'Army of the Dead' Cast Interviews with Dave Bautista, Tig Notaro
The cast of “Army of The Dead” including Dave Bautista (Scott Ward), Tig Notaro (Marianne Peters), Ella Purnell (Katie Ward), Ana de la Reguera (Maria Cruz), Nora Arnezeder (The Coyote), Omari Hardwick (Vanderohe) and Matthias Schweighöfer (Dieter) discuss their new Zack Snyder Netflix film with CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell. Find out Dave Bautista’s “winning” movie formula, the weird weapon Matthias Schweghöffer’s “Army of the Dead” character originally had and more.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 They're not what you think they are.
00:01 They're smarter.
00:03 They're faster.
00:05 They're organized.
00:08 - What is this?
00:11 - It's a goddamn zombie tiger.
00:14 - 100%, I'm in, yeah.
00:17 - There's a version of this movie
00:21 that was shot in the 80s
00:23 that's just a mindless shoot 'em up, you know?
00:25 Soldiers versus zombies in a casino.
00:27 Can you talk about how you guys worked
00:29 on those human moments amidst the carnage
00:31 so that we would care about your characters?
00:34 - Sure, I mean, so that was what drew me to this film
00:38 because initially when I heard about the film,
00:41 I thought it sounded interesting,
00:42 but I wasn't, as a performer,
00:45 I wasn't interested in the project
00:47 because I was really looking for roles
00:49 that would afford me the opportunity to perform
00:52 and be an actor and do some dramatic stuff.
00:54 I wanted to showcase my range as an actor.
00:58 And a lot of times you just can't do it
01:00 when you're playing an action hero.
01:02 So I thought that's what the film was.
01:04 And then I was asked to read the script and I did,
01:05 and I started looking at it differently.
01:07 And I started looking at the character
01:09 of Scott Ward differently
01:11 because I realized that everything else,
01:14 you know, the zombie apocalypse,
01:16 the heist aspect,
01:19 there was all kind of backdrop
01:21 to the real heart of the story,
01:23 which was a redemption story
01:25 between Scott Ward and his daughter.
01:27 So I looked at it like that and I focused on that.
01:30 And I had the conversation with Zach about,
01:33 you know, diving in deeper to this character
01:36 and making it even richer,
01:37 and making him even more emotional
01:39 and giving him more depth.
01:41 And Zach said he would allow me the freedom to do that.
01:43 And he actually welcomed it,
01:45 which is why he wanted me to play the role.
01:47 And so I was like, man, sign me up
01:49 'cause that's what I'm after.
01:50 Like I get to do, like accomplish a lot of things
01:53 in this film.
01:54 Like I get to be that badass,
01:55 but I also get to be like an emotional guy,
01:57 an unpredictable action hero,
01:59 you know, which you don't see a lot
02:00 because you usually know what you're gonna get
02:02 with an action guy.
02:03 But if you give him some heart,
02:04 give him some depth,
02:05 and think outside the box,
02:06 and think this guy's a human,
02:08 and you get people to invest in him emotionally,
02:11 then people get invested in the film emotionally
02:13 'cause they're invested in the story.
02:15 And that's what you do to make a successful film.
02:17 Take people on a rollercoaster,
02:18 get them involved.
02:20 And you know, every once in a while,
02:21 just, you know, make them laugh.
02:23 You make them laugh, you make them cry,
02:24 you scare them a little bit,
02:26 and you give them a very strong ending
02:27 that leaves them wanting more.
02:29 And that's like a winning formula.
02:31 - That would work.
02:32 - Copy that.
02:33 - I have learned over the years
02:34 that in a zombie movie,
02:36 a weapon can seriously define a character.
02:39 You both use very distinct weapons, Amari, especially you,
02:42 and your glorious saw.
02:43 I'm curious if you guys had any input
02:45 into the type of weapons you got to use in the movie.
02:48 - Matisse, you wanna go first, brother?
02:51 - Yeah.
02:52 You know, first, because my character
02:54 is a very nerdy and special character,
02:56 but a very handsome dude and a heartful guy,
02:59 but he trained, you know, he's from Germany,
03:02 and he started to train with a weapon.
03:04 It was a fork and a spoon.
03:06 So that was the first idea of having these weapons,
03:11 you know, prepped for my character.
03:13 - Of mass destruction.
03:15 - Yes.
03:16 [laughing]
03:20 Can you imagine with the spoon?
03:22 Yeah, but then I was so lucky when I read
03:26 that he has a bat, you know,
03:27 like this bat with nails, right?
03:31 So thank God.
03:34 - Yeah.
03:35 We both have pretty cool characters, obviously,
03:38 but the weapons of choices
03:40 that we can't really take credit for,
03:43 again, championing the thought
03:46 or the sentiment of my castmate in Matisse,
03:49 we couldn't really say,
03:51 because Zac had created these characters
03:53 to be so different,
03:54 and I think part of that was that he wanted to accent that
03:57 in those characters, of course,
03:58 with a specific, you know,
04:01 tool of use for all these characters.
04:03 So Matisse did have that bat that he had to graduate to.
04:07 So, you know, there's a little wrinkle in that.
04:09 He had to graduate to the bat.
04:11 And I digress in saying that I had to, in many ways,
04:15 regress and go, you know,
04:16 go back to a place that I wanted to get away from.
04:19 And that being to get away from this obvious,
04:24 truly weapon of mass destruction
04:26 that I basically buried, you know,
04:28 into a sort of trash can of sorts,
04:31 and then buried that under the ground.
04:32 And so I had to reconjoin, you know,
04:35 with my partner in crime.
04:37 My line is a blanket of sorts, is my chainsaw.
04:40 And then Matisse's, of course,
04:41 is that thorn bat that he graduated to.
04:44 - Zombies, shamblers, the undead,
04:46 whatever you want to call them.
04:47 When it comes to killing them,
04:49 it's all about the brain.
04:50 - What if I took a big rock and smash it into the hand?
04:53 Would that work?
04:55 - Yeah.
04:57 - Where do you want to see Zack go next
04:59 to unleash a zombie apocalypse?
05:00 Where would be the perfect place to send Zack Snyder
05:04 and his undead machines?
05:06 - Paris!
05:07 Sorry.
05:08 Take.
05:09 (laughing)
05:11 - How about into the wild, wild, old times?
05:18 - Wild, old timey west.
05:20 - I did a movie before called "Cowboys and Aliens"
05:22 and that didn't work that well, so I'm not sure.
05:24 - Anna, stay out of this, please.
05:27 And if that doesn't work, if that doesn't work,
05:30 then out to sea.
05:31 Yes.
05:32 - And Nora Paris, of course.
05:33 We'll circle back.
05:34 - Yeah, it's a love story.
05:36 Can I pitch it to you?
05:37 - Sure.
05:38 (laughing)
05:39 - So it's a love story about this French person
05:43 who feels really lonely.
05:44 And one day at New Year's Eve, she walks,
05:49 I don't know what I'm going to say,
05:53 but I'm going to find something.
05:55 - How much of this have you found?
05:57 - A lonely woman in France walks.
06:00 - She meets a zombie.
06:01 She meets a zombie, okay?
06:03 And she falls in love with him.
06:05 And they fall in love, but it's an impossible love story.
06:08 - I hope Netflix is listening to this.
06:10 - In 1930s.
06:13 - Where do I sign?
06:15 - You know, I never saw a movie, like a zombie movie,
06:18 like in the deep, deep, deep, deep ice cold surrounding
06:22 from Greenland.
06:24 I think this would be like really interesting,
06:26 you know, white and bloody.
06:28 - That's freaking awesome, bro.
06:30 You just wrote 45 pages right there.
06:32 Wow, Matias.
06:35 - That's heavy, brother, but I dig it.
06:38 - And I was lucky enough to go to Atlantic City
06:40 and watch you guys shoot for the day.
06:42 And I was blown away by how much practical stuff
06:45 you had in front of you.
06:46 How much, you know, how much the location played
06:48 into having the casino there.
06:49 How important was it to you to have that practicality
06:52 versus miles of green screen?
06:54 - It's a luxury because I've, you know, I've worked
06:59 and I've worked in, you know, obviously I've worked
07:02 in a lot of green screen stages with working with Marvel.
07:06 I've worked with characters that weren't there.
07:09 I've acted with tennis balls
07:10 and I've acted with stuffed animals.
07:12 So anytime, you know, as a performer,
07:14 especially when you're sucked into scenes
07:17 that just require a lot of intensity,
07:19 it's just always a luxury to have practical things like that.
07:23 And not only that, but you mentioned that the casino,
07:25 'cause it was all real, it was all there.
07:27 It's all things that we got to play with,
07:29 but also like the alpha zombies that were after us,
07:32 all the athletes, you know, made up as zombies.
07:35 There's because it's something special.
07:38 It adds something different when you have all these,
07:41 like incredible athletes that are able to do
07:42 these inhuman things and you don't have to, you know,
07:47 just kind of use your imagination and use, you know,
07:49 rely on something that's gonna happen after the fact
07:52 and post with CGI.
07:54 Like they're actually there.
07:54 You can see them or you can react to them
07:56 and they're terrifying.
07:58 So we were fortunate enough to have those types
08:01 of performers with us and not have to rely on,
08:04 you know, CGI zombies.
08:07 We were actually living upstairs.
08:10 Like we were living in that same hotel, which was abandoned.
08:13 And we just come downstairs to shoot.
08:16 But that was kind of weird.
08:20 I was just trying to be out of that casino
08:22 as much as I could.
08:24 But it was great.
08:26 It really gave us that, you know, environment
08:29 and it was easier to shoot
08:31 and to imagine everything, of course.
08:33 - My gosh, it was so impressive,
08:35 the work that was done by the-
08:36 - Yeah, incredible.
08:37 The production design in this movie is, you know, amazing.
08:42 - These sets, we had incredible set designers,
08:46 incredible set designer and her team.
08:48 So pretty freaking amazing.
08:51 But equally, there are those moments
08:52 where you actually need that thing.
08:55 And so to be in Atlantic City and to know
08:58 that this is actually what we would have been feeling
09:01 had we been in Las Vegas, it's priceless to have that.
09:04 You know what I mean? It's priceless, for sure.
09:06 - Was there a division on the set, in the cast,
09:09 between the actors who had to spend all their time
09:11 in the makeup chairs, getting ready to be turned
09:13 into the zombies versus the actors who could just show up
09:16 and start their scenes?
09:18 - Well, first of all-
09:19 - I feel like you're just talking about men versus women.
09:21 (laughing)
09:23 - Yeah, I mean, the zombies,
09:25 the actors who were playing zombies,
09:26 they would stay hours and hours on the makeup chair.
09:31 - And Ana, you had a scene where you had
09:35 a lot of prosthetics.
09:37 How long did it take you?
09:40 - It took me like four hours.
09:41 And like I said, I was that day in the trailer
09:44 with all the zombie actors, and I was blown away
09:49 that they had to go through that every single day.
09:51 We were already complaining about,
09:53 "Oh, makeup, an hour of makeup."
09:55 And this was like four hours.
09:56 So yeah, they were amazing.
09:59 - Totally worth it.
10:00 - And during the day, they were trying to kill us on set.
10:04 And at night we were having cocktails with them.
10:06 So, you know.
10:08 - That's crossing the line.
10:10 (dramatic music)
10:12 - Matias, can you tell me something cool
10:23 that we're gonna learn about your character
10:24 in "Army of Thieves"?
10:26 - Oh yeah, he's still very funny and nerdy.
10:31 That's for sure.
10:32 It will be very entertaining.
10:34 And we will see a lot of heist scenery,
10:39 which you never seen before.
10:42 So watch out.