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Jonathan, you have directed horror (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) and comedy before, but both were very R-rated, so what was it like working within the PG-13 confines?

JL: Well, I was never too worried about that, because I view this movie as following in the footsteps of The Goonies, Princess Bride, and even WALL-E, that have nice hearts at the center of them, but are not super earnest and have a degree of cynicism to them. But I never thought that amping up the gore would help tell the story in any way. I wanted it to be gory, because I wanted people who like zombies to not think we are pussies, so we pushed it as far as we could, but it’s not about that. It’s also a movie geared to young people and I didn’t want them not to be able to see it or have to sneak in.

I saw Project X … and the theater was filled with 16-year-olds and I was like, “They all snuck in. They bought tickets to something else and Project X didn’t make money from them.”

Your films have great soundtracks. How much of the music in this did you know you were going to use compared to post?

JL: I wrote a bunch of stuff into the script. I wrote Simon & Garfunkel into the script, which didn’t make it into the movie. I wrote Guns N’ Roses in, which did make it into the movie. I write songs into the script that I am listening to while I’m writing and never think that they will work. I think they are a good tonal guide, but not that the exact song will work. When you put a song into a movie, it is not just about the song, but the lyrics and the tempo and how it works with the rhythm of the scene. So just patience was the only thing and we kept trying a bunch of stuff and I am really, really happy with where it ended up. But I also just put stuff in that I think is cool. I was listening to that Bon Iver album a lot and put it in, because I was like, “That’s cool.” There’s not always that much thought that goes into it, but when it works, it’s nice.

As an actress, do you find it easier when you know what song they are fitting into the film? Does that even come into play?

JL: “Pretty Woman” was in the script.

AT: Personally, that helps me. I’m a big music person and I compare a lot of my emotions to how something sounds. That’s a tool I use for myself. I’m not sure if all actors really do that.

(Looking at Jonathan) I don’t think you and I ever did, but I can probably express myself much better to him if we were having trouble figuring an emotion out if he like gave me a song and I’d say, “I’d get that.” As a filmmaker myself, music is where I drew from creatively and artistically. Seeing his films do that is cool. I had no other word than cool (laughs).

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