Every heist needs someone who can secure the money. In Army of the Dead, that's Dieter, a German safecracker who gets recruited to help Scott Ward and his team steal $200 million from a bank vault in Las Vegas. There's just one catch: the whole city is filled with flesh-eating zombies. But what's a great reward without a little risk -- especially if that means he can gets to crack the Mona Lisa of all vaults?
Speaking to CBR, Army of the Dead star Matthias Schweighöfer introduced Dieter and his unconventional approach to the zombie apocalypse. He explained why he knew Dieter had to do "everything wrong" in order to bring some levity to the film, as well as how he learned a lot about directing from Zack Snyder. He also broke down Dieter's relationship with Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), why he would never survive a zombie apocalypse in real life and more.
CBR: What drew you to Army of the Dead?
Matthias Schweighöfer: To be honest, on the first page, it was written -- on the first page of the draft -- it was written, "Directed by Zack Snyder," and "Story and the script by Zack Snyder." So I thought, "That's really interesting," because I was a huge fan! I'm still a huge fan of Zack's and Zack's work, and I thought, "Hey, one day, I could be a star in a movie of Zack Snyder!" So that was really interesting.
And then I love the whole zombie genre. I'm a huge fan of it. It sounded so entertaining that I crossed all my fingers, and I made e-tape. I sent it to my agent in America, in Los Angeles, and I waited for a response, and one day, Zack called me and said, "You're in, my friend! You are Dieter."
Was working with Zack everything you dreamed it would be?
Oh, yeah! To be honest, I was very nervous every day, because I was like, "Oh my god, this is Zack Snyder! Oh, my God, there's Dave Bautista. Whoa, what's going on? Oh, my God, Omari Hardwick! Oh, Ella Purnell! Ha ha!" Really, it was so exciting. Dave became a friend, and especially Zack, now. I love Zack so much.
It was, really every day, so entertaining and so inspiring and so interesting to learn from him, from his whole career as a filmmaker. Yeah, that was great. Even to talk to Zack about lenses, you know? Just the lens. Why did you choose this lens, and why did you choose this camera? And that was great. Paid school. Paid film school!
If you had to introduce Dieter to your friends, what would you tell them about him?
Look, there will be a wonderful, very heartful, good-looking, handsome human being around in the next few minutes. Maybe he is a bit nerdy. He is focused on things that can, yeah, maybe bring you to jail or have a conflict with the government, so never take him out into a bank first. Just be nice and try to like him. So that's what I would say. But first of all, I would say, "He's very handsome."
Aside from his handsomeness, which aspect of the character do you relate to and why?
Never show him the interior of a bank! No, I'm kidding. I think, to be honest, to you have a great passion for something. That's what we have in common. I always love, when you really love something and you're so passionate about this little thing that it really breaks your heart and it's very warm. Because you see, "Hey, there is this guy or girl that, ah, he loves the small things." Even for a small thing, it's huge! It's a whole universe for this guy. So yeah, that's what we have in common.
What was it like for you to be the comic relief among a cast of rather serious characters?
It was always interesting, because in Germany, I directed a lot of comedy movies, and comedy is such a difficult thing to do, because it's about timing; it's about choreography. You cannot hit all the right points for people, that they laugh at the same time, you know? It's difficult! That's because it's humor.
Here, I was so thankful for the first time, because I always loved the American film industry, especially working with the English language comedy, in the English language. Oh my god, I'm so thankful that I had this experience. So it was wonderful. The first day, I recognized, "Okay, I just have to do everything wrong, and then we have the character." Do everything different than all the others. I could be loud when everyone had to be quiet. But still, the most honest and grounded thing Dieter had was that he was relatable, that he really wanted to do his job in a very good way, because it was important.
It was important for him to have a friendship with Omari [Hardwick's character Vanderohe], because he was interested in a character who first said "no" to this guy, and I loved that, because that's how it is in real life. When you meet someone who says no to you, it's so offensive and so frustrating and so sad that people who are have an empathy, they want to say, "Hey, give me a chance! One chance! Maybe I'm a cool guy." And that's what I loved.
Tell me a little about how you and Omari Hardwick built that relationship between Dieter and Vanderohe.
Omari, he was a very welcoming colleague. Yeah, he was so interested, and he was so open-minded to everything, and especially for all these small crazy bits and pieces of the nerdy Dieter. So yeah, it was like improv every day, and we had these crazy ideas.
Omari brought in some crazy stuff, especially because of this -- let's call it -- "nanny mentality" that he had in the film, like, "You're responsible for this guy now, so you're the you're the adult." So that was easygoing.
That was really like you had a huge playground, and we were allowed to play on it. So we started with small steps, like in the film, getting to know each other step-by-step, and that's what we did in front of the camera, too.
Now that you've acted your way through a zombie apocalypse, how do you think you'd fare in a real one?
I would die immediately, because of this empathy thing. I told you before, I would be so interested in the zombies. I would just stand there and I would say, "That's so interesting. Oh my God, look at them. Poor zombies! What's going on?" To be honest, I think that's the truth. Yeah, that's okay. That's the only thing I have to say.
Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, Army of the Dead stars Dave Bautista, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Raul Castillo, Tig Notaro, Theo Rossi and Ana de la Reguera. The film is now in theaters and will release Friday, May 21 on Netflix.