Interview: Army of Thieves' Matthias Schweighöfer loves working with Zack Snyder

Netflix has a new franchise lined up.

Even before Zack Snyder released his new zombie heist movie Army of the Dead on Netflix, the director already had a prequel movie lined up: Army of Thieves. This prequel follows the safecracker Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), long before he was recruited by a team of mercenaries for a heist in zombie-ridden Las Vegas, and his life became infinitely more complicated. 

Army of Thieves begins with Dieter simply going through the motions as a small-town bank teller, before an enigmatic invitation throws him into a series of dangerous heists. America has just suffered a zombie outbreak, causing banking institutions to start moving their money around. Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) and her team of Interpol’s most wanted criminals decide to seize this opportunity to crack a family of legendary safes across Europe. Though it lacks the bloodthirsty monsters of Army of the Dead, this prequel doubles down on its heisting action with gleeful abandon. 

We caught up with Army of Thieves’ main star and director, Matthias Schweighöfer to find out how this prequel came about, what it was like working with Zack Snyder and where the star would like to see Dieter’s story go next. 

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This is such a distinct film from Army of the Dead, both visually and tonally. Was this a conscious decision to let this movie carve out its own identity, or is this just what a Ludwig Dieter origin story was always going to look like?

Matthias Schweighöfer: You know, in Army of the Dead, Zack used these dream lenses, which gave the movie this crazy look. I think it's a fantastic look. But when we first talked about the style and the look of Army of Thieves, it was more about...what do we do with colour grading at the end of the film, and lighting? I thought, why don’t we start very grayish and we end brighter because Dieter is going forward. He's moving to the desert, where the final safe is. There was a point where Zack just told me: “Matthias, just do your thing.” It also needs to look European because we can end in America, but we started in Europe. So what would that look like? And here we are.

How soon after Army of the Dead's production did this project come about, and what was collaborating with Zack Snyder on it like?

Matthias Schweighöfer: Working with Zack is always like having the best time of your life. Zack is always so easy to work with. He's a generous, heartful visionary, creative as whatever. Zack told me that there's a scene in Army of the Dead, the introduction of the character Dieter, and the first edit of that scene was like 12 minutes long. It's not in the film anymore. But in these 12 minutes, I told Dave Bautista the whole story of Wagner’s safes and the ring cycle. So Zack just said on that day, “Oh, wow. He just pitched his own potential spin-off!” And then he made his decision - “Okay, Dieter, you will get your own spin-off.”

Dieter was my favourite character in Army of the Dead, so I was overjoyed to see him get his due here. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like Dieter has much of a future post-Army of the Dead. If you get the opportunity to further explore this world and these characters, what would you like to see more of?

Matthias Schweighöfer: The next step in this universe is an anime show (Lost Vegas). I think what I love about their creativity is that they made this decision, to take a genre and combine it with another genre. So everything is possible now and I know that there will be a sequel in Planet of the Dead. Whatever is in Zack Snyder's mind will be visionary, crazy and good looking. Zack as I know him will do everything, combine stuff, and he will throw it out there and it will be very entertaining and cool. So hey, hopefully Dieter comes back too.

What inspirations did you draw from to make the heist-thriller tone of this movie work?

Matthias Schweighöfer: I watched a lot of heist films, and most of the time it's always about how a team gets into the bank to the safe, and then they crack it with some explosives and then you're going to see the money. Most of the time, it's just one safe. I wanted to understand what is the adrenaline level of someone who has to crack a safe under different circumstances? How does it feel? What's going on in the safe? That was stuff I never saw before in a heist movie. I tried to do my best to show a dialogue between a safe cracker and a safe. 

This movie was sometimes a lot bigger in scale than I expected it to be, with the vehicle chases and firefights. What is it like to both act and direct in these intense sequences?

Matthias Schweighöfer: It's one of the coolest things in the world. I love to be in charge. That’s the cool thing too, it allows you to be very creative. When I read the script for Army of Thieves, I knew we had cool genre stuff to work with. We can do fight scenes and even for women, I love that idea. Natalie is great in her fight sequences. So I called Zack and I said, “Zack, what is your stunt coordinator doing? Can he come over?” So then he said, “Yes, yes, he has time!” So he flew to Prague, and we met, and we made some really cool shit. And I'm proud of that.

How long does it usually take for a big action scene like that to come together? For example, the first chaotic heist in the bank?

Matthias Schweighöfer: Well, for example, Natalie was in the vault with two security guys. I think Natalie did rehearsals on that scene for four weeks, like three or four times a week, and we shot it in two days. And that's it. So it goes pretty fast, I think, in a big Hollywood movie. It's always good to have more time for a scene, but for that amount of time, she did awesome! Fantastic!

Speaking of Natalie, Army of Thieves has a pretty great cast. How did you find working with them to do this big, grand heist?

Matthias Schweighöfer: I love all the cast members, they were great, because everyone was super happy working on this. For Zack and with me, everyone was super empathetic and enthusiastic. And everyone's like, “Yeah, come on, let’s do this, we’ll make a fantastic film, because we can go crazy with these safes!” Everyone was involved and thankful and really happy to do this film because they had cool characters, and we could do funny stuff. It was like a fantastic playground for a lot of kids. And they all got to play, big time.

The lore behind the safes and the Nordic mythology involved in their creation was a pleasant surprise for me. Where did that come from?

Matthias Schweighöfer: In that intro sequence in Army of the Dead when we first meet Dieter, I told the whole story, so the ring cycle was always there. That's a true story, though. Wagner composed it, so these operas are real. Zack and Shay Hatten, the writer, they focused on the Nordic mythology and brought Hans Wagner in there, who did build the safes, so the mythology was there because of their operas. We invented the safes for that. 

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Army of Thieves is now streaming on Netflix.

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