Fans have just days to wait to see Harry Potter star Nick Frost and Jordan Gray in a new hit sitcom.
The 53-year-old actor, who will be playing Rubeus Hagrid in HBO’s Harry Potter revival, takes the lead opposite transgender icon Jordan in Transaction – which she originally wrote as a series of Comedy Central shorts.
Nick and other adult actors have come under fire after signing onto the Potter series, due to J.K. Rowling’s comments about the trans community.
In the new show, supermarket boss Simon (Nick) sparks backlash in the LGBTQ+ community after a marketing campaign goes badly wrong.
He employs transgender woman Liv (Jordan) in a bid to turn things around, but he soon faces another struggle as she’s described in the synopsis as someone who ‘ticks the diversity box, but not much else’.
ITV teases: ‘Despite a non-existent work ethic, it’s pretty much impossible for Liv to get the sack, encouraging her to wreak havoc on the supermarket night shift.’
The series launches on June 24 on ITVX, where all episodes will be available to stream.
‘My one true goal with this show is to create something as timeless as my implants,’ Jordan quipped when the show was announced.
And executive producer Kenton Allen said at the time: ‘Transaction promises to be a very eye-catching contemporary comedy, with Jordan Gray, Nick Frost and Thomas Gray forming an unlikely but electric three-some.
‘Jordan’s razor-sharp writing and timing paired with Nick’s legendary comedic presence is comedy dynamite.’
The comedy is based on her former six-part series of shorts of the same name for Comedy Central, which followed the same plot.
She told Gay Star News in 2020 that she wrote the piece as a away of creating a character who was a ‘regular tit-for-brains, not some tragic hero’.
Jordan, 36, rose to fame as The Voice’s first transgender contestant in 2016, making it to the semi-finals before moving into comedy, appearing on the likes of The Russell Howard Hour and Friday Night Live.
On the later in 2022, she performed her song Better Than You about life as a transgender woman, and stripped naked to play the piano with her penis.
Nick was recently forced to respond to backlash facing the Harry Potter show and wider franchise over its creator’s comments, which some have deemed as transphobic.
In a recent interview with The Observer, the Shaun of the Dead star insisted he does not share Rowling’s views.
‘She’s allowed her opinion and I’m allowed mine, they just don’t align in any way, shape or form,’ he said.
He also argued that the controversy and backlash might not be something people should want to ‘blow over’ for the sake of the wizarding franchise.
Asked if it could ‘overshadow the series’, he replied: ‘I don’t know. But maybe it shouldn’t blow over? We shouldn’t just hope it will go away, because it makes it easier. Maybe we should educate ourselves.’
Nick will be following in the footsteps of late actor Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, and he’s not concerned with filling the character’s giant shoes.
‘You get cast because you’re going to bring something to that. While I’m really aware of what went before me in terms of Robbie [Coltrane]’s amazing performance, I’m never going to try and be Robbie,’ he told Collider.
‘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.’
He added: ‘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.
‘He’s funny! I want it to be funny and cheeky and scared and protective and childlike. That’s what I’m planning on doing.’
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