Fresh off a coast-to-coast American promotional trip, director Edgar Wright took time out of his busy schedule to talk with David Michael Brown about Shaun of the Dead, George Romero and casting 100's of Zombies.

Edgar Wright: It was great, across 17 different cities. The response has been really good; being somewhere where people don't necessarily know you and have the film go down well. Each night they'd be a couple of hard-core Spaced fans, people who watch it on region free DVD players but apart from that everyone was watching it completely cold so that was really nice. It was good that there wasn't anything that the Americans didn't get apart from a joke about Cornetto's but aside from that they really took to it.

DMB: What was it like seeing the film on the big screen for the first time? I was at the London Frightfest Festival a couple of years ago when you showed some footage and it went down really well.

EW: Absolutely, I suppose in a way we've been slightly starved of an audience for a while as Spaced didn't have a laughter track at all. I started of making shorts and I showed them to audiences. That was the first thing that got me really excited having some form of palpable reaction or noise from an audience. It was funny, we were at Comic Con in San Diego, we showed the trailer and talked about Shaun, we also showed 10 minute clips of Spaced and it was amazing watching it with 3000 people, they were really laughing, it brought it home that we hadn't had this reaction for ages.

DMB: Watching Shaun of the Dead it reminded me of American Werewolf, half the audience laughing, the other half hiding under their seat.

EW: Cool! There are lots of other horror comedies that I love like Evil Dead 2 and Braindead, both of those go further into the comedy side. Both of them are very cartoonish, more live action Looney tunes than horror. American Werewolf probably plays its scares a little straighter. In a way, even though it's a comedy we wanted the horror aspect to have a straighter edge to it. It is a nice mix and in a way I think every horror comedy (is) going to be different, there's a world between Shaun of the Dead and American Werewolf or Evil Dead 2 and American Werewolf. Even Young Frankenstein and American Werewolf. They all work in slightly different ways and that's what's interesting about them. Other ones such as Scary Movie are much more of a spoof; you wouldn't call it a horror film in any regard.

DMB: You mentioned Evil Dead 2 and Braindead, were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson big influences on Shaun of the Dead?

EW: Well not specifically in terms of humour, if anything both of them were an inspiration to me as a director, specifically in the way they started. We were really lucky that both of them have actually seen the film, they both loved it and gave us press quotes. Peter Jackson said it was his favourite film of the year and Sam Raimi said "Shaun of the Dead Rules!" I came back from the States to find a German Evil Dead 2 poster signed by Raimi and Rob Tappert which was really sweet. They saw it in LA whilst we were touring and really liked it.

DMB: Another obvious inspiration is George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. All the way through the film we get snippets of Goblin music, Shaun works at Foree Electronics, lots of scenes are played out from his Zombie films, has Romero seen it?

EW: He was the first to see it once we finished it and he loved it. He's bigged us up on several occasions now which is very sweet. He watched it on his own; he just really went for it. I think he didn't know what to expect, he'd heard it was happening and when he actually watched it he was like "Oh right! Its like a proper film." I think he was kind of expecting it to be like a student film. It was really cool that he really liked it, he gave us two different press quotes and his name is on the poster and that means the world to us."

DMB: You and Simon (Simon Pegg - star and co-writer) must be huge horror fans, while you were writing it were you conscious of keeping the horror fraternity happy, they are notoriously hard to please?

EW: Well I think the thing we're trying to do was not do it a disservice, we just wanted to do something that on one hand paid reverence to the film and on the other hand made it funny in its own right. That was the real thing, not for a second did we want to be a disservice to the Romero film, if anything we wanted to pay homage. I think, especially in the UK, probably not the case in the US, it's a massively underrated film.

DMB: Shaun of the Dead gets pretty violent and gory towards the end, what was it like working with all the make up and special effects?

EW: It was good, we'd done a little bit before in Spaced but this was much more involved, it was very ambitious to have all the make-up and physical effects and comedy going on in the same frame. That was pretty difficult, there was a lot of ambition in the film in the timing, making sure it all worked on screen together. It was really good fun but obviously very tough at the same time.

DMB: The performances are all great; I thought Simon Pegg in particular was wonderful. What was it like working with him and Nick Frost again on a bigger scale after Spaced?

EW: In a way it didn't feel that different from doing the show, It was almost the same on a bigger budget, not that Shaun's was massive. It's strange, when the idea comes, it always exceed the budget so it always seems like a bit of a struggle. In effect you never feel satisfied enough to sit back in your directors chair and go "this is just making itself now" its always going to be really tough so as such you never really have a chance to sit back and feel the benefits of having your friends around.

DMB: Obviously over the past few years Zombie films have made a comeback with 28 Days Later, Resident Evil and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, do you think these films paved the way for Shaun?

EW: Not really in terms of writing, we were already writing the script when we heard about 28 Days Later, Resident Evil had been on the cards for ages anyway. The Dawn of the Dead remake was a bit more of a surprise, we were like "Oh fucking hell!" 28 Days Later had been very successful for people who were not so genre minded, it was like a bit more of an easy decision for them, it made Shaun an easier sell. Also in a way for younger viewers who hadn't seen the original films or were aware of the Romeros and Fulcis and Return of the Living Deads, there was a more recent version for them. Part of the zombie renaissance apart from Hollywood coming up with ideas is the Resident Evil games, I think the games are responsible for the resurgence; they nailed the tone better than anything. Probably evoked people's memories of Romero and his films. Certainly when Simon and I used to play them back in 97 we thought "God! I must watch Dawn of the Dead again." I think that was probably a global phenomenon, people rediscovering those films through the games which is great.

DMB: And now the films are all out on DVD.

EW: Exactly! On one hand its great but on the other it must be galling for Romero that it took all this to get Land of the Dead commissioned. Kind of the zeitgeist of 28 Days Later, the Dawn remake and maybe even our movie, people are saying ok lets give him the money! Finally after 20 years! Simon and I are actually going to be zombies in Land of the Dead which will be cool. We've already had our faces cast.

DMB: When do they start shooting Land of the Dead?

EW: Soon I think, literately in about a months time in October. I've seen some little make-up tests which are totally amazing.

DMB: I remember before Day of the Dead was coming out Fangoria published these amazingly gory pictures from the film, do you think Land of the Dead will push the boundaries further?

EW: Romero said they will be shooting an R cut and an unrated DVD cut. It's weird in a way, Dawn of the Dead the remake I thought was pretty gory for a studio film and then our film in the UK was a 15 and featured people having their guts ripped apart!

DMB: Was the film cut in the UK?

EW: No not at all! And it was a 15! An R in the States. I thought that was quite interesting in a sense, there's nothing in Day of the Dead that has been passed since uncut so I find it strange when people ask how he will get past the censors. Well George Romero after 20 years shouldn't be a red rag to a bull. Surely they can see that other people have pushed boundaries further.

DMB: What can we expect from the Sean of the Dead DVD?

EW: Well, its out in the UK and I would hope that the Australian one is just the same, basically its absolutely stuffed to the gills with things. Four commentaries; one with me and Simon, one from the cast, one with Bill and Penelope on their own and a Zombie commentary as well from the main actors. Deleted scenes although there was nothing cut out that we were forced to cut out; it was mainly for pacing reasons.

DMB: When you were shooting were you worried at all about censorship?

EW: Not really, basically when we were shooting we had a word with Working Title and said if it does get an 18 we don't want anyone to shriek about it and say you have to cut it down to a 15 rating. Maybe one of the best examples of that in horror comedies is the Scream series, they did really well with an 18 rating. Even the first Scary Movie was an 18. Then when it came to the time when it initially got an 18 from the BBFC (British Board of Censorship) but then they dropped it down to a 15 rating. They had second thoughts about it; the overall tone of the film is quite warm-hearted and let us off.

DMB: You mentioned the Zombie commentary, how did you find them all?

EW: I'd say about 40 of them were cast actors, stunt people and physical performers, specialist extras and then the rest we put out an open call on the internet, initially on the Spaced Out site, the Spaced website. Then it got printed on Ain't It Cool and sites like that so it was amazing we had such an enormous response, we probably had about 1100 people respond. We were completely honest and said sorry, we can't pay you but if you want to be a zombie and stand around for twelve hours covered in blood then please feel free. Some people would come day after day which is great. That's why the film ends with a thank you to the fans as it wouldn't have been as great a film without them.

DMB: Another great thing about the film was the use of music. That was always a major part of the Italian zombie films appeal and Dawn of the Dawn. Did you have any specific ideas about the soundtrack while you were making the film?

EW: Certainly with the score the idea was we wanted to do a 21st Century update of John Carpenter and Goblin. So the score is definitely influenced by Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing, Suspiria and Dawn of the Dead. There was a use of Goblin about half way through came about because in the sequence it's a fantasy sequence, I thought in their heads Dawn of the Dead music is probably playing, we use that music as temps and then we thought "fuck it" we should just try and clear it. We also used the library music from Dawn at the very beginning of the film and at the very end because a friend of mine had just released that album, the unofficial score of Dawn of the Dead so we cleared some of tracks from that which is brilliant.

DMB: Its those little moments that will make horror fans enjoy Shaun of the Dead even more.

EW: Absolutely, it's us wearing our hearts on our sleeves; it was never our intention to alienate people by having too many in jokes. If there are references in there they are very subtle, we didn't want anyone to watch thinking "I'm sure there's things that I missed." It's a nice thing in there for you to recognise if you know.

DMB: So whats next? I read about a Shaun sequel called From Dusk Till Shaun?

EW: That's unfortunately bullshit! We did make that joke but no, I think we're going to leave Shaun where he is because most of the characters are dead and it's got a very nice wrap up. We did have some ideas of how to continue it but we've been doing this for 3 years so we want to move on.