Michael Doherty chats to Dave Bautista, star of Netflix’s zombie drama
With Zack Snyder’s new zombie thriller, Army of the Dead, streaming this week, Michael Doherty catches up with the award-winning writer-director and his leading man, Dave Bautista
Before he became synonymous with CGI blockbusters such as 300 (2006), Watchmen (2009) and Justice League (2017, updated this year), Zack Snyder made his feature lm debut with a remake of the zombie classic, Dawn of the Dead. Seventeen years later, the lmmaker has returned to the undead genre with a big-budget action yarn, Army of the Dead. For the director, revisiting this world has proven a very satisfying experience.
“Dawn of the Dead was my rst movie,” he recalls, “and a er that experience, I really became obsessed with the tone of zombie lms. Zombie movies can combine many di erent genres, but they can also provide social commentary.
I was inspired by movies such as Escape from New York (1981), Aliens (1986) and e ing (1982), as well as many zombie movies themselves. But I really got obsessed with the tropes and the accepted rules of the zombie world. I wanted to create a scenario where you could really play with those rules and those tropes and have a lot of fun. I ended up with this crazy movie and it has been fun and exciting.”
The crazy movie in question involves a group of mercenaries, led by Dave Bautista, perpetrating a Las Vegas casino heist while battling hordes of esh-eating zombies; not to mention zombie animals, including a scenestealing zombie tiger named Valentine. “ere was always going to a zombie tiger,” says Snyder, “and the zombie animals were going to be part of it, because the animals were not immune to the virus. e birds were immune because that would be problematic otherwise! But I really liked the idea of the tiger. I thought that was cool!”
In choosing his cast, Snyder turned to a variety of character actors from a number of countries, with Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) to the fore. “Dave plays Scott Ward, the main guy,” Zack explains, “and he’s the one putting this team together. But there’s also a very important father-daughter element to this movie, in the relationship between Scott and his daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell). Omari Hardwick plays a zombie killer with a philosophical outlook on life; Huma Qureshi plays a mother in a refugee camp inside the quarantine zone; and Nora Arnezeder plays
The Coyote. She’s a character that knows how to get through the walls into Vegas, so she becomes their guide. e outbreak has been contained inside a wall of shipping containers. Hence no zombie birds!”
No zombie birds, but plenty of zombies, and plenty of kick-ass humans, notably Dave Bautista, the former WWE wrestler chosen by Snyder as his leading man. “We needed Dave for this role,” says Zack. “Scott Ward is a dad. But he’s also a badass, a killer. And Dave really navigated that tension beautifully.” Zooming in from his home in Florida, where he has seated himself in front of a portrait of
I want to give audiences interesting characters, not just a guy who is flexing his pecs
Frank Sinatra and Elvis (very Vegas, that), the big man is excited to talk about a movie character that, for once, isn’t solely concerned with knocking seven bells out of fellow cast members. “e rst time I read the script,” he explains, “I was really dialled in on the relationship between Scott and Kate Ward and how it felt like a redemption story, which is not what I initially expected. I thought Scott was going to be a straightforward, predictable, action hero type of character. But when I saw that he wasn’t, and that he had baggage that he was carrying around with him, that gave the character a lot of soul. I really wanted to give people a di erent look at who an action hero could be. Obviously, I look the part physically, but it’s interesting to give an action hero some vulnerability. I think it makes people want to root for him more.”
People have been rooting for Dave Bautista since he rst made the transition from the WWE ring (where he was known as ‘ e Animal’) to the Hollywood screen. He hit the A-list with his portrayal of Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, and subsequent roles have included a Bond villain (Spectre) and a Replicant (Blade Runner 2049). But Bautista’s CV also features an indie yarn (Bushwick), a comedy (Stuber) and a kids’ movie (My Spy). And that’s all part of the actor’s grand plan not to be typecast.
“Honestly, that was always the plan, man,” he explains. “I just really wanted to be an actor. I never set out to be a movie star in huge blockbusters, or a Marvel superhero. I was looking for interesting roles that wouldn’t stereotype me and typecast me, and I’m still looking for those to this day. I have passed up a lot of pay-checks and it’s only in the last couple of years where I’ve felt I de nitely made the right decisions, because now I’m getting roles like this where I’m not just a badass; I’m a father who’s looking for redemption. And that doesn’t happen all the time, especially for guys who look like me and who have come from my type of background. I don’t want to be that predictable ex-wrestler turned actor. I want to give audiences interesting characters, not just a guy who is exing his pecs.”
So what does Dave hope audiences will take away from Army of the Dead?
“ere are a lot of political undertones in this lm,” he says, “many of which I didn’t pick up on when I read the script. I stumbled onto some of them as we were lming. But the real thing that sticks out to me is the diversity of this cast. Everybody is so diverse in their backgrounds and their histories and even their performances, because it’s such an international cast. It’s a great message, a visual message and a subliminal message. We’ve got to get past super cial things like skin colour and our di erent backgrounds, because when you bring a very eclectic group together, you can create magic. As a human civilisation, we’re all very di erent and diverse, but we can come together and conquer a zombie apocalypse; or a pandemic!”