Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. As promised, I held off on posting this interview with the stars of ZOMBIELAND until after its first weekend. We talk a lot of spoilers, especially about the now infamous cameo, so hopefully now you’ve gotten a chance to see the movie and can read this without the danger of spoilerage. Below you’ll find my chat with Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. We cover a lot of ground, including a bit about Eisenberg’s upcoming leading role in David Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK (which is known conversationally as “The Facebook Movie”). We start right after I was introduced to the two of them as being with Ain’t It Cool News. Enjoy the chat!

Jesse Eisenberg: The last movie I was in, when I saw it, I spoke to my agent and said, “You know, the movie’s really good.” She was like, “Well, no one cares until Ain’t It Cool News likes it.”

Quint: Was that ADVENTURELAND?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. She was like, “it has to be viewed by some objective source, like Ain’t It Cool News. You can’t just have the producer tell you that it’s good…” Woody Harrelson: Who are you guys with?

Quint: Ain’t It Cool News. You know Harry Knowles, the big red headed dude?

Woody Harrelson: Yeah, yeah.

Quint: It’s his site.

Jesse Eisenberg: They pioneered Internet movie writing. Woody Harrelson: Really? Jesse Eisenberg: I think you changed the industry, right?

Quint: Well, not me personally. Harry did. I was there, but Harry was the lead.

Jesse Eisenberg: I mean it like underlined the film industry by releasing early reviews of things in a very public and…

Quint: It was opening up film discussion early.

Jesse Eisenberg: I shouldn’t have said, “Undermined it,” but it’s “undermined the system.”

Quint: Well it undermined the NRG, the national test screening guys.

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, I see.

Quint: We have always been very filmmaker friendly. We love movies, that’s why we do what we do. There isn’t really an outlet, like ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, they are all gossip stuff. They don’t really cover movie…

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, you guys don’t really do gossip?

Quint: We love movies, not gossip.

Kraken: There are rumors with like casting and stuff like that, but not like personal gossip stuff.

Jesse Eisenberg: That’s nice. Woody Harrelson: You guys are based in Austin?

Quint: Yeah, we live here yeah.

Woody Harrelson: So do you know like Rick Linklater and stuff?

Quint: A little bit, yeah.

Woody Harrelson: Have you done some interviews with him?

Quint: The Austin community is so tightly knit, so I knew Linklater and Mike Judge and Rodriguez when I was like fifteen or sixteen, because I would go to all of the same movies that they did. They are movie lovers. They don’t do it for paychecks, so they are out watching movies all of the time and so you just run into them.

Woody Harrelson: Those guys are great. Really great.

Quint: It’s really cool. You worked with Rick on A SCANNER DARKLY, right?

Woody Harrelson: Yeah! I really like him a lot. Jesse Eisenberg: Was that a movie that is like animated over people? Woody Harrelson: Yeah. It was shot and then painted over, yeah…

Quint: And they shot it on video, right? He shot it very low tech and they animated over it, so it was very…

Woody Harrelson: Which he had done before with… What was that?

Quint: WAKING LIFE.

Woody Harrelson: I don’t know if he was the one who just kind have invented that whole style. I hadn’t seen it before…

Quint: I hadn’t seen it before WAKING LIFE, either, and then they did a lot of commercials like that with credit cards and stuff. I saw ZOMBIELAND. Obviously it’s up my alley and I was very disappointed to learn that I wouldn’t make it very far in the zombie apocalypse.

Jesse Eisenberg: (laughs) Yes, you would! You are smart, so you would figure it out.

Quint: I would have to get the cardio going way in advance of an outbreak. Then I might stand a chance…

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, but you would know every rule, because you have probably seen every zombie movie.

Quint: I have seen a lot of zombie movies. That is true.

Jesse Eisenberg: Did you like the movie? You guys are, like, the authority on it.

Quint: I loved the movie. Everybody that I talked to at the press screening did, too. I love that (director) Ruben [Fleischer] essentially took John Wayne and Woody Allen and put them in a zombie movie. I love that.

Woody Harrelson: (laughs) Jesse Eisenberg: You really think I’m like John Wayne?

Quint: Yeah, absolutely! [Laughs]

Woody Harrelson: Thank you, by the way! Jesse Eisenberg: Woody Allen is amazing. [To Harrelson] I’m a huge fan of Woody Allen, so it’s an honor to meet somebody who is kind of like him. (laughs)

Quint: It’s two types you never see in that situation and I think it’s really difficult to walk that line of having a horror story that is a comedy. It’s really difficult to not make it ridiculous, but I think you guys brought a lot to the movie in that the characters were people who were a little bit larger than life, but they were also relatable. Do you know what I mean? I guess the first question should be, how did you guys work on that? Was it all there in the script or did you guys work to achieve that?

Woody Harrelson: There was a lot of great stuff in the script. The script, I think both of us were knocked out by the script, but luckily Ruben, as well as the writers and executive producers were open to us trying new stuff and there are a lot of really funny stuff that he added to it that I’ve got to say… I was just talking with a buddy of mine, Owen, earlier, because he was asking me about that. I said “Yeah, Jesse comes up with incredible stuff on the fly and I think he’s really brilliant,” like stuff that even I was thinking, “Well, I don’t think that’s that funny.” But then you watch the movie and it’s just hysterical! Jesse Eisenberg: I had the opposite reaction. I thought when you said something, Iwas like “That’s hysterical” and then you watch the movie and it just falls flat. “This is a scene where I can go to the bathroom.” When I read the script, like Woody said, I loved it. I thought the characters were so much more sophisticated than… It was written in such a more sophisticated way than you read in most of these things. I thought… I’m very sensitive anything cutesy or kitschy. When I met with Ruben and he said Woody was going to do it, I knew immediately the acting would be respected, because you don’t get a guy like Woody Harrelson to be in a movie like this if you are not going to take the character seriously and he’s not going to sign on to something that treats the characters in an unnecessary way or make them look foolish or be shoehorned into a plot or something like that.

Quint: So, it was almost like a safety checklist.

Jesse Eisenberg: Exactly. Woody Harrelson: You are very kind. Jesse Eisenberg: It’s true. That’s the first thing you asked Ruben, right? Woody Harrelson: Yeah, that was one of our early conversations, I was just hoping it wouldn’t be too off, you know? Some of these movies can be really over the top. You want to be over the top, but within bounds.

Quint: Well, you have got to live by the rules of your universe. And this universe has a lot of rules. (laughs) It’s very inventive in the way they present the rules system. When they came up on the screen was really funny, but my favorite parts were when they don’t show up on the screen, but the audience knows that you are following your rules, like when you check the backseat when steering that car off the road.

Jesse Eisenberg: It feels like you are in on the inside joke of the movie when the rules come up or sometimes the rules are hidden in the scenes, like he says… You really can’t hear it that much, because I think you have a joke right before you say this, but when he smashes up this minivan, he’s like “I think I pulled something.” Way in the background it says “Limber up” on the car. It’s so creative and half the audience catches it and they like nudge to their friend. You just feel like you are in on something.

Quint: Background humor. That’s kind of a lost art form in comedy.

Jesse Eisenberg: Like THE SIMPSONS.

Quint: THE SIMPSONS does it. The Zucker Brothers were masters of it back in the day.

Jesse Eisenberg: By having something not relevant to the story in the background.

Quint: Yeah, something hilarious and just another story going on, something else happening. That gives the movie layers. You can see a movie more than once, get a lot out of it and shift your focus if you need to.

Jesse Eisenberg: Do they do that a lot in, like SUPERHERO MOVIE and…

Quint: DISASTER MOVIE?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, those.

Quint: No, those are so surface. Those movies are more focused on just repeating a scene that you will recognize. There’s not really a through story. You look at something like TOP SECRET or AIRPLANE!. They are knockoffs of certain movies, but they are their own story whereas the newer spoof movies are just like “Oh, I’ve seen that! That’s THE RING!”

Jesse Eisenberg: So do you guys like those movies at your website?

Quint: No.

Jesse Eisenberg: No? Okay. Woody Harrelson: You don’t like the Zuckers?

Quint: No, I love the Zuckers. I thought you meant like…

Jesse Eisenberg: No, these are like… Can you explain them? I have never seen them, but I know what they are. They do parodies of genre films.

Quint: They will take a genre and cram as many recognizable characters and famous scenes as they can into one movie. This new trend started with SCARY MOVIE, I guess.

Jesse Eisenberg: SCARY MOVIE, that’s what it’s called.

Quint: The SCARY MOVIEs aren’t the worst of them. I actually really like the second Scary Movie, because it feels more like what the Zuckers used to do.

Kraken: They have started doing so many of them in the last two years that it is just sort of diminishing returns.

Quint: EPIC MOVIE and DATE MOVIE and…

Woody Harrelson: So, like that SNAKES ON A PLANE, is that like one?

Quint: That wasn’t really like these movies. That was kind of a throwback to a Roger Corman type thing. It was just a big dumb exploitation movie, you know? The tongue and cheek was a little bit too much, because they weren’t taking themselves seriously, but it’s not a spoof movie.

Woody Harrelson: That is one of the things that I really like about (Zombieland). The tone of it and the way Ruben frames it tonally… You always feel like it’s real. You are not feeling… I’m trying to think of an exception to it, but I think throughout the movie you really feel like “Okay.” Once you get into it with what’s happening, you start caring for Jesse’s character almost immediately, then you just kind of jump in with the journey and you are with it, you know? You are never feeling like “Oh, this is bullshit… Come on…” When it is a joke with things like in the background and stuff, you eat it all up. You take it all.

Quint: Look at THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Those characters are larger than life, but they are not unrealistic. They are not really anybody that really exists in your world, but you see enough true-life characteristics in the Dude and Walter.

Woody Harrelson: There will only be one The Dude. That’s one of the greatest characters ever!

Quint: Absolutely and that’s the balance. If less talented filmmakers and actors put their hands on it, that could have dropped. It just wouldn’t have worked. I think a lot of the same thought goes into the characters here. I get that same feeling where its people I recognize, but they are not… They are bigger than life, especially your character, a badass zombie killer, but there’s something that grounds the comedy.

Kraken: I think I heard somebody at the screening say that they want a Tallahassee diorama action figure of you in the carnival booth with the zombie around.

Woody Harrelson: I’m going to go do some pushups as soon as soon as we are done here. (laughs)

Quint: This interview is not going to run until after the movie comes out, because I really want to talk about Bill Murray. I really really really want to talk about Bill Murray...

Woody Harrelson: (laughs)

Quint: I mean, Woody… You got to be a Ghostbuster for Christ’s sake. I knew in advance that he was going to be in the movie, but I didn’t know to what extent and I was surprised by how big his role actually was.

Woody Harrelson: So it didn’t hurt any that you knew in advance?

Quint: Well, I think it’s better not to know. It’s better for the surprise, but it certainly didn’t hurt my enjoyment.

Kraken: It’s almost like a geek sin to ruin that, so everybody at the festival was like “If somebody ruins that for you, they deserve a punch in the face.” “Don’t let anyone ruin the surprise for you, so punch them in the mouth and punch them in the mouth hard!” Woody Harrrelson: (laughs) It’s great. I think he was amazing. That was all in a day.

Quint: That was all in one day? How much of that was planned in advance? Or was it all just figured out on the fly?

Woody Harrelson: The interesting thing is that the way they had the part written before was much different from how it ended up with Bill. It was supposed to be some big stars house in Beverly Hills, but other than that… He was supposed to be an actual zombie, so there was no dialogue whatsoever and none of the stuff of him getting… I don’t know if we should talk about it… Jesse Eisenberg: Do we get to say what happens?

Quint: Yeah, this will run after the movie comes out.

Jesse Eisenberg: So the fact that he gets (makes a gun motion with his fingers). That’s okay?

Quint: You kill Bill Murray, so you’ve got to talk about it.

Jesse Eisenberg: That was like a major debate, like the day before he came, we weren’t sure what the hell was going to happen and I think one of the producers thought it would be really funny to have him pretend to scare one of us and we kill him and how funny that would be. When I heard that, I thought it was the stupidest thing, because I just thought this movie was going to turn so broad and dumb if you kill off a character… we had already filmed the end of the movie, so there would be no way to acknowledge it, that we did this thing. You watch this movie and it’s like the greatest thing in the world and you don’t care. Woody Harrelson: It’s the biggest moment of the movie when he gets shot, right? Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. Yeah and then the next scene is like Woody telling like a really sad story and it doesn’t seem to butt heads in anyway.

Quint: It works, yeah.

Jesse Eisenberg: It’s just the tone of the movie. I’m shocked that all of that stuff was able to come together in that way.

Quint: And I think Emma (Stone) kills it in that scene, too! When she giggles. “He just gets me.” I so want that painting of Bill Murray with the crown.

Woody Harrelson: It’s great, right? Jesse Eisenberg: It must have been painted the day before. Woody Harrelson: Remember, he wasn’t in it until maybe two days before that.

Quint: It’s an absolutely killer scene. Everybody is talking about it for good reason, because not only is it just “Oh cool, I love Bill Murray and he’s in the movie,” but I love that it’s this exaggerated version of Bill Murray that lives in this amazing mansion with his paintings of himself everywhere. At the point that your character is meeting him, he’s so lonely that he’s desperate for human contact that he’s willing to go and dress up as a Ghostbuster. We might never get GHOSTBUSTER 3, but we have that scene now, so that’s at least something. So what are you guys working on next? You have that Facebook movie, right?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah.

Quint: That’s really cool. I’ve heard that’s an amazing script.

Jesse Eisenberg: It’s a good script, yeah. Woody Harrelson: I hear that director is not bad either! Jesse Eisenberg: He likes to get things right. (laughs) Woody Harrelson: Doesn’t he like to do like a million takes? Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. We haven’t shot yet, but he’s told me that. Woody Harrelson: Really? Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. I guess he probably told a lot of actors and they ran out of the room and I was the only one who stayed, but yeah he’s a brilliant director.

Quint: It sounds great. The cast that they have announced is really interesting to me. Andrew Garfield is really awesome. I think he’s going to do really well here.

Jesse Eisenberg: Andrew Garfield, yeah, he’s great. Justin Timberlake is playing this guy who created like Napster and Justin Timberlake isn’t probably all that similar to that guy, but the movie presents him as this rock star that comes and convinces me to leave that guy who I started (Facebook) with, so it’s very clever and creative casting.

Quint: I think he’s underrated as an actor as well.

Jesse Eisenberg: He’s also a really good actor. Woody Harrrelson: I thought he did a really good job in that one with Ben Foster. ALPHA DOG.

Quint: Oh yeah? I liked him in SOUTHLAND TALES.

Woody Harrelson: What’s that?

Quint: SOUTHLAND TALES, the Richard Kelly movie which was kind of a trainwreck of a movie, but he was really good in it.

Jesse Eisenberg: He’s been great from what little rehearsals I’ve had with him.

Quint: What about you ,Woody? What are you up to?

Woody Harrelson: Well, I’m gainfully unemployed. I did a movie called THE MESSENGER, which I’m really excited about, with Ben Foster by the way, and another called DEFENDOR, which was at Toronto Film Festival and then got picked up by Sony. Jesse Eisenberg: Really? Woody Harrelson: Yeah. Jesse Eisenberg: Congratulations! Woody Harrelson: Thank you. It was made for like two and a half million dollars and it’s kind of a… I’m sort of a somewhat retarded guy who thinks he’s a superhero and bullets don’t bounce off, but he’s out trying to fight crime and he’s getting the shit kicked out of him. I just thought it was really. I was thinking, the odds of this thing being good… and then I watched it man and thought it was fantastic, but even still the odds of it getting picked up…

Quint: You both have worked on some smaller movies and ZOMBIELAND itself isn’t exactly a giant big budget picture. Do you find, when you discover these two and half million dollar movies, these smaller movies, is there an attraction to you and an excitement about doing smaller?

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh yeah. Much more so. I much prefer that. I did a movie that we had started right before ZOMBIELAND for like 19 days and I prefer that, because there’s like a momentum that’s created and sustained for a 19 day shoot, whereas this movie you might have a week off or something. You’ll be in the entire movie, but you’ll miraculously have a week off for some reason. Or you with have six hours where you are sitting in the (trailer) and so you just go out there and maintain your energy. I find it very difficult. Just watching you (Woody), you seem to handle it really well, but it was very difficult for me. Woody Harrelson: Well I think it’s a hard thing when you have to kind of put together in your head all of these little tiny splinters that are going to make up this action sequence. That kind of stuff I think is hard, but you know, this one yeah isn’t a big budget movie at all, but fortunately they are getting behind it like it was, so that’s cool.

Jesse Eisenberg: You mean Sony? Woody Harrelson: Yeah. I mean for like advertising and things. They are getting behind it. Jesse Eisenberg: When you watch it, it doesn’t seem like there was anything compromised and it seems like every scene is just fun to look at.

Quint: Yeah, the movie doesn’t feel like it’s watered down and a lot of times… I think that’s a benefit of being a smaller film, too. I really dug the movie. I think the horror fans are really going to dig it and the comedy. I think the movie is going to reach a lot of people.

Jesse Eisenberg: You don’t think that people are going to mind that the movie is funnier than it is scary?

Quint: There are going to be some people, but that’s not what this movie is. It’s like going into AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and saying “This is bullshit, how come the whole thing isn’t scary?” That movie lives by the rules of its universe and this movie does too. That’s what a movie has to do, it’s just when it starts getting inconsistent. If it feels like it’s betraying what it’s setting up, just because it’s easier for the scenario.

Jesse Eisenberg: Right, like right at the end it turns contrived so it can be scary, because you are trying to put everything at the end. In fact, while we were shooting I was worried the ending would just feel inconsistent to the rest of the movie, because it was so action-oriented and the rest of the movie felt like a lot of character and dialogue. When I was watching, I was so amazed. There are little moments of great irony and it’s really tense and still really fun. Woody Harrelson: So, you guys consider yourselves like more aficionados like with genre films specifically?

Quint: Yeah, but to a degree. I love Busby Berkeley musicals. I love noir. I love all films, but I grew up on horror.

Kraken: You’ve got to say there’s a special place in our hearts for horror films, though.

Quint: Well, certainly. I’ve got a DAWN OF THE DEAD one sheet back home on my wall and a John Carpenter’s THE THING one-sheet, but at the same time JAWS is my favorite movie. You could call that a horror movie or an adventure movie or a men-on-a-mission. It has a monster in it, but it’s not really what I think of when I think “horror.”

Woody Harrelson: JAWS is? So, let me ask you, do you ever go out swimming in the ocean, do you not just naturally think…

Quint: I can’t swim a swimming pool without thinking there’s a great white shark in there with me.

[Everybody Laughs]

Jesse Eisenberg: Do you take showers?

Quint: [Laughs] I do take showers, yes! No baths!

Woody Harrelson: That’s why I can’t watch movies like that. After JAWS, it took me years and I’m an ocean guy. It took me years before I could relax and just go out swimming. I think only a few years ago I finally got through it! (laughs)

Kraken: The scary thing about JAWS is that shit does happen. Sharks do attack people.

Woody Harrelson: Yeah, but you probably are ten times more chance to get into an accident walking on the street than getting bit.

Quint: But Michael Myers isn’t going to walk around a corner and slice your face off. You can go swimming in shark-infested waters.

Kraken: Sharks are beautiful creatures, don’t get me wrong.

Quint: Alright, well thank you guys so much for taking the time.

Woody Harrelson: Thank you! It was a pleasure. Jesse Eisenberg: Thank you so much. What do you write under?

Quint: “Quint.” My favorite movie is JAWS, so… there you go.

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, I get it. Nice to meet you!

I had a blast talking with both of them. Forgive the tangents, especially at the beginning and end… I have no idea how they read, but they’re my favorite part of doing these kinds of interviews. It’s a taste thing, I’m sure, but I hope the conversational stuff reads as fun as it is to be there for. Congratulations to the ZOMBIELAND team for winning the weekend. I expect that means many of you fell in love with the movie as much as I did. -Quint quint@aintitcool.com Follow Me On Twitter