Prior to Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of a character who became ill due to a virus that afflicted society in the 2002 film 28 Days Later The zombie genre was present in the picture, although according to the actor, it was extinct before his work.
During an interview for the Conversations program of SAG-AFTRA Foundation, the actor Oppenheimer stated that the genre was not well-liked in the past.
“Before ’28 Days Later,’ there weren’t that many zombie movies — it was kind of a dead genre,” he joked. “So Danny and Alex rebooted it.”
It’s interesting to note that the Irish actor said he had no idea the zombies were the subject of the Danny Boyle-directed movie.
Murphy said, “To be honest, I wasn’t too aware we were making a zombie movie,” adding he hadn’t seen any of George A.
“Night of the Living Dead” series by George Romero.
He went on to say, “It was right around the time SARS happened and there was all this ‘air rage’ stuff going on.”
Thus, I didn’t think it was a zombie movie. Furthermore, I’m relieved that I avoided watching the Romero films, as I was unaware of their sacred status.
