Ed is one of the main characters in the comedy horror Shaun of the Dead. He is the titular Shaun's best friend and has been since primary school, though is a notable slacker, spending his days loafing around playing Timesplitters and dealing drugs, and spending his nights drinking in The Winchester with Shaun. Despite his laziness, Ed can always be counted upon to cheer Shaun up, often by doing an uncanny impression of an orangutan, or silently breaking wind with an expression of utter seriousness on his face. He is played by Nick Frost.
In the beginning of the film, Ed is tasked with taking messages and tidying up the flat a little by Pete. He refuses to do these tasks since it was Pete giving the instructions, but does do it when Shaun asks, though makes a mess immediately afterwards by cracking open a few cans of beer. When Shaun is dumped by Liz, Ed immediately drags his despondent friend down to the Winchester in an attempt to cheer him up, and lays out the plan for the next day: a bloody mary first thing, a bite at The King's Head, a couple at The Little Princess and staggering back to the Winchester for shots, ironically forecasting the events of the film. The following morning, it slowly dawns on Shaun and Ed that something is wrong, as the undead are roaming the streets (and their garden). After laying out a plan to rescue their friends and Shaun's family and get to relative safety (read: The Winchester), they borrow the now zombified Pete's car, which Ed has always wanted to drive and head for Shaun's mum and step-dad's house. Ed purposefully crashes Pete's car so he can drive Philip's Jaguar and they make their next stop at Liz's flat. After Liz, Diane and David are rescued, Philip dies and is reanimated and the gang are forced to abandon the car and head for the pub on foot.
Ed appears thoroughly uninterested during the journey, spending the entire time texting, even when Shaun single-handedly fights off a lone zombie. The gang resort to impersonating the undead in order to pass through the horde outside the Winchester, but Ed blows their cover by taking a call on his phone. After a blazing row, Shaun leads the horde away so the others can get into the pub safely. Shaun later returns, unaware that the dead have followed him back, but they appear to be safe, at least until power is restored and Ed starts making a lot of noise on the slot machine, at which point the dead start trying to break in. The group fight them off after Barbara's zombification and David's graphic death and eventually Shaun and Liz dive behind the bar, which they set on fire. Before Ed can join them, he is bitten in the arm by Pete and in the neck by another zombie. He manages to get behind the bar though and joins Shaun and Liz in the cellar. Rapidly dying, he takes the rifle from Shaun and nobly decides to stay behind saying he'd only slow them down.
As life returns to normal in Britain, Shaun returns to the burned-out Winchester and finds the zombified Ed in the cellar. Shaun leads Ed home and chains him up in the garden shed with a Playstation 2, so whenever he's in the mood, he can join his undead semi-docile best friend in a game of Timesplitters.