John Leguizamo

Tony Teofilo: Why did you want to do a zombie picture? Are you a big fan of George Romero?

JL: I love zombie movies. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was one of the great movies of all time. I think what people love about George’s [movies] is that there’s political satire. And with what George does, there’s a bit of a sense of humor as well. What he did with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD at the time was new, it was so fresh. Scary movies at the time had really bad acting and bad lighting. They were pretty cheesy. He used available light, he used a handheld camera so it looked like a documentary, very naturalistic acting…that made it creepier because it seemed more real. Plausible.

TT: Speaking of political satire, it seems to me that Dennis Hopper’s character is a rather unflattering sketch of George W. Bush. Do you agree?

JL: I don’t know if that was [Romero’s] motive, but that was the same thing that I read into it. It definitely felt like a neo-conservative spin on the haves and have mores. Some French guy said it reminded him of the situation in Paris. Another guy said that he thought the zombies were like illegal aliens.

TT: There’s a big scene in the movie where the zombies cross a river to get to a new country. I didn’t think of it like that until you mentioned it.

JL: What’s amazing is that you can read anything into these movies that you want.

TT: I was a big fan of FREAK. Will you ever return to the stage?

JL: Definitely. I definitely want to do some real theater…maybe a Latin DEATH OF A SALESMAN or a Latin GLENGARRY GLENROSS. And there’s whatever my next one man show will be. I’m waiting for that to be a masterpiece, and then I’ll bring it out. I’ve been writing it for a couple of years…it’s definitely a multiple-character thing. I’m trying to make it a little more sophisticated, a little more complex. It will probably be more political than I’ve ever been, like my man Jon Stewart. I don’t know if I can [do that] but I’ll try.

TT: Where do your sympathies lie politically?

JL: I’m an artist, man. Where do you think I fall? Artists always see both sides of everything. We question our existence. Liberals try to do the right thing, not just the thing to win. And there are consequences to being liberal in the media these days.

TT: Sean Penn, for example. He’s catching hell for being in Iran.

JL: I know. It’s crazy. Why? It’s ridiculous. I’m proud of him, man. He’s brave to stand up and have an opinion? Why can’t he stand up and have an opinion? When I supported Gore, there was a lot of guff [for me]. The opponents are very good at turning something positive into something negative when they’re up against a Democrat. Repulicans have great spin.

TT: I heard Sid the Sloth is going to be returning to the big screen in ICE AGE 2: MELTDOWN.

JL: Yeah. Sid the Sloth is comin’ back. I’m singin’ songs. I got a girlfriend. It’s all good, baby. I still have one more recording to do, that will be the third, but I’m almost done. It comes out in March. I think it’s going to be great. Manny the Mammoth is dating…and my girlfriend is Drea De Matteo, so we have a little S&M sloth thing going on. It’s a bit of a road picture again, but there’s a lot of changes. In the last one, there was sort of a villain…but the villain in this one is much bigger. There’s an environmental threat in a different way, and some danger from…evolving creatures..

TT: So Drea wears the pants in your on-screen relationship?

JL: She can wear what she wants. Or not wear whatever she wants. [Laughs].

TT: From Sid the Sloth to zombie-killin’ madman. How do you think audiences are going to react to LAND OF THE DEAD?

JL: I think they’re going to be scared out of their minds, and disgusted by all the gore…but at the same time, there’s something for [everyone] out there because it’s so political. And it’s well-written.

TT: A hallmark of the zombie genre is an ending that leaves the characters worse off than when they began. Some fans think the end of this movie is too happy. Do you have a response for them?

JL: Well, it’s not really a very happy ending. I mean, it’s certainly not a happy ending for me. [Laughs].

George Romero

George A. Romero is a rare kind of filmmaker: he invented a genre. Sort of. Inspired by Universal’s early monster movies, Romero made a no-budget horror flick called NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The film was a brand new kind of scary because of its realism, and lack of two-bit slapstick melodrama. Countless imitators followed, but none was as scary as the original.

Now, almost forty years later, Romero returns to the big screen with LAND OF THE DEAD. The premise: zombies have been around for awhile. The living have found a way to survive the endless population of cadaverous cannibals, chew-happy cheerleaders, bag-of-bones brass band musicians, and one very special gas station owner. But the scales are about to tip once again…and the fortunes of the living (surprise, surprise) are about to get fragged.

Tony Teofilo: Is this your last zombie flick forever and ever?

GR: I hope not.

TT: Evolution seems to be a bit of a theme this time around. Some of the zombies are sentient in this flick.

GR: Yeah. I think that’s been happening for quite awhile. At the end of DAWN OF THE DEAD there’s a zombie that’s been dragging a gun around, he probably doesn’t even know what it is. But in the end, he grabs the hero’s gun because he decides that it looks like a better gun. And then Bob in DAY OF THE DEAD basically shoots the villain. But it’s all imitative behavior. This time other zombies begin to imitate the lead guy, Big Daddy. There’s something dangerous about them banding together. As far as them becoming sentient, I’ve been working on that for awhile.

TT: Is that a commentary about getting the proletariat off their butts and into action against whatever evil empire is oppressing them?

GR: Of course, there’s always that. I think if Americans would suddenly come back to life, this administration wouldn’t get away with as much as they’re trying to get away with. [Laughs] There’s a little bit of that. You always have to pick what the sub-story is about. I’m just trying to do an impressionistic piece about 9/11 and the post-9/11 era. If you see the movie, you’ll notice the high-rise building (like the twin towers) and the whole idea of being protected by water and these paramilitary troops going out and executing company policy…an army truck driving through a village and mowing everybody down and then wondering why the residents are pissed off. [Laughs]

TT: Looking at Dennis Hopper in this movie, the viewer gets the impression you’re not too sweet on George W. Bush.

GR: Not particularly, no. Dennis is, however. Jesus. EASY RIDER is a Republican, man. Who knew? But it’s cool. We had some very nice discussions about it. And he came to play. The first thing he said was that when people see him play a villain, they expect him to go over-the-top crazy, so he wanted to play the guy like [Donald] Rumsfeld.

TT: I have to be honest. I’m not a horror movie guy. I was surprised how often I laughed as I watched. There’s a lot of humor in what you do. Do people respond more to the gore, or the humor? And why are people so fond of seeing zombies get shot in the head?

GR: Well, I can’t answer that one. I think zombies are easy to get. You don’t need a scientist to explain where these monsters came from. Zombies have become idiomatic. If you say zombie, you know what you’re going to get. I think that makes it easy. I think there’s something sort of rock’n’roll about zombie flicks, too, because they’re rebellious. It’s irreverent.

TT: Are you connecting with a whole new audience, a new generation of zombie lovers?

TT: A lot of people have said that. My stuff, and not only the zombie films, has had an amazing shelf life. Just last year there was a big 4 DVD set re-issue of DAWN OF THE DEAD. I have a 13-year old son, and he and his buddies have seen all my flicks. So it’s not like a new generation. Video has kept a lot of this stuff alive. People are hip to it. They know what to expect. It’s amazing. It’s not just guys my age, or guys that were around in ‘68 and saw the first one. There’s a tremendous young audience as well, thanks to video.

TT: You said that your son has seen your movies. Are you careful to monitor what he watches, or do you leave him to police himself.

GR: We’re getting to that point where I’m starting to leave it up to him. I sort of weaned him on the old famous monsters of filmland stuff…we’d sit around together and watch THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and all the old Universal monster black and white movies, which I thought was a benign way to introduce him to what I do. I never showed him LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.

TT: Should parents be involved in what their kids are watching?

GR: I think to some extent you have to measure it. You have to know the kid, whether or not you think that they’re strong enough, or if they’re going to be too impressionable.

TT: Do you think that violence in the media has an effect on youth culture in general?

GR: I don’t know, man. I have to argue no. This would be an hour-long discussion, and I don’t know if we have time. I don’t think it’s video games or anything like that. I think it’s just parental guidance and family values. If you have a well-adjusted kid from a good family, and they haven’t been abused, there’s no movie or video game that’s going to make that kid go out and shoot up the school.

TT: You don‘t like the dead folks in your movies to be referred to as zombies. Why is that?

GR: In NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, I didn’t call them zombies. I called them flesh-eaters. Ghouls. In the old Universal lexicon, there were movies like THE MAD GHOUL. The ghoul was that other creature who never made it into the limelight. When I made NIGHT, that’s what I was thinking about. And then people said they were zombies, and I said, “No, zombies are those cats from the Caribbean with the big buggy eyes [working] for the crazy guy up in the castle.” It took me awhile to sort of adjust to it. But I’ve gone along with it. The ghoul will make a comeback.

TT: Would you like to do other kinds of flicks? You’ve worked with Stephen King in the past.

GR: I’m working on a new thing with Stephen called THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. Of course I’d love to do other kinds of movies. You don’t come up saying, “I want to make horror movies," you just want to make movies. The problem is, you get typecast more as a director than you do as an actor. The calls that I get from my agents are all for horror scripts. I’ve done a few things on my own that nobody went to see, so that’s another problem. If NIGHTRIDERS had been successful, then maybe I’d get some other kinds of phone calls.

TT: Some folks like the fact that zombie movies end with their characters in more trouble at the end of the movie than they began in. This movie…that’s not so much the case, is it?

It ain’t over. I did that in DAWN, and DAY. In the last three, the principle characters find some kind of end. The world has not changed. It’s just that the main characters are taking off. The reason to do horror…I mean the reason for everything from GULLIVER’S TRAVELS to THEM, is to change the face of what is normal. It’s a tradition in horror films to restore normality at the end. I didn’t want to upset the applecart.

TT: Could we see these characters again in a sequel?

If there’s a sequel soon… I don’t know, man. It’s going to depend on how well this film does. If the film does very well, then there may be some demand for a sequel quickly, which is something that I haven’t done. If we had to do that, I’d probably think of it as part two of the same movie after a brief intermission. If not, I’ll probably wait for the political climate to change and then try to sell another one.

LAND OF THE DEAD creeps its way into theaters on June 24th, 2005.

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