady gives my time for one question.

It's rumoured that when Pegg's asked in interviews about his personal life, he only talks about his dog, 'Mini.' So I go straight for the jugular and ask if Mini misses him when he's away promoting movies.

“I don't know,” Pegg says, “I've never been able to communicate with her on that level, it's something I've been working on. I can kind of tell what she's thinking, but it's mainly when she's hungry.”

“When I get home from tour I guess she's always kind of pissed off with me, she sulks a bit. She always comes up to me going, 'Hey! Hey! Hey!' and then she's always like, 'Oh no, what you've done to me isn't fair' and then she'll go sit in the kitchen and not speak to me.”

And then he's whisked away, followed by a cavalcade of actors, footballers and the screams of fans. So many unanswered questions and no chance to grill Wright. At least I can say I was probably the only person there to ask about Pegg's dog.