28 Years Later: 'I starred in zombie film I'm too young to watch'

BBC News

4 hours ago

An 11-year-old actor who stars in the newly released 28 Years Later has said he will have to wait four years before he can watch the 15 certificate film. Rocco, from Leeds, plays 'Young Jimmy' in the latest instalment of Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic zombie trilogy, which came out on Thursday. Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes parts of the movie were shot in Bradford and locations in North Yorkshire.Speaking at the film's gala premiere, Rocco said: "I wasn't allowed to watch it, but I got to step on the carpet, have a few photos, which was amazing."
Rocco said: "All the crew, Danny Boyle, the director, and everyone on set looked after me really, really nicely. I was spoiled, to be honest."After every take they'd just see if I was ok, because all the scenes I was filming were quite scary."His mum, Gemma, 41, said the whole family were "so proud of Rocco". Speaking about the young thespian's acting skills, she said: "His natural accent is really quite broad, Yorkshire. "But for this particular film, he had to use a Scottish accent. So that were really good to see." She added: "To be able to portray such a brilliant character in such an amazing film, and to work with Danny Boyle so closely was a real privilege."
Meanwhile, after answering a casting call on social media David Wilkin, 46, made it into the film as a zombie extra, featuring in one scene with 20 other zombies attacking a priest in a church filmed in Stanwick St John, near Richmond.He said: "I saw the advert looking for fit, thin people and I thought why not give it a try."He said he had spent each day "covered in fake blood head to toe - all your hair, your face, covered in blood".He described the film's director, Danny Boyle, as "an all-seeing eye, watching everybody"."He let everyone get on with what they were doing. He was a presence in the church, but a pretty cool one," he added.Mr Wilkin said he had attended the North East Gala Screening of the film in an attempt to spot himself on screen.However, he said as the scene he was in was a "frenetic zombie attack" he would have "needed a pause button see myself".
The Yorkshire Dales National Park was used for some filming locations, including Aysgarth Falls, Redmire and Fountains Abbey.Bec Evans from Fountains Abbey said film makers had wanted to play with the idea of the abbey "as a place of peace and sanctuary" in contrast to the manic scenes going on.However, she said during filming she had been very careful to ensure visitors to the historic landmark were not surprised by naked zombies lurking in the grounds of the Grade I listed landmark.She said: "One of our stipulations was we would not close the site fully during filming."So we had to be really careful during a scene with 'the infected' in it, to make sure we were not startling people too much, because the way that they look they don't have clothes on."
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