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.
