One Of Shaun Of The Dead's Most Memorable Moments Wasn't In The Script
"Shaun of the Dead" eliminates the need on movie night to choose between a zom-com (zombie comedy) or rom-com (romantic comedy) by giving audiences a blend of them both with a "rom-zom-com," as writer/director Edgar Wright and writer/star Simon Pegg once described it to MTV News.
In "Shaun of the Dead," Pegg plays the titular Shaun while Nick Frost plays his best friend, Ed. Meanwhile, Kate Ashfield plays his exasperated girlfriend, Liz, but that's not where the romance lies. As Pegg put it:
"The film is a romantic comedy. And people always think it's a romantic comedy about Shaun and Liz; it's not. It's a romantic comedy about Ed and Shaun."
In other words, "Shaun of the Dead" is a bromance ... with zombies. Though it's not Wright's first film — 1995's "A Fistful of Fingers" was his directorial debut — the horror comedy provided his breakthrough into cult-classic territory after it hit theaters in 2004. It's the first installment in his "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy (or "Blood and Ice Cream" trilogy), which also includes "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End."
Wright and Pegg co-wrote all three films together, but that doesn't mean they weren't open to occasional moments of improvisation on the set. In fact, one memorable (albeit NSFW) line of dialogue was an ad-lib from Frost.
'Ooh! C**kacidal maniac.'
Frost's ad-lib comes during the scene where Ed is trying to cheer Shaun up at the pub after Liz has broken up with him. Liz didn't like hanging out at The Winchester all the time, but Ed tries to defend it as place full of "rich, interesting characters." He goes around the room, offering his own backstories for each barfly, and when he lands on an older woman who's dressed like a schoolmarm or librarian, he says, "Ooh! C**k-a-cidal maniac. She's an ex-porn star. She's done it all ..."
In an interview with BigFanboy, Frost explained how this line, which wasn't in the script, came about. He said:
"The only part I improvised was when we're in the pub, and I'm talking about the people in the pub. We're talking about the porn star and I call her a c**k-a-cidal maniac, and that lady is actually Edgar's girlfriend's mum. Edgar wanted Simon to laugh quite naturally, so every now and again you'd go over and he'd whisper to do something different every time. So I came up with about 15 different things, each more perverted than the last. And I don't know where it came from actually. But yeah, Edgar's whispers are quite nice, because it usually means he will put someone's life in danger."
If you go back and watch this "Shaun of the Dead" scene, Pegg does give a very natural, genuine laugh when Frost delivers his line. That's a moment that maybe only could have happened because Pegg, the film's co-writer and star, was hearing this fresh, unscripted line for the first time.