George A Romero's Land of the Dead Interview John Leguizamo (Cholo) INTERVIEWER Do your zombies move differently from the zombies in the recent Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead? JOHN LEGUIZAMO What makes it so amazing to work with George Romero is that he really loves this zombie world. Zombies have to move slowly because they're decomposed and they're dead.  He doesn't tell each extra how to walk because he wants everybody to be individual and he's found that if he tells everybody, everybody starts to look exactly the same.  So this way everybody comes up with their own personality. INTERVIEWER Who do you play in the story? JOHN LEGUIZAMO I play CholoCholo, this zombie killer. There's a group of us in a post-apocalyptic world that is mostly populated by zombies and there's a few little enclaves of humans. Dennis Hopper's character runs one of these enclaves called Fiddler's Green. We, the zombie killers, keep the zombies away and then we get supplies from town which the zombies have taken over. We then bring the supplies back into Fiddler's Green and also protect it. Riley, played by Simon Baker and I, are both zombie killers in this group. We are friends but I'm a little competitive towards him. I feel like he always gets the better way than I do. He gets more recognition. He's the captain, I'm sort of like the co-pilot and I have ego aspirations. INTERVIEWER This is an actual profession you get hired for? To kill zombies? JOHN LEGUIZAMO Yes, we get hired for that. We keep them away from overtaking because there are so many of them. We have to keep the numbers down. INTERVIEWER What role does this truck, Dead Reckoning, play in the film? JOHN LEGUIZAMO It goes into the zombie world and from there we shoot and take the zombies out or get supplies because we're running out of them and all that. So, we use this truck to protect us. INTERVIEWER Could you tell us more about your role? JOHN LEGUIZAMO CholoCholo, is a Chicanoism from L. A., which means like a hip cool guy. INTERVIEWER Why did you do a zombie movie? JOHN LEGUIZAMO He's one of the really greatly respected directors by Quentin Tarantino, Stephen King, the Dawn of the Dead guys, and everybody. Everybody loves him and it's because he put politics into it and mixed it with commentary and humor. He has a sense of humor about it. Night of the Living Dead had political overtones and this one does too. It has an operatic kind of thing going on because he is parodying the situation of the haves and have mores in America. INTERVIEWER Did you grow up watching the trilogy of the Dead? JOHN LEGUIZAMO Night of the Living Dead was my favorite scary, freak-me-out, cool movie ever. I mean, that's the first time you ever learned about zombies. That's how I learned about them. INTERVIEWER Did you aggressively go after this part because you wanted to work with George? JOHN LEGUIZAMO I aggressively went after it. I even cut my salary in half. This is the truth. I thought the script had all these great political aspirations in it. The relationships were really complex and it was really about the character.  It wasn't about silly people screaming and all that. There is sort of a political overtone and there's competition between me and my best friend, Riley. I loved all the complexity of everything. INTERVIEWER Do you think people will read the political overtone when watching the film? JOHN LEGUIZAMO Well, it depends on who you are. You get out of a movie what you bring to it. I think a lot of people are going to take a lot out of it. I'm not sure that everyone is going to get the whole political comparison and the satire of it. INTERVIEWER But there's stuff in there for other people? JOHN LEGUIZAMO Yeah, there's plenty for everybody, which is what all great movies have, all the layers. INTERVIEWER Is it the most action-oriented of the films that George Romero has made? JOHN LEGUIZAMO Yeah, it is very action. We are like an action flick too, which I like a lot.  I mean, there's lots of stuff. Next		Home Interviews Antoine Fuqua Interview King Arthur Interview Arv Grewal Interview Asia Argento Interview Behind the Scenes of "War of the Worlds" Bernie Goldmann Interview Clive Owen Interview Dakota Fanning Interview Dennis Hopper Interview George A Romero Interview Greg Nicotero Interview The Hulk Press Conference Ang Lee Press Conference Ioan Gruffudd Interview John Leguizamo Interview Kathleen Kennedy Interview Keira Knightley Interview