INTERVIEW: Milo Manheim and his ‘Zombies’ family head to Walt Disney World
Photo: Disney Channel’s Zombies 2 stars Kylee Russell as Eliza, James Godfrey as Bonzo, Kingston Foster as Zoey, Ariel Martin as Wynter, Pearce Joza as Wyatt, Milo Manheim as Zed, Meg Donnelly as Addison, Chandler Kinney as Willa, Carla Jeffery as Bree and Trevor Tordjman as Bucky. Photo courtesy of Disney Channel / Ed Herrera / Provided by press site with permission.
The cast members from Disney’s hit movie series Zombies are heading to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando for an evening of holiday-inspired challenges and scavenger hunts around the Hollywood Studios theme park. The holiday special, called Disney’s Holiday Magic Quest, will air on the Disney Channel Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. (streaming afterward on Disney+).
Included in the adventure will be Milo Manheim, Kylee Russell, Meg Donnelly and Trevor Tordjman, who should be well known to viewers because they are the main actors from the Zombies movies on Disney Channel. So far two films in the franchise have been released, and a third one is promised for 2022.
Manheim is a successful actor who plays Zed in Zombies. On the holiday special, he teams up with his castmates to overcome some difficult obstacles, including escaping from Kylo Ren and the Stormtroopers at Galaxy’s Edge (Chewbacca may make an appearance as well), surviving the Tower of Terror, and navigating the ins and outs of Andy’s Backyard in Toy Story Land. It’s actually Manheim’s second time taking part in the Holiday Magic Quest because he was featured last year as well.
Recently Manheim talked with Hollywood Soapbox about the TV special. Here’s what he had to say …
On whether he was an immediate yes when they asked him to join the Holiday Magic Quest …
My initial reaction every time they ask those things is I am happy they asked me and not some other Disney kid because those experiences are always such a fun time. For real, I’m going to remember that trip for the rest of my life, so I’m always so grateful that Disney asked me to be a part of those things.
On whether he’s a fan of Walt Disney World Resort …
I grew up going to DisneyLand, so DisneyLand is my home. It’s my place where I love to go, and I actually never was able to experience Disney World until I started working at Disney, and I was offered these crazy opportunities to go do cool performances and obviously cool adventures at Disney World. So now that I have been able to go there more often, I’ve been able to explore the parks more and more, and you find really cool things about the parks everytime there that you didn’t know the time before. And there’s such a rich history with Disney World. It’s an awesome place.
On whether he likes the thrilling rides at theme parks …
I am always going to rush to be on the ride. The only time I’m hesitant to go on the ride is when I know we’re going to do it multiple times at 3 a.m. under some crazy lights, which was the situation this time. I also get to ride on the rides with Kylee, so I was really looking forward to them still. I’m a big rider. I love riding rides.
On what it was like to film in the middle of the night …
You definitely try to get yourself into the right mindset. Me, Meg and Trevor we all stayed up really late the night before so that we didn’t get tired that night. Obviously that didn’t work out very well because we obviously got super tired the first night, but, you know, once you keep doing it over and over again, your body gets more used to it. It’s definitely tricky. Luckily we had each other to keep our energy up and keep each other up, but it’s definitely daunting doing those shoots overnight. The thing is if you’re shooting a movie like Zombies, sometimes the sets that you use are part of a studio piece, so you can even see something during the daytime and make it look like nighttime. But when you’re shooting something in somewhere like Disney World, you can’t fake it, and because the whole shoot takes place over the course of one night, we had to do three nights in a row just from sundown to sunrise.
On how the Zombies cast is a family …
They truly are my favorite people in the world. We said multiple, multiple times over the course of the trip, we just reminded ourselves of how lucky we are to be together doing this. I really love those people so much. I mean, I’m golfing with Trevor tomorrow. They are my family. They are my favorite people in the world, so to be able to share this truly once-in-a-lifetime experience — well, I guess for me and Kylee, twice-in-a-lifetime experience — is really special.
When I was going out for Zombies, I wasn’t really auditioning for much. I had been asked by the casting director … to audition, so when I did it was all daunting to me. And I was very new to it, but, yes, you can bet that when I booked the role, that night was very hazy. I say this in interviews all the time, when I booked Zombies, I didn’t really feel like I booked it until two weeks later because it took so much time to sink in. It took so much time to sink in that I had booked the movie, but it also took time to sink in how impactful the movie was and how big of a production the movie was and how big a monster of a project it was to take on, which I didn’t really expect, but I was so happy to figure out. I made some lifelong friendships from it. I think I’ve showcased myself very well in the movie as Zed, and I got to experience a whole new city that is Toronto, really two cities because I’ve got to travel to Florida as well and meet a bunch of new people outside the movies. So being a part of Zombies has brought me so many amazing things — relationships, experiences — so I’m so grateful.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Disney’s Holiday Magic Quest, featuring Milo Manheim, will air Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. on Disney Channel and later stream on Disney+. Click here for more information. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s interview with Meg Donnelly.
