At the 2015 WonderCon promoting the new The CW series iZombie, David Anders (‘Blaine’) said that what drew him to the project in the first place was the humor Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright injected in the first script. “It was very, very funny,” explained Anders. “I went into it with a name like iZombie, and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s kind of lame,’ but it was a real page-turner. For the whole of my career, they haven’t – Hollywood hasn’t – really let me do comedy, so I jumped at the opportunity to be a part of this.”
But in addition to the comedy, Anders says he still gets to do his fair share of “mustache-twirling” in the show. The audience doesn’t really know quite yet what to make of him or where his allegiances lie, and Anders said that he also doesn’t know all that much about Blaine yet. “It took a leap of faith for me to sign on, but I’m glad I took it because there’s a lot of good things that we’re doing.”
Another major reason for Anders to say yes to playing a zombie was because of Rob Thomas’ involvement. “Rob’s been great,” said Anders. “I’ve heard only wonderful things from Kristen Bell and seen only wonderful things…Veronica Mars, Party Down. Yeah, he was another thing that made me jump at this show and want to be a part of it.”
The series is loosely based on the comic books by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, and Anders says he check out the source material in order to get a better grasp on iZombie. “I took a look at it. I took a look at a couple of books, just to see the artwork and see the tone and stuff. And of course, we use it as a template but go off in our own procedural direction, so it’s fun. I’m calling it a zom-com-rom-dram. #zomcomromdram. But we have that cool procedural element too so zom-com-rom-dram cop.”
But as far as drawing anything from the comics on how to play his character, Anders wasn’t able to do that as Blaine’s not in the comic books. “In the character breakdown, they said we want Blaine to be the James Spader-type sleazeball in Pretty in Pink. I read it as more James Spader in Less Than Zero so that’s how I [approached it]. I put my best Spader smack on it,” said Anders.
Going into the show, Anders was a fan of zombie films and TV shows including The Walking Dead. “Shaun of the Dead, one of the best zombie movies ever as far as I’m concerned. 28 Days Later‘s fantastic. I did a movie called The Revenant that’s kind of a cult hit that I’m very proud of. So, yeah, I’ve been a fan of the zombie genre.”
So, what can fans expect from the rest of season one? Anders revealed there’s love in the air. He also said that we’ll see more of his brains dealing operation. “You’re going to meet some of my zombie army. I don’t know what I can tell you,” said Anders, laughing. “Just expect more.”
– More iZombie interviews: Rose McIver / Robert Buckley / Malcolm Goodwin / Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright
Watch the interview:
