By Max Evry in New York
Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you survived the imminent zombie apocalypse? Wonder no further, as director Ruben Fleischer has crafted a tale that illuminates the harsh realities of life in a world where 99% of the population has turned into walking flesheating corpses. Life in this world is harsh, dog-eat-dog, and ceaselessly threatening. Oh yeah, and it’s frickin’ hilarious too.
In Fleischer’s “Zombieland” our hero is played by the natural born zombiekiller himself, Woody Harrelson, who portrays Tallahassee, the rugged, trigger-happy hillbilly protagonist who picks up the film’s narrator (Jesse Eisenberg) for a ride through the scenic route of zombiefied America.
Harrelson, who has played good old boys both in his Academy Award Nominated portrayal of the eponymous pornographer in Milos Forman’s “The People Vs. Larry Flynt”, and more recently in Best Picture Winner “No Country For Old Men”, sat down to talk to us in New York about his latest wisecracking country boy character.
Q: This movie has some passing similarities to the British comedy “Shaun of the Dead”. Had you seen it?
WOODY: I think it’s a great, funny movie, but the similarities are that it takes place in a world of zombies, and I don’t really see the other similarities, other than it being a comedy as well. I do like that movie, it’s cool.
Q: You're a badass in this film killing zombies but yet you seem so sweet in real life. Which is the real Woody?
WOODY: I'm a sweet ass if you mix those two together! I'm a pacifist. I really don't like killing, even zombies or God knows I would've had a hey day in the last 8 years [with the Bush administration]. I'm a peaceable guy. I just hang out in bathing suit in Maui and spend a lot of time in the ocean with my kids.
Q: Are we zombie free in the Obama administration?
WOODY: I feel hope with Obama just ‘cause he feels like a man of integrity but whether or not he's gonna be able to get out from under the push and pull of corporate America remains to be seen. That's something I'm not sure politicians are even capable of.
Q: As a vegan, are zombies good for the environment and how many Twinkies did you actually consume as your character is on a search for them throughout the movie and finally gets to eat one?
WOODY: In my mind zombies are pretty ecological because they eat humans who are causing most of the ecological damage. In fact if you think about it it's better for the overall environment if zombies are overrunning the earth. I ate zero Twinkies for the film. I don't take sugar or dairy so that pretty much eliminates all Hostess products from my diet. That was a fake but looked just like a Twinkie. It was mostly corn meal and they had some other yummy stuff in there. I just ruined the movie mystery.
Q: How did you and Jesse improvise together?
WOODY: I gotta say that even when Jesse was auditioning he was improving during the audition. I was excited ‘cause it was really fun stuff right off the bat. When we finally got to shooting it was cool. They really let us improvise. I don’t know how they covered it but they did, somehow!
Q: If your character in this film, Tallahassee, had been in the hotel room with Anton Chigurh in “No Country For Old Men” would the outcome have been any different?
WOODY: (laughs) Yeah, that’s hard to say. It looked like things were pre-ordained. It was hard to talk to the Coen Brothers out of that inevitable kill. I wish I had something fun ny to say. I’m halfway to funny.
Q: Any possibilities for sequels to this film?
WOODY: I think one key thing for when they wanna do a sequel is that the movie is successful, and since this one hasn’t even opened I dunno if they’re gonna talk about a sequel yet.
Q: If you were in a situation like your characters in “Zombieland” where you wouldn’t be accountable for anything and could do whatever you wanted, like trashing a store or living in someone’s mansion, what would you do? With nobody watching?
WOODY: Zombie necrophilia is probably the first thing that pounces to mind.
Q: What are the elements that have to be there in order for you to commit to any given project?
WOODY: Well, I think that the script and the director are the two key things. Gotta have a great script to start, which we had with this, and we had a first-time feature director, Ruben, who we didn’t know. It was a real question mark. Luckily I think he hit it right out of the park.
Q: You did a documentary on a bicycle where you traveled all over the place. Is documentary work something you want to pursue in your future?
WOODY: That one, “Go Further”, meant a lot to me because Ron Mann was the director and he’s a wonderful documentarian. I just thought what he did with it had a wonderful message about ecology and the way I look at the world. Would I do it again? Yeah, I’d like to do one that people actually see!
“Zombieland” opens in theaters everywhere today.