George A Romero's Land of the Dead Interview Asia Argento (Slack) INTERVIEWER Did the fact that your father Dario Argento co-produced George A. Romero's landmark Dawn of the Dead (1978) have any influence on you being cast in Land of the Dead? ASIA ARGENTO Not at all, although Dario was thrilled I was going to be in it. I first met George when I was 14 years old. He and my father co-directed the Edgar Allan Poe anthology movie Two Evil Eyes (1990) in George's hometown of Pittsburgh. I met Tom Savini, the special effects and make-up star, at that time as well. Then I met George again in Budapest, Hungary, when I was starring for my father in The Phantom of the Opera (1998). George was in town scouting locations for a Poe TV movie that was never made (“The Raven”). We had a meal together.  It's not like my father and George speak to each other every day, although they love and respect each other's work. It just so happened that George wanted to cast me in his last two projects, but neither of them worked out. INTERVIEWER What were those two projects? ASIA ARGENTO One was titled The Ill, a modern day vampire story with an AIDS angle. The other was called Diamond Dead, a zombie musical written by Richard Hartley (the musical arranger for Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and co-writer of the lyrics and music for its sequel Shock Treatment). It's a great script about a female singer who joins a rock band, but just as they are about to be on the brink of stardom, she causes an accident that kills them all and then makes a pact with Death to bring them back as zombies. I really hope that we can still do that movie together, although I'm not a proper singer by any stretch of the imagination! When I started directing my second feature, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2004), George and I spoke about the possibility of Land of the Dead. Later, when it suddenly received the green light, George offered me a leading role. That was all done through my agents. We never actually spoke on the phone because I was making Last Days (2005) with director Gus Van Sant. Obviously, I read the script, which I felt was solid and fun. It really worked.  The first time I saw George again after our initial meeting in Budapest was on the first day of shooting Land of the Dead in Toronto.   INTERVIEWER Did Jurassic Park inspire you in the look you were going for with Dead Reckoning?   ASIA ARGENTO That was a bit more high tech.  Actually we went more for the Death Ray 2000 end of it. A little bit of Alien and so forth.  The interior, you never knew what anything did.  There are hoses and pipes everywhere. That element added to the eeriness. We also have a scene where this legless zombie gets into it. We wanted to show a bit of vulnerability to it. It's a piece that supposedly one couldn't get into.  So the idea was that things would break down in the Dead Reckoning.  A lot of it's held together by duct tape. So, it's not a slick machine by any means. It could actually break down.  We tried a great deal to make the interior and the exterior work seamlessly coming in and out of it. That was a tough challenge because you build it on the set and then try to get it on the truck that's a little bit smaller. This interior set is a little bit larger than the Dead Reckoning exterior truck. INTERVIEWER How much did growing up in Italy with the world famous horror director of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and Suspiria (1977) as a father shape your personal affinities today? ASIA ARGENTO Well, I have certain aesthetics, but I don't know if they come from my father or mother (actress Daria Nicolodi).  My sisters, Fiore and Anna, didn't turn out like me. I was always hungry for information. I wouldn't call myself a Goth.  Well, maybe in the Eighties when I was nine years old - I liked The Cure, and I would dress in black.  But, overall I never belonged to any one fashion or group. INTERVIEWER There are two distinct versions of the original Dawn of the Dead. One was the cut your father oversaw for the Italian release, and the other was George's un-rated version for America. What's your opinion of both of them? ASIA ARGENTO I only watched my father's version throughout my childhood because it was the only available option, and I liked it a lot. There were a few occasions where I would watch it five times a day because it was one of the forbidden movies, and of course, it was always one of my favorites. It wasn't until much later that I finally saw George's version with all the dark humor that my father had left out.  I like George's version, too. I may even like it more because it develops in a different way, and it's less rushed. INTERVIEWER You play Slack in Land of the Dead. What can you say about the plot of the film and your role? ASIA ARGENTO Events have progressed to a breaking point since we last saw the zombies in Day of the Dead (1985), and they have taken over the world as the dominant species. There are only a few remaining remnants of the human race, in a fortified city built to protect them from the creatures outside. Slack is a girl who was originally trained to work in the military, but then the ruler of the city, Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), decides that they would make more money off of her by turning her into a hooker. We see her for the first time in a gladiator-like arena with zombies and people betting on who's going to eat her first. That's my favorite scene in the movie. She's saved by Riley (Simon Baker), the hero, and becomes part of the zombie killing team. The action in Land of the Dead takes place all in one night, so it's not as if Slack is going to change dramatically as a character. She's very tough in the beginning, and then she develops feelings for the people she works with. She's always watching Riley's back because he saved her life. INTERVIEWER It sounds like a very physical role? ASIA ARGENTO It's the most physical role I've ever played. I did all of my own stunts in the scenes where I fight the zombies. I didn't use any stunt doubles. I trained with a kung-fu master. That's not alien to me as I studied martial arts grappling when I was a young girl, and I used to compete. I trained for ten years in boxing. I took up the sport for my role in The Stendhal Syndrome (1996). My father originally wanted me to become a kung-fu black belt for my part as a police officer, but I changed it to boxing after an ardent fan punched me in the street one day, and I swore no one would ever do that again and get away with it. It was a challenge, but one I liked, even though it was hard to train for three hours a day when we were shooting at night in Toronto. I was so tired sometimes. The physical side was far more of a challenge than the mental one.  When I read the role for Slack, I knew I had to play up the toughness to be totally believable. Slack is not an idiot; she happens to be a very bright girl.  In addition, because she was a soldier, she's good with guns, and she's a great shooter. I loved playing around in the Dead Reckoning truck. Who wouldn't want to control that zombie killing machine? For some reason, strong women roles are all I'm offered, but I don't aspire to the weak women roles. I did play a couple of them early on in my career, but I'm not sure they were all that credible. 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