Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead is on its way to Netflix, and it’s bringing a diverse ensemble of zombie killers conducting a heist in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. Screen Rant was fortunate to visit the Atlantic City, NJ set of Army of the Dead in October 2019 to learn about the film and interview the cast and crew, including Raul Castillo.
Snyder’s return to the zombie genre promises to up the stakes in every way. The zombie heist mashup in Vegas is promising enough on its own, but add in the mysterious Area 51 zombie origin, the smarter, faster alpha zombies, and the ticking clock of the government planning to nuke the city before the team can get out, and Army of the Dead is shaping up to be quite a thrill ride.
Castillo plays Guzman, a YouTuber and social influencer who builds his audience by uploading videos of his crazy zombie kills. While he’s intimately familiar with dispatching zombies, he lacks in actual combat experience, so he makes for an odd member of the zombie-killing heist team assembled to enter Vegas. He revealed a little bit about his character when we sat down to chat with him on set.
So what can you tell us about your character without getting in trouble?
I don’t know what I can tell you about my character without getting in trouble. I’ll say that he’s very different from me. I’ll put it that way. He’s an essential part of the team. He’s a Las Vegas native. He’s one of the only ones in this film. He’s actually from Las Vegas.
He’s a big social media guy?
Yeah, he’s an influencer. He’s got a following he’s building up. He’s quite proud of that.
Is that fun to play with?
Yeah, very much so. I mean, it’s not my kind of thing, but it’s interesting to play with, I can say that.
Were there any real-life YouTube Stars you used for inspiration?
No, there wasn’t any kind of real-life… Because it’s like a world we don’t… It’s zombies, and, you know. No, there weren’t any.
I understand you get to kill some zombies and some creative ways. Is that a lot of fun?
Yeah, very fun. that was fun. I feel like I’m some ways I’ve been rehearsing for this film since I was a boy. I rehearsed for this movie so much in my youth. So much of what we get to do on the film, it was stuff I was infatuated with as a kid. So, yeah, getting do all the action stuff, a lot of it was new for me, so it was a lot of fun, and learned a whole new skill set, for sure.
Did you get to have any input on the creative ways that your character kills zombies?
Not in the way that he kills zombies, but Zack let me… He really let me be creative with the character and the look and working with the costume team and hair and makeup to create this look and he empowers his actors in that sense. But as far as killing? It’s mostly scripted oh, but it’s fun.
So you got hash marks here on your custom, is that your…
My kill count? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, my character takes pride in the manner in which he kills and his ability to kill.
Is he sort of a fish out of water with the other guys being more hardened military?
Yeah, exactly. He doesn’t have a military background. He’s more… He’s an amateur, let’s put it that way. An amateur zombie killer.
Are you videoing yourself the entire time?
Not the entire time, no. No. But he does video himself. He has a subscriber base that he talks to on a regular basis.
So he is trying to monetize the mission?
Oh yeah. Not the mission, per se, but his zombie-killing abilities, yeah.
Does he have a camera with him on the mission?
Yeah, but he doesn’t pull it out. I mean, I have my phone in the whole time. But there’s, like… he doesn’t pull it out much. He doesn’t have time to, really.
Can you explain the dynamic with Chambers? Cuz she comes with your character.
Yeah, Zack and Shay have done such a great job of… they give you a lot with a little. They sort of give you these little kernels of information on the background of these characters. They have a sort of brother-sister dynamic. She’s like his little sister in a sense. They’re like family. They are on the mission together in a lot of ways. They’re like a unit, very much so. Samantha Win is playing her character, so obviously, she’s done all of Zack’s movies since Sucker Punch and she comes from the stunt world and she’s a big martial arts stunt background, so this is one of her most extensive acting gigs and it was kind of neat to get to experience it with her because she taught me a lot about the stunt world and I was able to illuminate a little bit of the acting world. We got along quite well in that sense.
You got a big smile on your face just talking about the movie. Can you talk about the vibe of this project? It seems like Zacks having fun.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s great. I mean, the cast is outstanding. It’s obviously an ensemble film and it’s this group of people who come from different disciplines, different backgrounds, and different countries. Different sort of levels of expertise and there’s sort of a joy that we get in getting to observe each other’s approaches to work. It’s quite different, and it’s fun. It’s fun. It’s fun killing zombies. I hate guns, I don’t like guns. I really do, but I got to have fun in the sort of fantastical world of zombie killing.
Key Release Dates
- Army of the Dead (2021)Release date: May 21, 2021
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