“Day of the Dead’ Exclusive: Natalie Malaika Talks SYFY’s Undead Series, How It Differs From Others, & What George A. Romero Fans Can Look Forward To
Nothing brings a town together like zombies.
SYFY raises the undead in the new series Day of the Dead, premiering Friday on SYFY. This zombie series, an ode to George A. Romero’s famous flesh-eaters, reminds us that sometimes all it takes to bring people together is a horde of hungry zombies trying to rip them apart.
In an exclusive interview with PopWire, star Natalie Malaika discusses the girl power on the show, the initiative she took in preparing for the role, and previews what viewers can expect and look out for.
Day of the Dead is the intense story of six strangers trying to survive the first 24 hours of an undead invasion. “Each of these six people have a lot of things going on in their lives,” Malaika tells us. “We have the mayor, Paula Bowman, who is petitioning to be re-elected; we’ve got some high school students who are either social outcasts or dealing with their own coming-of-age story; then you have my character Lauren, who has a bit of a rough past, a bit of a complicated character, but very bad-ass. Under that tough exterior, she has a soft heart.”
Natalie’s Lauren isn’t the only bad-ass on Day of the Dead. In fact, she is just one of many, which is one of the aspects she loves about the show. “When I was reading the script before we went to set, I noticed how female-driven it was and how the women predominantly throughout the series are the ones that are driving the story forward,” she says. “They’re the ones that are almost very fearless in a way.”
The actress shares that some of the male characters are the ones that they are pulling along, as opposed to that narrative where it’s been the opposite. “That definitely stood out to me for sure and was an aspect that I love. I love playing strong women; I love strong women. I’m very happy that that’s the route that they went with on this show.”
As the sarcastic assistant mortician at the local mortuary, this is her first leading role in a series. She reveals that though she didn’t need to do a deep dive before the series started production, she voluntarily pushed herself to learn more about the trade. “I went to visit a funeral home and talked to funeral directors to hear what drew them to that occupation,” Malaika says.
“I didn’t fully understand the draw, but obviously, Lauren has that draw to that job. Just talking to funeral directors and hearing what they had to say and how casual they just were about what they do [was interesting]. They were very explicit with describing what they do with their job as well. I took that upon myself. I wasn’t required to do that in any way, but I just found it would be interesting to do that.”
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With so many different zombie offerings available, Natalie says that there are pretty distinct differences that set the SYFY series apart from the others. “A big component of Romero’s legacy and his films was the social commentary,” she says. “I think that some other zombie shows don’t really focus on that as much. So you’ll see a lot of that in the show. Also, something that’s going to be very different, is that a bite doesn’t necessarily turn you into a zombie or doesn’t necessarily kill you.”
In addition to the easter eggs throughout the series for the huge Romero fans, she teases that Day of the Dead viewers can expect a lot of madness and mayhem and more. “Be prepared for a lot of chaos, a lot of ups and downs, to cry, and to laugh. There’s so much laughter throughout.” She also adds that “overall, I think we have some very awesome fight scenes with some zombies, so look forward to that. All of the fight scenes were my favorite. A lot of the effects that you’re going to see are awesome as well.”
Finally, for Romero fans and zombie fans in general, she says the show’s salute aims to be something special. “I hope that people love the tribute that we’re paying to this Godfather of zombies, Romero,” Natalie Malaika says, “because I don’t think anybody took this lightly and what his zombies stood for and what his legacy is. So I hope [the show] resonates with people and people love what we did.”
Day of the Dead premieres Friday, October 15 at 10pm on SYFY.