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Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and Chloe Sevigny talk of their fears, zombies and their movie ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ in Cannes
Los Angeles — At the Cannes Film Festival, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and Chloe Sevigny met with us to talk of their fears, zombies, fashion and their latest zombie comedy film, “The Dead Don’t Die,” which had its world premiere as the festival's opening film.
Helmed by Jim Jarmusch, the stellar cast also included Adam Driver, Selena Gomez, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Rosie Perez and Carol Kane, among others.
The movie tells the story of how zombies suddenly rise from their graves in a small, peaceful town. Three police officers (Bill Murray as Chief Cliff Robertson, Adam Driver as Officer Ronald Peterson and Chloe Sevigny as Officer Minerva Morrison) and a Scottish mortician — who has a knack for drag make-up and Samurai sword fighting, by the way (Tilda Swinton as Zelda Winston) — must band together to try and stay alive.
Below are excerpts of our conversation with Bill, Tilda and Chloe in Cannes:
What scares you?
Bill Murray (BM): I have an instinctual aversion to certain insects that wake up close to your head, or snakes kind of queer me a little bit, I am not necessarily a snake man. And I don’t like lima beans. I don’t get it. I don’t like lima beans, the taste or the consistency of it.
Scaring me, it’s going to sound wrong, but one of my great fears is drunken women. Because I just don’t know what to do in that situation and I have been fooled by them and victimized by them and hit by them over the head with things, and I don’t know what to do, it’s destabilizing. My mother wasn’t a drunk so I don’t have any experience. But I don’t know what to do in that situation and I just fold my cards. I go back to my room. And yet, I am probably just as scary, I don’t know.
Tilda Swinton (TS): I would probably say drunken men. I will take a drunken woman any day over a drunken man.
BM: See I can walk away from a drunken man pretty easily and I can sort of like figure out the humor of it, but I just don’t know what to do.
TS: Well, send them to me and I’ll send you the drunken men.
Over the course of cinematic history, we've had zombie-type movies. Can you tell us how director Jim Jarmush approached you with his particular vision?
Chloë Sevigny (CS): Jim sent me a handwritten letter talking about a ridiculous zombie picture that he wanted to make (laughs) and asked if I would be interested. This correspondence started back and forth, handwritten, very romantic. Then he sent me the script and that was it. Very straight up.
TS: He did say to me a few years ago, I think when we were making our vampire film, for which he only had to say to me, 'let’s make a vampire film' and I was in. Let’s make a zombie film, so I was in a long time before there was the script. But if he said to me let’s make a musical I would be in, and he doubtless will sooner or later.
BM: He never told me it was a zombie movie. I saw it yesterday for the first time. (laughs) I don’t know what I am feeling.
You worked with Jim before. What makes his visions unique?
TS: I think it’s got a lot to do with the fact that he’s a musician. Like any great musician, he knows what he wants but he also knows, unless he is a soloist which he isn’t, that he needs other musicians to jam with.
So he comes with his equipment and his sheet music and he says okay let’s rock and I need you to help me do this. So he’s a great fearless leader of a band.
BM: It’s a quiet voice. It’s very sure. But even though he says oh I don’t know, this is probably not very good, but he protests a little bit that it’s maybe not very good at all. But that’s even false modesty I find charming, false modesty.
It’s easy to believe he knows what he’s doing because you see what he’s done, and the range is so large, the different kinds of films he’s made and the different kind of actors he’s worked with, actors, non-actors, musicians and genres. He’s nimble. There’s no problem on the set that he can’t fix. He’s a nice man which makes everything that more bearable, even when things are hard.
Can you talk about your relationship with the horror genre? What was the first horror movie that affected you and were you a fan of these?
TS: First horror I suppose for me was “Bambi.” (laughs) I don’t know, Chloe, you had mentioned “The Exorcist” yesterday and I had forgotten.
CS: Yes.
Tilda: But it’s true, “The Exorcist.” But funnily enough, “The Exorcist” didn’t feel like a horror movie and I think I was 15 when I saw it, so it felt pretty documentary. (laughs)
BM: I thought the scariest thing, the most disturbing thing in “The Exorcist” was the spinal tap, and that was a real thing, that wasn’t even like manufactured horror.
CS: Exorcisms are real, and it usually happens to young girls. My priest told me so. (laughs)
BM: Would you like to hear your confession? (laughs) My first horror movie was “Frankenstein.” Back when I was growing up, they would show horror movies at midnight and I actually crept in behind the room and my dad was watching “Frankenstein” and I watched maybe the first 15 minutes or so and I was just terrified. Then I went back to bed. I never told anyone that I snuck in and watched it. “Frankenstein” was scary.
CS: “The Exorcist” was very troubling for me, yes. Especially because I went to my priest, I said this yesterday, kind of boring, and admitted that I was terrified that this was going to happen to me, and he said yes, it usually happens to young girls who play with Ouija or practice witchcraft, you are inviting the devil into your school. Wise words.
Tilda, can you just address channeling your inner Samurai?
TS: I am very privileged and I have always been a huge fan of martial arts films, so the idea of playing martial arts, like mofos, was very exciting to me. To do it in this film was great.
What would you like audiences to draw from this film?
TS: Well it sounds flippant but seriously, any film is a gift to the audience and then the conversation starts. So anything the audience sees is almost certainly there. It’s not for us to say that it’s not there, because if you saw it, it’s there, because it resonated with you. But it’s not for us to push anything at anybody because we are not in the pushing business.
CS: Yes, subjective as all great artists.
TS: It’s no great secret that the zombie genre has always been about human beings and human society. This one by the way, interestingly enough, is born out of a script that was written a long time before recent events and it was written maybe three years ago.
So as we have been saying for the last couple of days, things have rather caught with Jim Jarmusch’s slightly sick imagination that we have to be very careful what he dreams up next.
This is obviously a celebration of film but Tilda and Chloe, you both excel on the red carpet. Can you just talk about the semantics of both of you looking the way you always do?
TS: I’m just so lucky to have great friends who make great clothes. I am frankly a very shy person and I wouldn’t be able to even be in front of you if I wasn’t wearing something that I felt very fresh in and emboldened by. It’s a way of giving you company and when you are wearing clothes by someone you really love, like for example my friend Haider Ackermann. We have a tradition now of always doing red carpets in Cannes. It’s like going up there with your hand in someone’s hand. It’s a way of feeling grounded, authentic and relaxed, which is the only way to be. So, for me, it’s a shyness potion.
CS: Yeah. It can be an armor, empowering. I’ve never worked with a stylist before. Actually this is one of my first years to work with somebody. She’s a dear friend of mine from New York. Her name is Haley Wollens. I just put myself in her hands and she came to me with all of these selections. We worked on it together. It’s been a process. It’s very relaxing to put yourself in someone’s hands who you trust. It’s taken a lot of the pressure off of me.
BM: I too have never worked with a stylist before (laughs). I don’t see that happening any time soon. But these girls look great and it is fun that I rumple around in the same outfit and they change their clothes every couple of hours. (laughs)
CS: That’s not true!
BM: Okay, well there is documentation. You got more changes than I got hairs on my head. (laughs) But they look great. It’s great for a guy. No one is really looking at me particularly and I can stalk around, slink around and no one cares.
TS: Life’s too short, it’s fun.
What makes the Cannes Film Festival so special? What’s it like having an opening film here? What do you guys enjoy about Cannes?
TS: Well clearly the breakfasts. (laughs)
CS: The rose I.V. drip in my arm.
BM: I think it’s seeing the ships, the giant ships in the harbor and realizing I have still got a long ways to go. (laughs) — LA, GMA News
