Edgar Wright is the luckiest guy to be associated with zombies since George Romero first released them on the world back in 1968. Wright is the co-writer/director of the new horror comedy Shaun of the Dead starring co-writer Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. All three worked on the hit UK sitcom Spaced.
For those of you too stupid or lazy to ever look at the internet here is what Shaun of the Dead is about. Two normal English guys, Shaun [Simon Pegg] is a retail worker at an electronic store is always making excuses to his girlfriend for his lazy drug dealing couch potato friend Ed. But all of that gets put aside when London is overrun by the walking dead. Shaun must now take control of his life and become a leader or become dinner.
Check out the website for Shaun of the Dead
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello Edgar, have you heard of SuicideGirls?
Edgar Wright: I have actually. Eli Roth is a good friend of ours now and he told me about it. He told me he did an interview with SuicideGirls specifically so he could get a password.
DRE: He wouldnt stop emailing me. He said, lets do the interview come on!
EW: Thats funny. SuicideGirls gets a lot of press in the UK.
DRE: How was that dinner with Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth?
EW: It was great. It was me and [producer] Nira [Park]. Then we hung with Quentin the next night as well. The other person that Simon Pegg and I met at San Diego was James Duval from Donnie Darko. Tarantino brought David Carradine to a screening of Shaun of the Dead. They said they were coming but went to the wrong cinema so they showed up 20 minutes late. When we didnt see them sitting there we assumed they werent showing up. But Quentin didnt want David Carradine to see it 20 minutes in so we went to have a drink. We ended having a drink with Caine for two hours. I got drunk with Frankenstein from Death Race 2000.
DRE: A lot of times people think that the creators behind this kind of movie sit around smoking pot, drinking and writing jokes.
EW: That didnt really happen but there may have been a couple of times when we sat in the pub, The Shepard, which inspired that pub in the movie. Im not a big of a drinker as Simon or maybe I should say that I cant hold my drink but I remember sitting in the pub going If we were holed up in here how would we defend ourselves? Pool cues are good, stools are good, hat stands are good, and Molotov cocktails. So we did sit around thinking what we would do in the face of the apocalypse.
DRE: Did you ever read Max Brooks' book, The Zombie Survival Guide?
EW: Not before we made the film. But I did read The Worst Case Survival Guide.
DRE: I heard that George Romero has seen Shaun of the Dead.
EW: We sent him a print and weve spoken to him a number of times. When we sent the print they had to send a security guard from Universal which is very funny. Like George Romero is going to pirate. Wouldnt it be amazing if there was a headline in Variety saying, George Romero sentenced to prison for pirating Shaun of the Dead. Hes never made money off his own films but off Shaun of the Dead he will.
To get a nod from him is like getting a nod from the Pope. A benediction from the zombie king.
DRE: So your television show, Spaced, is very popular over in the UK.
EW: It is, but to put it into context, it gets about half the viewers of The Office which is about 5 million so Spaced gets about 2.5 million viewers. But its big cult hit on DVD.
DRE: When is the Spaced DVD coming out over here?
EW: I dont know because it gets wrapped up in legal stuff because we used a lot of music. The music is so integral.
DRE: Shaun of the Dead gets very serious towards the end. Was that always the way it was going to be?
EW: Yeah because though its predominantly a comedy you spend a lot of time getting to know and love the characters. To treat their demises in a jokey would have descended the movie into camp. We wouldnt call the movie a spoof but it is a horror comedy so the horror is horrible and the comedy is funny. We wanted to literally stick to our guns so when a loved one goes its a nasty thing. We wanted to have the more tragic elements towards the end and we wanted the treatment of the problem and the events to be weirdly realistic.
DRE: I have this conversation with many zombie fans, my building is pretty secure but we would have trouble getting food.
EW: Thats the thing. In the beginning of the film Shaun and Ed are just a couple of lovable losers who go to their neighborhood bar to escape all their troubles with work and their love life then they do the exact same thing when the zombies come. Where do they feel safe? The pub. They can drink there, eat there and there are big locks on the doors. Its a lousy idea.
DRE: When did you come up with the title?
EW: It was pretty early on. At one point it was called Teatime of the Dead then we thought Dave of the Dead sounded too ordinary. It could have been Dwight of the Living Dead, I think Shaun came up as working title then certain people began writing about it and it just stuck. Even though Variety magazine called the title the worst joke in the film I like it now. It shows that we are totally wearing our love for those older films on our sleeve. Its almost intended as a companion piece.
DRE: I really liked the idea that not only is it Romeros rules but it could very well be in the same universe.
EW: Thats what is happening in Pittsburgh and this is whats happening in North London. In the film its not entirely clear whether its a local, national or global thing.
DRE: What made you not want to use the new fast moving zombies?
EW: Slow zombies are like the classic Reebok trainers. You cant have a scene with a fast zombie. You cant walk through a crowd of fast zombies or have a discussion about Princes career if two of them find you.
DRE: Its a small town so I guess theres not as many zombies there.
EW: Its just the beginning of the situation. It is set in London but its North London. Its not the London you see onscreen. Its not Richard Curtis London or Guy Ritchies London but the actual London where most people live because its the suburbs. Its kind of Mike Leighs London, ok its a Mike Leigh film with zombies. Whats great about the slow zombies is that one on one you are alright. If you only keep running they are going to get you, if you get cocky they are going to get you and when you fall asleep they are going to get and thats what great about them, there is a lovely creeping horror to it like quicksand. It always annoys me that you can just run away from zombies just the way the Dalek cant get up stairs.
DRE: You seem like a personable fellow but can you stay focused on a set with people who youve known for years are making very funny jokes? Do you laugh or just say, that was good lets move on?
EW: A bit of both. With such a low budget ambitious film there was never a light day of shooting so sometimes you dont get a chance to muck around with the guys. Its a shame but youve got to get on with it so I go into Kubrick comedy mode, just laser focus! The real bonus is that Simon and Nick not only are best friends in real life but they used to be flatmates so you could not buy their onscreen chemistry.
DRE: Did you ever think about shooting this on video instead of film?
EW: We thought about it but we did the TV show on video so we wanted to do film. When you make a movie you want to do it on film. Im not against digital filmmaking because sometimes it works really well like in the movie The Celebration [directed by Thomas Vinterberg] and Im a big Robert Rodriguez fan but I didnt like the look of the second and third Spy Kids films and I certainly didnt like the new Star Wars film.
DRE: Did you watch any specific movies to prepare for Shaun?
EW: Yes but weirdly enough not zombie films because weve seen those so many times. But we watched things like Assault on Precinct 13, Straw Dogs and The Birds. The Birds has a very similar structure to Shaun in that its a good half hour before it kicks in and you get your first bird attack. We also watched movies that had a lot of setup and payoff like Gremlins, Back to the Future and even Die Hard. The first action scenes in Die Hard dont happen until 40 minutes in.
DRE: The structure of Die Hard is brilliant and thats why people rip it off so much.
EW: Right but they always get it wrong in the rip-offs. They always want to start with a bang which is why there is no explicit violence in the first 25 minutes of Shaun. At the first test screening an executive noticed that the first death went over so well. Then he wanted to cut straight to the first death. We told him that it was because of the buildup.
DRE: I think my favorite scene is when the two groups of people in hiding bump into one another.
EW: Sure in Dawn of the Dead youve got Stephen, Fran, Roger and then in any one mile radius you will have ten others of those groups. There are eight million stories in the naked city. In fact we did comic strips that were origins of the zombies. We did the checkout girl and called it Theres Something about Mary and the guy who has one arm and is dressed as a best man which we called My Best Friends Wedding. Then everyones life intersects and it became like Raymond Carver zombie Short Cuts.
DRE: I read you might be doing an action comedy next.
EW: Thats the idea. Current titles include Hot Fuzz, RosenFuzz and Hard Fuzz.
DRE: So its a movie all about Nicks genitals [co-star Nick Frost shaved his genitals for Shaun of the Dead].
EW: [laughs] We want to do a cop action film in the UK because there has never been one.
DRE: Isnt that because only one in five cops have a gun?
EW: Well you have to be with a special armed unit. Most street cops wear armor but not guns. We want to do an action film without any guns!
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
For those of you too stupid or lazy to ever look at the internet here is what Shaun of the Dead is about. Two normal English guys, Shaun [Simon Pegg] is a retail worker at an electronic store is always making excuses to his girlfriend for his lazy drug dealing couch potato friend Ed. But all of that gets put aside when London is overrun by the walking dead. Shaun must now take control of his life and become a leader or become dinner.
Check out the website for Shaun of the Dead
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello Edgar, have you heard of SuicideGirls?
Edgar Wright: I have actually. Eli Roth is a good friend of ours now and he told me about it. He told me he did an interview with SuicideGirls specifically so he could get a password.
DRE: He wouldnt stop emailing me. He said, lets do the interview come on!
EW: Thats funny. SuicideGirls gets a lot of press in the UK.
DRE: How was that dinner with Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth?
EW: It was great. It was me and [producer] Nira [Park]. Then we hung with Quentin the next night as well. The other person that Simon Pegg and I met at San Diego was James Duval from Donnie Darko. Tarantino brought David Carradine to a screening of Shaun of the Dead. They said they were coming but went to the wrong cinema so they showed up 20 minutes late. When we didnt see them sitting there we assumed they werent showing up. But Quentin didnt want David Carradine to see it 20 minutes in so we went to have a drink. We ended having a drink with Caine for two hours. I got drunk with Frankenstein from Death Race 2000.
DRE: A lot of times people think that the creators behind this kind of movie sit around smoking pot, drinking and writing jokes.
EW: That didnt really happen but there may have been a couple of times when we sat in the pub, The Shepard, which inspired that pub in the movie. Im not a big of a drinker as Simon or maybe I should say that I cant hold my drink but I remember sitting in the pub going If we were holed up in here how would we defend ourselves? Pool cues are good, stools are good, hat stands are good, and Molotov cocktails. So we did sit around thinking what we would do in the face of the apocalypse.
DRE: Did you ever read Max Brooks' book, The Zombie Survival Guide?
EW: Not before we made the film. But I did read The Worst Case Survival Guide.
DRE: I heard that George Romero has seen Shaun of the Dead.
EW: We sent him a print and weve spoken to him a number of times. When we sent the print they had to send a security guard from Universal which is very funny. Like George Romero is going to pirate. Wouldnt it be amazing if there was a headline in Variety saying, George Romero sentenced to prison for pirating Shaun of the Dead. Hes never made money off his own films but off Shaun of the Dead he will.
To get a nod from him is like getting a nod from the Pope. A benediction from the zombie king.
DRE: So your television show, Spaced, is very popular over in the UK.
EW: It is, but to put it into context, it gets about half the viewers of The Office which is about 5 million so Spaced gets about 2.5 million viewers. But its big cult hit on DVD.
DRE: When is the Spaced DVD coming out over here?
EW: I dont know because it gets wrapped up in legal stuff because we used a lot of music. The music is so integral.
DRE: Shaun of the Dead gets very serious towards the end. Was that always the way it was going to be?
EW: Yeah because though its predominantly a comedy you spend a lot of time getting to know and love the characters. To treat their demises in a jokey would have descended the movie into camp. We wouldnt call the movie a spoof but it is a horror comedy so the horror is horrible and the comedy is funny. We wanted to literally stick to our guns so when a loved one goes its a nasty thing. We wanted to have the more tragic elements towards the end and we wanted the treatment of the problem and the events to be weirdly realistic.
DRE: I have this conversation with many zombie fans, my building is pretty secure but we would have trouble getting food.
EW: Thats the thing. In the beginning of the film Shaun and Ed are just a couple of lovable losers who go to their neighborhood bar to escape all their troubles with work and their love life then they do the exact same thing when the zombies come. Where do they feel safe? The pub. They can drink there, eat there and there are big locks on the doors. Its a lousy idea.
DRE: When did you come up with the title?
EW: It was pretty early on. At one point it was called Teatime of the Dead then we thought Dave of the Dead sounded too ordinary. It could have been Dwight of the Living Dead, I think Shaun came up as working title then certain people began writing about it and it just stuck. Even though Variety magazine called the title the worst joke in the film I like it now. It shows that we are totally wearing our love for those older films on our sleeve. Its almost intended as a companion piece.
DRE: I really liked the idea that not only is it Romeros rules but it could very well be in the same universe.
EW: Thats what is happening in Pittsburgh and this is whats happening in North London. In the film its not entirely clear whether its a local, national or global thing.
DRE: What made you not want to use the new fast moving zombies?
EW: Slow zombies are like the classic Reebok trainers. You cant have a scene with a fast zombie. You cant walk through a crowd of fast zombies or have a discussion about Princes career if two of them find you.
DRE: Its a small town so I guess theres not as many zombies there.
EW: Its just the beginning of the situation. It is set in London but its North London. Its not the London you see onscreen. Its not Richard Curtis London or Guy Ritchies London but the actual London where most people live because its the suburbs. Its kind of Mike Leighs London, ok its a Mike Leigh film with zombies. Whats great about the slow zombies is that one on one you are alright. If you only keep running they are going to get you, if you get cocky they are going to get you and when you fall asleep they are going to get and thats what great about them, there is a lovely creeping horror to it like quicksand. It always annoys me that you can just run away from zombies just the way the Dalek cant get up stairs.
DRE: You seem like a personable fellow but can you stay focused on a set with people who youve known for years are making very funny jokes? Do you laugh or just say, that was good lets move on?
EW: A bit of both. With such a low budget ambitious film there was never a light day of shooting so sometimes you dont get a chance to muck around with the guys. Its a shame but youve got to get on with it so I go into Kubrick comedy mode, just laser focus! The real bonus is that Simon and Nick not only are best friends in real life but they used to be flatmates so you could not buy their onscreen chemistry.
DRE: Did you ever think about shooting this on video instead of film?
EW: We thought about it but we did the TV show on video so we wanted to do film. When you make a movie you want to do it on film. Im not against digital filmmaking because sometimes it works really well like in the movie The Celebration [directed by Thomas Vinterberg] and Im a big Robert Rodriguez fan but I didnt like the look of the second and third Spy Kids films and I certainly didnt like the new Star Wars film.
DRE: Did you watch any specific movies to prepare for Shaun?
EW: Yes but weirdly enough not zombie films because weve seen those so many times. But we watched things like Assault on Precinct 13, Straw Dogs and The Birds. The Birds has a very similar structure to Shaun in that its a good half hour before it kicks in and you get your first bird attack. We also watched movies that had a lot of setup and payoff like Gremlins, Back to the Future and even Die Hard. The first action scenes in Die Hard dont happen until 40 minutes in.
DRE: The structure of Die Hard is brilliant and thats why people rip it off so much.
EW: Right but they always get it wrong in the rip-offs. They always want to start with a bang which is why there is no explicit violence in the first 25 minutes of Shaun. At the first test screening an executive noticed that the first death went over so well. Then he wanted to cut straight to the first death. We told him that it was because of the buildup.
DRE: I think my favorite scene is when the two groups of people in hiding bump into one another.
EW: Sure in Dawn of the Dead youve got Stephen, Fran, Roger and then in any one mile radius you will have ten others of those groups. There are eight million stories in the naked city. In fact we did comic strips that were origins of the zombies. We did the checkout girl and called it Theres Something about Mary and the guy who has one arm and is dressed as a best man which we called My Best Friends Wedding. Then everyones life intersects and it became like Raymond Carver zombie Short Cuts.
DRE: I read you might be doing an action comedy next.
EW: Thats the idea. Current titles include Hot Fuzz, RosenFuzz and Hard Fuzz.
DRE: So its a movie all about Nicks genitals [co-star Nick Frost shaved his genitals for Shaun of the Dead].
EW: [laughs] We want to do a cop action film in the UK because there has never been one.
DRE: Isnt that because only one in five cops have a gun?
EW: Well you have to be with a special armed unit. Most street cops wear armor but not guns. We want to do an action film without any guns!
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 21 of 21 COMMENTS
Twwly said:
I must see this movie.
you must also watched Spaced if you haven't already and also Black Books
[Edited on May 06, 2006 by spamtwo]
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