Ms. Driver portrays the second Mrs. Panofsky, an otherwise unnamed Jewish Canadian princess who marries the very flawed Montreal TV producer Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti, who picked up a Golden Globe for the part Sunday night), only to find her new husband oddly distant, starting on the very day of their wedding. That’s because that’s also the day Barney meets – and goes completely nutso over – the woman who will eventually become Mrs. Panofsky #3 (Rosamund Pike). In Mrs. Panofsky’s corner: her outspoken ex-crooked policeman father-in-law (Dustin Hoffman), who speaks approvingly of her “nice rack.”

Speedman, for his part, is Barney’s multiple drug using novelist pal, Boogie. Best known for handsome-guy roles in the “Underworld” films opposite Kate Beckinsale and as the male lead in “Felicity” opposite Keri Russell, Speedman’s Bernard “Boogie” Moscovitch is a frequently charming rascal/jerkwad who both fails and assists his best friend in rather spectacular fashion, eventually starting a chain of events that may or may not lead to his murder by Barney.

Speedman entered the room first in typically low-key fashion, acting every bit the likable thirty-something surfer dude or ski-bum he could easily be cast as. Ms. Driver followed along, making a flirtatious joke about Speedman’s good looks and generally providing jovial company for a room full of entertainment writers one Beverly Hills winter’s day.

The first question was the ever-popular opening about what motivated the actors to join the cast.

In Speedman’s case, motivation was necessary. “I just read the script and liked it,” he said. “They didn’t want to see me for the audition, really. I had to convince [producer Robert Lantos]. I just responded to the character and wanted to work with Paul.”

So how exactly did Speedman fight his way in? “I think they just did it out of kindness, really,” he said, getting some laughs. “I flew myself to New York and read with Paul. I was lucky enough to get it.”

Then, turning to Minnie Driver, Speedman asked. “What about you? Did you believe in me?”

“I did believe in you,” Driver responded. “I find it hard to believe that that was…”

“I just worked with Robert on another movie. I was a very different, very reserved, character,” Speedman answered as he and Driver agreed that the character was a departure for him, but which he said “felt very natural.” Indeed, Speedman’s affable demeanor in real life seems to be essentially a much healthier version of Boogie. He definitely seems to find the dysfunctionally fun-loving character more to his liking than some of his other parts.

“Enough already with these brooding dudes,” said Speedman.

“You’re a much better drug addict,” quipped Driver.

“It’s like a documentary, really,” joked Speedman.

But what drove Driver to take the part?

“Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman,” she said. “I wanted to work with them and I felt that [the 2nd Mrs. Panofsky] was just hilarious. Brilliant. I get to play people who are hard to like and you have to somehow make them likable in some aspect. It’s a big character and [I needed] to make it truthful. Those seemed like good challenges. Michael Konyes did, I think, a brilliant job adapting a massive tome into a script.”

Regarding being hard to like, most actors try not to judge their characters. How did Driver approach this often humorously irritating character?

“I love her, but she’s abrasive and it’s in ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ territory,” she said. “That’s what I was thinking of. She doesn’t mean to be annoying. She just can’t help it. That’s interesting and it’s very funny to play. She should cross the line. I don’t think you should like everybody, always. You don’t like Paul. He’s a bugger in this, but you feel his humanity. You feel he’s struggling because he’s a flawed character. I think that’s where the interesting stuff lies. It doesn’t lie in being pretty, boring, and nice…She doesn’t shut up. She just sort of sucks the oxygen out of a room. I love the scenes where you hear her voice but [the camera] is just on Paul.”

Since they both admitted to not having read the entire book up to now, did either actor plan to read the book eventually?

“I’ll say ‘yes,’ and then I won’t,” said Speedman, smiling. “No, I would actually like to, at some point, go back and read it. It’s funny. I got the part and started reading the book and sort of had to put it down.”

“There’s so much. It’s dense,” Driver said, not incorrectly.

The next question was about Driver’s character’s accent — but not only her accent, her voice, and vocal pitch.

“I rang the Jewish community center in Montreal,” she admitted. “It sounds a bit awful, but I just said [going into a generic North American accent] ‘I’m thinking of moving to Montreal and I wondered if you could…’ I just got someone engaged in a conversation about what was going on. I talked to one woman a couple of times who was amazing. I asked someone else if I could record them; I just fessed up. She said [doing a nasal Montreal-Jewish accent and voice] ‘absolutely, go ahead.’ [My dialect coach and I] recorded her and transcribed. She explained poaching an egg for five minutes. My whole character is based on that. It was all about buttering the ramekin. [Then, in a perfect Montreal Jewish Canadian Princess voice] ‘Butter it!,” she said getting a big laugh.

Then we got to the standard question with the inevitably upbeat answer about how the actors felt about working with the director, Richard J. Lewis.

“I really liked him,” said Speedman. “There was a lot of pressure right at the beginning. Like anything, you just find your way. Once we got a language with each other, it was great. He did such a great job but he had a lot of pressure right at the beginning. Shooting in Italy on its own was tough.”

That led me to ask about locations. After we all agreed that Montreal is one of the world’s most beautiful cities, I tried to get them to be a little specific by playing the culinary card. I asked the actors if either had tried a smoked meat sandwich, Montreal’s famed answer to the American pastrami-on-rye.

Being weight and health-conscious actors and rather busy, of course, neither of them had partaken of the fatty, sodium laden treat. However, Minnie Driver did highly recommend a place called Joe Beef.

Getting another chance to ask a question, I noted that Speedman’s character of Boogie does at least two horrible things to Barney Panofsky’s character during the course of the film. I wondered if maybe one aspect of the character’s drug use was about forgetting those kind of unpleasant realities — or if Boogie is just a straight up, conscious-free borderline sociopath of some sort?

“I think actually he’s quite a loyal friend but, like a lot of people, I think he lets life get away from him and he starts making horrible decisions along the way. I think in his most conscious state he’s a really, really loyal friend. Is he a sociopath? I don’t think so. He’s a bit of a wild guy that doesn’t like to think about the next day.”

After another question or two went nowhere, I jumped in again to discuss accents some more. I confessed that I spent part of the late nineties believing Minnie Driver was an American because of her seamless U.S. accents in both “Grosse Pointe Blank” and “Good Will Hunting.” It was so convinced that, when I saw her playing one of the female leads in Oliver Parker’s 1998 version of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband,” I thought to myself that she did a very nice English accent. That prompted two questions. First, did Driver have any thoughts on why British actors playing Americans has become so common over the last twenty years or so? Second, did Speedman think he could handle doing an English accent?

“I was born in London. I have this great passport, and I can’t really do the accent,” Speedman said.

“I bet you could,” Driver said.

“With some training,” he said.

“With some training and some wine,” she added.

Getting back to the first part of my question, Driver confessed to not really knowing why it was that she was part of a wave of British actors doing extremely convincing American accents, but she did have some thoughts on the craft of it. “I think you should do it very well if you’re gonna do it. I think it’s awful if you do it badly because it will take you out of the film,” she said, and then turned to reverse phenomenon of American actors attempting to do British accents, with often very mixed results.

“A [professor of linguistics] once told me that…just mechanically, where the Germanic-English sounds begins, it’s much flatter and more neutral. When you speak in an American accent, everything tenses a lot more and your tongue becomes tighter. It’s harder to relax than it is to [become more tense].”

After some joking about the tense tongues of Americans, someone asked if certain regional American accents were harder than the more generic U.S. accent.

“The Rhode Island accent was the hardest I’ve worked on it,” Driver said.

Speedman asked which movie she did that accent in.

“In ‘Conviction.’ This film is out right now, Scott. Sorry you didn’t see it,” Driver said, generating some chuckles around the table.

Driver got back to how hard her “Conviction” accent was. “It was really hard. It was very specific to this one area. Regional stuff is difficult because it’s very specific and it changes from town to town, even.”

Can doing accents become so hard that it’s easy to get lost thinking about it, rather than the story and the character?

“Yeah, it is. But you have to get that out of the way really early on and you’re sort of paratrooping. You have to give yourself three weeks to lose everything else and just be listening to that and then sort of come back to it. You can’t be thinking about [the accent] when you’re shooting. You really can’t.”

Did having regional crew help on a film like “Conviction” with tough accents? The answer turned out to be “maybe,” but the legal drama was actually made and set in Michigan.

After that, the subject became movie budgets. “Barney’s Version” is in some ways an odd duck these days, in that’s in not a giant Hollywood blockbuster by any means, but neither is it a very low-to-“zero” budget indie film.

“What used to be sort of my wheelhouse of budget doesn’t exist anymore. They’re either $3 million movies or $200 million movies. That place somewhere in between, it just doesn’t exist. You can find an independent movie — “Conviction” is that way, this is that way — that live in that place between $10 and $20 million. it’s very rare. The studios are just not making those films.”

But would they participate in films with very low budgets, if the right people were involved?

“You’re not showing up onto a $1 million movie going [in a crotchety U.S. accent] ‘Where’s my trailer?! Jesus!’ ‘You’re in that cupboard over there, love.’ “What?!’ You just do what you can,” Driver said, getting laughs. “You can’t complain about it once you’re there. I once made this film with Philip Seymour Hoffman and I would make it again tomorrow. Five people saw it.” [The low-budget movie in question was the very good gambling-centric drama, “Owning Mahoney.” I was one of the five.]

That prompted me to bring up the little seen but entirely brilliant, very Canadian low-key tearjerker, “My Life Without Me,” in which Speedman costarred with a pre-“Dawn of the Dead” Sarah Polley.

“That was very low-budget,” Speedman said. “That was like a million dollars. I’ve done stuff for $300,000, too. I’ve also done stuff where they say it’s $3 million or something and half-way through, you know there’s just no way [they even have that much].”

Did either actor have a favorite scene to work on in the film?

“I did like the honeymoon scene. It’s actually the first scene we shot in the whole film. I just loved Paul, sitting on a bed, traumatized because he’d married this woman whose just poncing around in her undies.”

With 124 make-up credits and 64 effects credits to his name so far, Greg Nicotero is one of the busiest and most respected make-up and effects professionals in Hollywood. Originally inspired to take up special effects after seeing “Jaws,” he broke into the business working for the legendary gore-effects maestro Tom Savini on zombie-master George Romero’s 1985 splatter opus, “Day of the Dead. ”

A few years later, Nicotero had decamped from Romero’s Pittsburgh’s to show-biz’s Los Angeles and formed the multi-award winning KNB Efx Group with friends Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger. Aside from his intimate involvement in such effects heavy films as “Sin City,” “Kill Bill,” “Minority Report,” “Serenity,” “Spiderman 3” and, yes, “Ray,” Nicotero has also branched out into directing, helming the second unit on Frank Darabont’s “The Mist” and making his own short subject, a funny and endearing homage to several generations of classic movie monsters, “United Monster Talent Agency.”

When I met with Nicotero and last Summer’s Comic-Con, however, it was to promote the already highly buzzed new AMC series, “The Walking Dead,” which reunites Nicotero with writer-director Darabont in an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s Eisner Award-winning comic book series. Premiering Halloween night, the show will be taking a more dramatic look at the cannibal zombie mythos originally created by George Romero in his 1968 “Night of the Living Dead,” combining slow-moving zombies with the kind of in-depth characterization and complex yarn-spinning that’s making the onetime “vast wasteland” of television into something more like the last refuge of classical storytelling.

There’s only one problem. I’m kind of scared to actually watch the thing. You see, much as I admire the craft of someone like Greg Nicotero, I’m not exactly the usual gorehound media-fan for whom the more, and more realistic, cinematic gore he can create, the better. There was no point in hiding it.

Premium Hollywood: This is going to be a highly ironic interview.

Greg Nicotero: Good, I love irony.

PH: It’s ironic because, inasmuch as I’m known at all, I’m known for being squeamish. In order to watch the original “Day of the Dead” [I actually meant “Dawn of the Dead” ], I’m old enough to remember the original release, and I got myself completely plastered to see it.

GN: Did it work?

PH: Actually, it worked just fine except I couldn’t remember it the next morning. I watched it again sitting about 18 feet away from the TV set.

GN: That’s interesting.

PH: The funny part is, if I were on the set — and I have been on the set of movies with blood and gore, to some degree — I’d be fine. I’ve been covered in stage-blood, no problem. But watching it, the magic of cinema being what it is…

GN: Wow.

PH: Anyhow, and I think I know the answer to this question, how many drinks do you think I’ll need to get through a typical episode of “The Walking Dead”?

GN: How many did you need for “Day of the Dead”?

PH: [Not realizing I had misspoken earlier] “Dawn of the Dead” — I think “Day of the Dead” would need more, from what I understand.

GN: You know, it’s hard to say. I haven’t seen the finished cut. We certainly didn’t pull our punches. We shot this as if it was a theatrical feature in terms of the amount of gore. AMC never said “You can’t do that.” They just said, “You know, use your own best judgment.” They said that to me and Frank and we’re like “Okay. Our best judgment is ‘let’s make it awesome.’ Let’s just go gory and horrific and real. We sort of went to back to the holy grail of the original ‘Night of the Living Dead’ which was the inspiration. What’s interesting about this is that there’s been a lot of movies lately that take the zombie genre into different avenues. The idea is just to steer back and make zombies creepy and make zombies scary and make zombies unsettling. Frank knows the genre so well and is such a fantastic writer that he knows what beats to hit. He’s putting his dramatic sensibilities [into it].

PH: I overheard something very interesting in one of your other interviews. I know your first movie was “Day of the Dead” and you talked about misdirection, which you learned about from Tom Savini, “the wizard of gore.” This is a very interesting concept to me because in film, you can just not show something you don’t want the audience to see, as opposed to a magician who has to literally distract you. How does that actually work in an effects gag?

GN: It’s like a dance. Everything is choreographed so that you set it up like a magic trick. It’s set up for the final trick. You’ll do a lot of ‘Hey, how many cards do I have?’ and you pick somebody out of the audience. It’s all set up for one punch. It’s the same with a make-up effects gag. You to build it up and set it up.

The thing that I always loved about Tom was that he was very inventive in terms of, you know, the screwdriver in the ear from “Dawn of the Dead” or the machete in the head. He took a machete and he just cut it out and did it in reverse. You see him knock the zombie off the motorcycle, he puts his foot on his shoulder, and he says his line, “Say goodbye, creep,” and then he swings down. It’s the fact that he choreographed it so that the angle of seeing him swing the machete down would never in a million years make you think that when the machete makes contact that it actually is being pulled away. It’s the set-up. It’s the fact that those shots that lead up to it are all about setting up the gag so that the gag sells.

One thing that directors want to try to do now, and have more flexibility to do because of visual effects, is that you can get more in one take. “Oh, it would be great for this guy to run in here, grab that zombie, and chop his head off and then keep running.” Sure, if you want to go for that sort of hand-held kind of feel where you’re running through the streets with Rick [i.e., “Walking Dead” protagonist Rick Grimes, portrayed by Andrew Lincoln] and he’s shooting zombies…you can do that. But, you know, that’s just a factor of current filmmaking. In the day, they would cut, and then we would have a fake head and he would run by and chop the fake head off and we’d cut back to the wider stuff. Now, for some of this stuff — zombies’ heads being blown off, some of the head hits and stuff — it’s easier for the actors to just run through the shot and go and then, later, CGI will add a little blood spray, just to make it more gory and gruesome. It times out. Visual effects and CGI is a great tool just like prosthetics are a great tool. You sort of marry the two.

PH: Speaking as somebody who’s a little bit squeamish, I actually [will think] “oh, it’s just CGI gore.” If you really want to sell it, I imagine you’ve got to be pretty clever so that the audience isn’t aware.

GN: That’s why you’ve got to mix it up; the audience knows the difference.

PH: I know that one of the things you’re using as a touchstone is the original “Night of the Living Dead.” So that, I assume, means slow zombies, and also no brain eating.

GN: Correct. I’ll have extras on the set and somebody will say, “Ah, I’m really looking forward to eating some brains, tonight.” Wrong movie. I literally will say that. [The brain eating meme started in the late Dan O’Bannon’s 1985 “splatstick” horror comedy, “The Return of the Living Dead.”] I’m pretty clear with my zombie extras in terms of what the proper etiquette is and isn’t. So, if one of them says, “Oh, yeah, this is what we’re doing.” Wrong movie. No, we’re not doing that. It’s not about eating brains. Which is funny because even AMC gave us hats when we started to shoot that said “I heart brains.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them.

PH: [Laughing]. The comedians, I think, just love to talk about <in zombie voice> “braaiins.”

GN: It’s not the right movie.

PH: I’ve never seen that one. Everyone tends to focus on the gore, but are there other important effects [on “The Walking Dead”] that aren’t associated with blood and guts?

GN: Just the look of the zombies themselves is more critical than even the gore stuff. Because if you really think about the arc of the show, the gore is there to serve the purpose of how disposable the zombies are. It’s really about the relationships of these characters, with the zombies as a backdrop. The gore is there to serve the story, it’s not just “Oh, let’s do gore for the sake of making something controversial.” But the gore aspects that we’ve done to serve the story — did you see the one picture with Rick with the intestines and the body parts hanging over his neck?

PH: I didn’t see that. I saw the partially gone head. [Which you can see to in my earlier interview with producer Gale Anne Hurd.] I’m getting better. I did watch [Frank Darabont’s underrated apocalyptic monster apocalypse film] “The Mist” last night….

GN: Ah. That’s not so gory.

PH: It’s not so gory. A couple of shots. I’m slowly [making progress]. Speaking of just doing the zombie characters where you see someone as a human…I’m actually not familiar with the comic. Is the transformation the same as usual, where you would get bit and become a zombie?.

GN: The rules are the same.

PH: So, do we see a lot of [zombies], who we used to know as people?

GN: No. We certainly will deal with some of our characters that come across that dilemma, but it’s not like we have reoccurring zombie characters.

PH: Or people that in the first episode start out as people…

GN: There’s not enough of ’em. And we don’t know. If the show is successful and goes into a second season sure we’re not a hundred percent sure where it’s going to go. [Note: Weeks before the show aired, AMC had already ordered a second season. Isn’t cable great?]

PH: I know you were talking about some of the differences from past films. I know Frank Darabont has more of a kind of earnestness in the stuff he does, whereas you said that George Romero is known for being a little bit more satirical with social commentary. I’m sure that guides the effects. Would you say you’re going for greater realism here?

GN: Oh, without a doubt. With George you’ll have your Santa Claus zombie and your priest zombie and your cop zombie, your nurse zombie. He really is using that to sort of satirize what humanity has become. Whereas, in this series, the zombies are sort of a collective menace. They’re relatively easy to dispatch if you come across one or two of them. It’s just like a pack of piranha. You have ten of them, you’re probably not in such bad shape as if there’s a hundred of them.

PH: What about other work you’ve done that you’re especially proud of?

GN: Oh, good lord. [My company] started in ’88, so this is our twenty-third year. We’ve done everything from “Dances with Wolves” and “The Green Mile” to “Sin City” and “Spawn” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “Land of the Dead” and “Transformers” and “Inglourious Basterds.” We do all of Robert Rodriguez’s movies, we do all of Quentin Tarantino‘s movies. We did “Predators.” We did “The Book of Eli.” We did [“Piranha 3D“]…

PH: How is the whole 3D thing effecting you?

GN: We did the 3D “Final Destination” as well. It doesn’t really effect us. I mean some of the gore, some of the gags — if you want something specific to go right at the camera, it winds up being a visual effect. When you’re doing a blood gag or something, blood is inherently difficult to track in terms of where it’s going to land. So, you just kind of let it spray, [then] figure out what’s going to happen.

PH: It’s interesting when you talk about working with different directors. I loved, and had a great time, to my surprise, with “Planet Terror.” The bag of….

GN: Testicles.

PH: I couldn’t remember whether they were eyeballs or just balls. Why doesn’t that bother me? I found it very humorous.

GN: Because it’s ridiculous. It’s so over-the top. The whole intention of that movie was to sort of play on that seventies John Carpenter exploitation scenario. Which is funny because I was talking to Robert [Rodriguez] about this show. I think I sent him a couple of zombie pictures just to say, “hey, man, check out what we’re doing.” He said, “Man, makes me wanna do another horror movie.”

PH: Okay, I think we’re done. Thanks, it’s been a real pleasure.

GN: Good luck with watching you’re horror movies!

In some ways I think a little overrated, John Carpenter’s science-fiction/action/creepy alien monster flick from 1988 ,”They Live,” seems to me a thorough-going and obvious from-the-left savaging of the Reagan years and the consumerist, bland cultural mentality that went with it. Yet, oddly enough, it’s imagery has been picked up online by some Reagan-worshipping teapartiers. Well, history probably isn’t their favorite subject.

More clips and  commentary after the flip

Moving on, via Cinematical, we have the first quarter hour or so of a subtler and less strictly partisan commentary from the Jimmy Carter era (it was short, but he had an era), 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead.” Regular readers know of my rather fraught relationship with this zombie splatter classic and while I’ve only been up to watching the first five minutes or so of this clip recently, I can say that this one has it all: our questionable media, police attitudes towards minorities at the time, and NSFW head shots, language, and cannibalism, not to mention the scariest carpeting in film history and George Romero’s genius for pacing, intensity, and making the most of a not very experienced cast. Even if you’re a cinema chicken like me, try to watch the first few minutes. (Scaredy-cats and fellow gore-phobes may want to think about stopping after Romero’s credit appears and they leave the TV station.)

And, finally, I’d love to present a clip from my pick for the greatest of politically themed horror films, Guillermo del Toro’s remarkable “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which is also more than a political film, or a (possible) fantasy film, it’s real art. On the other hand, it does shine a light on the shameful bit of history in which the late-World War II-era Western Allies sold out the people of Spain to a brutal fascist dictator in preparation for the coming Cold War.

However, for whatever reason finding embeddable videos — even of relevant videos with del Toro, is next to impossible. I am therefore forced to show a brief reenactment by the ingenious Brandon Hardesty not because it’s particularly relevant to the discussion, but because it’s hilarious and seems to shown that Hardesty might have paid attention in Spanish class, which these days is itself a political act.

Oh, and please vote this Tuesday.

There aren’t many producers around these days whose name can help sell a movie or TV show, but Gale Anne Hurd is the rare exception. Probably best known as one of the co-creators of “The Terminator” franchise, Hurd has been an important player in numerous mega- or merely major productions, including both “Hulk” and “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Abyss,” “Armageddon,” “The Punisher,” and the underrated 1999 comedy “Dick,” which starred Dan Hedaya as Richard Milhous Nixon and a young Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as a couple of teenagers who wind up bringing down a presidency.

Clearly one of the more hands-on producers around, Hurd is pleasant and businesslike when talking to a member of the show-biz press, but clearly has the gumption to deal with the biggest and most difficult of personalities, which is how I segue into the obligatory mention of the fact that she spent the part of the late eighties and early nineties being married to first James Cameron and then Brian De Palma. Moreover, she began her career working for one the most fascinating and effective producers in the history of the medium, Roger Corman, but more of that in the interview.

Still, nothing she’s done is quite like her current project, the zombie horror drama and comic book adaptation, “The Walking Dead.” The AMC television series, adapted from a series of acclaimed comics by Robert Kirkman primarily by writer-director Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile,” “The Mist”) is currently receiving maximum exposure on the web. The publicity train was only just getting started when I spoke to Ms. Hurd at a mammoth new San Diego hotel adjacent to the Comic-Con festivities last summer.

I had typed my questions on my laptop, which I was afraid might be a little off-putting. So, after a quick greeting, I tried to explain why.

Premium Hollywood: I’m using this because I couldn’t find paper.

Gale Anne Hurd: No worries. You know, it’s much greener.

PH: Is it really? I guess so. Anyhow, you’re one of the people I requested, because I’m a kind of a big movie geek.

GAH: Good!

PH: You’re kind of an important person in recent film history — let’s go back to the beginning. You were a P.A. [production assistant] on movies like “Humanoids from the Deep”…

GAH: I was a PA on “Humanoids from the Deep”….

PH: …”Rock and Roll High School,” “Alligator”…

GAH: I actually worked up to Second A.D. [assistant director] on “Alligator.” I got a promotion.

PH: You were a fast rising person, but you were part of the Golden Age of Roger Corman films, actually the second golden age, I guess.

GAH: I wasn’t there with the Scorseses, Demmes, Coppolas.

PH: That would actually be the third golden age, then, because if you count the movies Corman made mostly himself [in the 50s and 60s], and then there was the 70s group and the 80s.

GAH: [Laughs.] I fell in love with, I saw his films at the drive-in when I was growing up, especially the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations that I loved.

PH: Those were wonderful. So, what do you think that experience with Corman taught you about the kind of sort of high-class [by which I meant “big budget] producing you do now?

GAH: If you look at the films that he made, the tent-pole summer films of now are versions of what he was doing, with bigger stars, although when you consider that Jack Nicholson started his career with Roger Corman…I’ve got a bigger sandbox to play in, but I’m just as much a fan now as I was then. I come to Comic-Con even when I don’t have a panel or a project to promote.

PH: Really.

GAH: This is so much fun for me. I’ve already been over, checked out the hall, [been] comic book girl and checked out my friends at the various booths.

PH: What are your favorite comics right now?

GAH: Well, obviously, I love “The Walking Dead.” I’ve got one, actually, that I’ve launched, “The Scourge” written by Scott Lobdell and artwork by Eric Battle, which is from Aspen Comics, I’m very excited about that. There’s also the new adaptation of Phillip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” [the novel that was the extremely loose basis/inspiration for Ridley Scott‘s “Blade Runner”]

PH: I didn’t know they were doing that — you probably know more about comics these days than me. That sounds interesting.

GAH: Very cool.

PH: Maybe they’ll decide to make a movie of it again. [Laughing]

GAH: It’s interesting when you think about it.

PH: Maybe they’ll do the actual book. Now, I’m famously squeamish. The most popular blog post I ever wrote was me getting myself drunk to watch the original “Dawn of the Dead” after putting it off for over 20 years. Approximately how many drinks will it take me to get through a typical episode of “The Walking Dead”?

GAH: It depends on what makes you squeamish. We should probably have some sort of alert so that when the character drama is interrupted by something a bit gory, you can avert your eyes. AMC has not given us the kind of restrictions that I think that the fans were afraid of.

PH: The gorehounds are going to be happy.

GAH: I think you’ve actually got some of the stills that are out there [in the hall]

PH: I actually don’t think I’ve seen anything.

GAH: I’ll take you next door and there’s something I want to show you that will give you an idea. You know, it is the zombie genre.

PH: No, I understand. You’ve got to have a little bit of that.

GAH: You don’t want to make it seem like it’s got the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for all ages, but it’s not what we’re focusing on. Because this is on AMC. It’s story. It’s character. But it is a zombie apocalypse. Although we call them “walkers,” people will know them as zombies and we have to be true to the genre.

PH: And with zombies comes zombie apocalypse. You’ve actually worked on a number of movies with apocalyptic themes.

GAH: I have.

PH: Even in the title, “Armageddon,” “Judgment Day.” Why do you think that’s obviously such an appealing concept? I was watching “The Mist” [written and directed by Frank Darabont] last night. The end of the world seems to be such a popular sub-sub genre. Why do you think that is?

GAH: Regardless of your religious or ethnic origin, all traditions of the human experience deal with some sort of end of time, end of days. What people disagree on is what happens after that or what’s causing it. With [“The Walking Dead”] it enables us to not have a natural disaster but the aftereffects are such that you’ve got a small band of humans dealing with the exigencies of survival.

PH: I’m not too familiar with the comic book — actually I’m not familiar at all with it — but I imagine there’s the usual group dynamics in these things where sometimes the people are the bigger threat than the monsters.

GAH: You can predict what the zombies are after; you can’t always predict human behavior.

PH: Was “The Mist” — like I said, I just watched it last night — was that directly related to how Frank Darabont ended up on this project?

GAH: No. You know Frank is also an enormous genre fan. I think this may be his twentieth Comic-Con. He’s been a fan of Robert Kirkman’s work since the very first issue. It’s issue 75 at this point. In fact, it was at last year’s Comic-Con that Frank and I sat down with Robert and said, “We want to take this to AMC.” Who would’ve thought that a year later we’d be here, in the middle of shooting episode 4?

PH: I understand Mr. Kirkman’s very excited about it and wants it to last 27 seasons. [Laughing.]

GAH: At least! He told us he’s got 250 issues mapped out.

PH: So how closely are you following the [story] of the comic?

GAH: We’re not slavishly following it. It’s a different medium to begin with. We have the opportunity to explore characters in a way that a comic book is limited. It’s limited in the number of panels that you’ve got. The amount of dialogue. So, we’re able to dig deeper there. And Robert was very, very upfront saying “I don’t want all of the fans of the comic book to be able to predict exactly where it’s going.” So, we change it up. In fact, the episode we’re shooting right now…which is the fourth episode, Robert Kirkman wrote.

PH: How was he in handling that transition [from comic book to film writing]? Had he done any screenwriting before?

GAH: No. First of all, he was involved from the very beginning as an executive producer. In the meetings, talking about where the arc of the six episodes would take us by the end of the season. He worked very closely with Frank and the writer’s room. In fact, he was in the writer’s room and he’s been on set.

PH: AMC is really developing an interesting, very eclectic pattern. They started with “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad“…

GAH: And “Rubicon.” But the interesting thing is they’re going to have a block of programming in October called “Fear Fest” which is a collection of the best of the genre and we’ll be premiering during that block, so it’s actually perfect.

PH: So, they’ll schedule you right after showing “Night of the Living Dead”?

GAH: I don’t know. That’s up to them. But we’re in good hands. [Note: The movie preceding “The Walking Dead” premiere turns out to be Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead”]

PH: I understand that, in terms of the rules of your zombie universe, you’re following the ones set up in [George Romero’s] original “Night of the Living Dead.”

GAH: Our zombies are not Usain Bolt. They’re not world record sprinters. They’re dead, they’re not moving as fast as when they were alive.

PH: “They’re dead. They’re all messed up.” Right. So, looking at the history of all these zombie movies, what do you think is going to be the contribution of “The Walking Dead” to the genre?

GAH: The great news is we have at least six hours starting out to explore the characters and this world. If we continue we’ll have 13 hours next years [Note: AMC has already renewed the show, so they will.] No one’s ever gone as in-depth as we’re able to in any kind of zombie series in the United States. We want it to be great television as well as something where the fans of Robert Kirkman’s comic book will say that it’s also a great adaptation.

AMC’s premiere of “The Walking Dead” may be the most anticipated horror event of the year, but zombie fans looking for an entertaining appetizer would be wise to check out “Dead Set.” After Stephen King included the British miniseries in his year-end Entertainment Weekly column listing his favorite TV shows of 2009, I’ve been anxious to see what all the buzz is about. And thanks to IFC – which is airing the horror series throughout the week starting on October 25th, as well as showing all five episodes back-to-back on Halloween night – “Dead Set” is finally coming stateside.

Set almost predominantly within the hit TV reality program, “Big Brother,” the series opens on eviction night when a zombie outbreak turns the outside world into a wasteland where the living are vastly outnumbered by flesh-eating undead. Protected inside the walls of the Big Brother house, the fame-seeking contestants are some of the only survivors remaining – and the last to hear about the zombies. But staying alive requires teamwork, and that’s easier said than done when you’re surrounded by a bunch of people who have been specifically selected to not get along.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of “Dawn of the Dead” and “28 Days Later,” “Dead Set” is still a considerably fresh entry in the zombie subgenre thanks to a few unexpected twists and a solid script that doesn’t shy away from comedy. It’s not exactly funny like “Shaun of the Dead,” but rather a dark satire that plays on the idea of the contestants falling victim one by one in a cruel reflection of the reality show they were cast in. The actors also elevate the material beyond its potentially gimmicky premise – particularly Jaime Winstone as the unlikely heroine and Andy Nyman as the asshole producer in charge of the show – but it’s the amazing zombie effects (the amount of gore packed into each episode is pretty impressive) and the breakneck pacing that make “Dead Set” an absolute must-see.