Blog Aug 31 Halloween
TITLE: ZOMBIE GIRL (file under “Movies”)
Most of you know Sheri Moon Zombie as director/musician Rob Zombie’s wife and muse. She started her career in 1995 playing a cat-suited go-go dancer in a White Zombie video before jumping to the big screen. The actress then made an impression as the sexy-yet-scary Baby Firefly with that laugh in her husband’s film House of 1,000 Corpses and its superior sequel, The Devil’s Rejects. She’s onboard for Rob’s reboot of Halloween [ opening in theaters everywhere today, in which she plays Deborah Myers—the struggling stripper mother of young psychopath Michael Myers (pictured). We sat down with Sheri and asked her to tell us about life in Zombieland.
PLAYBOY: You must have experienced some classic rock ‘n’ roll moments on the road when Rob toured. Care to share any?
SHERI MOON ZOMBIE: Rob was never involved with groupies or any of that, but I’ve sure seen strange happenings with girls on the road. Whatever you think happens—as farfetched in your mind and as crazy as it could be—it actually does happen. I’ve seen girls standing in rooms with sandwich meat getting thrown at them while they’re naked. We would walk around into other bands’ dressing rooms with this kind of stuff going on: guys and girls dancing naked on tables, blow jobs in lounges. Nothing is soft and pretty and nice—it’s total debauchery. You’d think that all rocker guys love the chicks, but they pretty much treat them like crap on the road. It’s all pretty vulgar and women-hating in a strange way.
PLAYBOY: Halloween is the third time your husband has directed you in a feature. Does he treat you like any other actor?
SHERI MOON ZOMBIE: Rob really knows how to work with me because we’ve lived together for 14 years and he knows me inside and out. Actors like working with him because he has a way of making everyone feel like they’re doing exactly what they want to do and they’re utilizing their ideas, yet he’s making it happen. That’s what directors do. It makes it look like the actors are getting what they want, but it’s really what he wants.
PLAYBOY: You were unforgettable as the psycho-Barbie serial killer Baby in both House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. How much of you is in that character?
SHERI MOON ZOMBIE: [Laughs like Baby] I hope none! But I’m no Meryl Streep, so I’m sure there’s a little bit of me in there. Baby is a pretty maniacal yet angelic creature who was born into this bad blood. She just goes along with it. I think she has aspirations of Hollywood and things better to get her out of the country bumfuck place where she lives, but she just flies along with the family—and I think she has fun doing it.
PLAYBOY: Do you even like horror movies?
SHERI MOON ZOMBIE: I grew up watching teen horror movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th. I liked them, but I can’t watch them by myself. I’m really freaked out if there is a demonic house possession like The Amityville Horror or The Omen. But the slasher movies are totally fun. Everyone loves to jump and be scared—it’s like a rollercoaster ride.
PLAYBOY: What was your life like before you became Zombified?
SHERI MOON ZOMBIE: I grew up in Connecticut, so I had the boring life of working as an insurance underwriter for a year. That was terrible. I worked as a waitress, bartender and in a bakery for a couple of days. I worked in a Fotomat for a couple of days and quit that, too. I’m like, “Fuck this! I’m not going to work these stupid jobs.”
PLAYBOY: Tell us something people assume about you and Rob that they should not.
SHERI MOON ZOMBIE: Oh my God. A big assumption is that we’re vampires because of our last name. We don’t live in a black house or anything like that. It drives me crazy. We don’t live like Goth-y vampires. Do I look like I’m into that? I’m a blonde, tall, tan chick. We’re totally not scary or freaky.