Ziering caught in Sharknado’s net
MEXICO CITY — The memes and mockery abound, but Sharknado has conquered audiences, netted dozens of celebrity cameos such as George R.R. Martin, NeYo and Kelly Osbourne, and has turned into an annual event. The fifth instalment of the TV movie series about airborne sharks with new celebrities and international settings.
“As a viewer I appreciate it because it’s fun, it’s escapism, it’s pure entertainment. But how do you explain it? I don’t know,” said series star Ian Ziering, who along with Tara Reid fights a tornado of sharks with a chainsaw. “Major motion picture studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to capture some of whatever it is that makes our little Sharknado movie globally popular.”
“It’s kind of like the secret sauce: No one really knows for sure. I wish I knew, I would be making my own movie,” he said with a laugh.
Sharknado: Gobal Swarming premieres Sunday on Space. It finds Ziering’s Fin Shepherd, an expert in “sharknados,” called upon by governments around the world to fight the crazy phenomenon.
Filming took the cast and crew to Europe, Asia and Australia. This year’s cameos include Olivia Newton-John, Bret Michaels, Clay Aiken, Charo and the Mexican weather personality Yanet Garcia.
“Now that we’ve become a global movie it’s not just people who want to be in the movie, there’s countries who have solicited,” Ziering said.
The plot has been nonsensical from the beginning and has creat- ed many memes on the web. Even Ziering found it ridiculous at the beginning.
“When I read the first Sharknado movie, I thought It was terrible. I told my wife that I couldn’t do this movie, that it would be the end of my career,” said the actor, who starred in the popular ’90s TV series Beverly Hills, 90210.
“I am an actor, but my most important job is provider of my family. I didn’t have very much confidence in the movie, but I did it anyway to provide for my family.”
The love of the fans has led to a yearly instalment since 2013, all of them directed by Anthony C. Ferrante.
At this point the only way Ziering would stop being part of Sharknado would be “if Fin Sheperd ever got eaten and is not able to chainsaw his way out of the shark.”