Who else fell hard for the Dieter and Vanderohe bromance in Army of the Dead? If you’re with me on that, you’re in luck, because covering that topic was the bulk of our non-spoiler conversation with Matthias Schweighöfer and Omari Hardwick.
The new Zack Snyder film takes place after a zombie outbreak demands that Las Vegas be completely walled off from the rest of the country, trapping the undead inside. Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward survived the initial zombie wars and even earned a Medal of Honor in the process, but now he’s tempted to go back inside to pull off the ultimate heist. That’s where Hardwick’s Vanderohe and Schweighöfer’s Dieter come in. Vanderohe’s a true warrior who fought alongside Ward during the zombie wars and while Dieter isn’t much of a fighter, he’s invaluable as the team’s safecracker.
Just ahead of Army of the Dead’s theatrical and Netflix release, I got the chance to chat with Schweighöfer and Hardwick about their experience bringing this hugely charming duo to screen. It turns out, the Dieter and Vanderohe “bromance” actually wasn’t a big part of the screenplay initially. Here’s how Schweighöfer described it:
“There wasn’t that much in the script. We had a bit of ideas, bits and pieces, but especially meeting Omari and when we started to prep the film, we had so many ideas of this crazy couple. So every day we did a lot of improv and we were asking Zack, ‘Would it be okay if we do this and that?’ It was wonderful to work with Omari because he was like, ‘Oh, great! There’s even another space and universe for my character too, so we could throw this in and that in.’ That was amazing to create this, we would say bromance.”
Schweighöfer is about to go from Army of the Dead scene-stealer to franchise director because he’s actually the one directing the prequel film, Army of Thieves. That installment is said to see a “mysterious woman” recruiting Dieter, a bank teller at the time, for a heist that involves “impossible-to-crack safes across Europe.” With Army directing in his future, I asked Schweighöfer what it was like watching Snyder work on this first film:
“I watched Zack work and I was pretty impressed every day because he’s a visionary. I thought, ‘Oh my f*cking god. How can I do this?’ I was pretty nervous. But like Omari said, to work with Zack and to see him work, that’s another level. But it feels like a mentorship … and it was pretty cool.”
Schweighöfer also took a moment to clear up the timeline of events, noting that he didn’t know Army of Thieves was in his future while making Army of the Dead:
“We didn’t know that, when we finished the movie that [there] will be a prequel. It was way after wrapping so that was like a big surprise. But Omari and me, we were sitting together every day on the set and we were like, ‘Look at him. That’s a visionary legend. Oh my god!’”
If you’re looking for more non-spoiler content from Schweighöfer and Hardwick, be sure to check out the interview clip at the top of this article. And if you’ve seen Army of the Dead are you’re ready to delve into spoilers, you can check out the second half of our conversation using the link below.