Over thirty years ago, George A. Romero introduced us to the lovable zombie Bub, the surly Captain Rhodes, and contagious cabin fever in Day of the Dead. One of the most memorable entries to the living dead genre, Romero's 1985 movie is the inspiration behind the new reimagining Day of the Dead: Bloodline, which tells a much different story of the zombie apocalypse. With Day of the Dead: Bloodline coming out in theaters, VOD, and Digital HD beginning January 5th via Saban Films, Daily Dead recently had the pleasure of speaking with lead actress Sophie Skelton (Outlander, Ren) about her character Zoe, the legacy of Romero, the new movie's intense take on zombies, and much more.
Thank you for taking the time to talk, Sophie, and congratulations on your new movie, Day of the Dead: Bloodline. I think it's one of the more interesting ones to come out early this year because of its connection to George A. Romero's 1985 film.
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, it's nice to be able to have this reimagining of his Day of the Dead. Arguably, I think it is one of his most known ones. So it was great to be able to have a nod to that, but also to change the story a bit and bring fresh people in and lovers of the original.
How did this project come across your table? What attracted you to the role of Zoe and this whole story in general?
Sophie Skelton: With something like a remake, obviously you have that benefit of knowing what the original was like. So you sort of semi-know what you're getting yourself into, and I really wanted to be a part of what Romero has created. Obviously, zombies are so popular now and he wanted to go further with zombies, so it was wonderful to be a part of his legacy. And then, also, at the beginning of the movie Zoe is quite meek, fearful, shy, and not really comfortable, but then we see her really progress into this strong, sort of headstrong and physically strong woman. It was a great opportunity to be able to play that.
These zombies are very intense and creepy. We're living in a day and age where we see a lot of zombies in pop culture, but it was still interesting to see the zombies in this film, including Jonathan [Schaech] as Max. What was it like working with them on set? Especially Jonathan, who was really interesting.
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, absolutely. There are so many zombies around now. You've got The Walking Dead, which people are very invested in. Romero created the original zombie and he was very much supportive of slow zombies and things like that. I think what's cool about this zombie movie is that we do keep that in Max. We keep Romero's original Bub, but then we do have something that's a little bit different to what people see every day now on The Walking Dead and things like that. These zombies are a little bit faster, and then you have that action, fast zombie mixed with the sort of creepiness of Max, a hybrid half-human, half-zombie. So it's really, really interesting to be able to give people something different when zombies are so popular now. You can still find something that hasn't been done before. I think it's really great.
You get a lot of cardio running from these zombies. It's not a brisk walk.
Sophie Skelton: No, not at all. You need a lot of quads to get away from these ones. And hummers.
Was there any military training or weapon training that you had to go through in preparation for this role? Or was it just improv? Or was there a little bit of both?
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, a little bit of both. I had kind of done a little bit of weapons training before for stuff. And I was doing combat courses and things like that. There's something different with every project you do. There are specific ways to hold a gun and things like that that you want to make sure are right. The thing with Zoe that's different is that she's not 100% military, but she's also not 100% civilian. So, the main bits of training we went through on set were making sure that it was that happy medium where you didn't ever think that she was an Army girl. She had acquired [her skills] from living with these military personnel in the bunker for five years since the apocalypse. So that was the main training that went into that.
Yeah, I love that mix of bunker mentality underground and then going out into the wilderness. It was really gorgeous when you're traveling through the countryside in this movie.
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, Bulgaria's beautiful. Day of the Dead is actually the first time I've been to Bulgaria and I was really blown away by it. The countryside was amazing and driving through the mountains in the Hummers as well was really fun. Having that mixed with the bunker scenes, it was nice to have that 50/50 from being on set and then on location. Bulgaria is a godsend.
What was it like working with Hèctor? He's a director I'm really excited about based on his previous movie, The Corpse of Anna Fritz. It seems like he has a bright future ahead of him as a director.
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, it was interesting because of language barriers. On one day, we could have people speaking Bulgarian, people speaking English, and then obviously Hèctor's Spanish. So he had a translator. But sometimes, things would get a little bit lost in translation, which is always quite funny.
You know when you make a quiet motion to tell someone to speak more quietly? He made that motion to the translator and the translator came over to me and was like, "Hèctor wants you to do the scene more quietly." And I was like, "Oh, okay." And we must've done it about four times again, and still more quietly. And I was like, "Hèctor, I don't think I can say it any more quiet. I wouldn't really be speaking." And the translator came back over and he was like, "No, no, no, by 'quiet' he means 'stand still.'" I was like, "Oh, okay. Let's go again." But Hèctor had a great vision for the movie.
And the other thing as well, which I didn't know, but you know how English and Americans will nod to say yes, and shake our head to say no? In Bulgaria, it's the opposite, so things got very interesting with that.
Sounds like a game of charades.
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, it pretty much was. With zombies thrown in.
You have a lot on your plate with Outlander and I know you have a new movie with Nicolas Cage coming up. Are there any projects on deck that you're excited about that you can tease for our readers?
Sophie Skelton: Yeah, so we're really shooting Outlander in full now, which is great. The finale of season three just happened, and it's all full on now with season four, so that'll be great for your readers. And that's a very action-packed season, too. And then with #211, the same production company from Day of the Dead asked me to come back and play a part in it. So, I play Nic Cage's daughter. That was a really great experience. It's a very different movie, and for my part, anyway, there's no action. It's all a lot more drama-oriented for her. So it was a big change from doing a zombie movie, and that should be out early in 2018.
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Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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