- Warning: Major spoilers below if you haven't seen "
Army of the Dead ." - The Mexican actress plays Maria Cruz in the
Netflix zombie heist movie. - She talks to Insider about major spoilers and finally finding stardom in
Hollywood .
To say
After years doing telenovelas in her native Mexico, she got her big break in the US starring opposite Jack Black in the outlandish 2006 comedy "Nacho Libre." But it didn't lead to the instant fame she expected.
For the next 16 years, she grinded through the Hollywood system, finding roles in respected projects like the blockbuster "Cowboys & Aliens" and the Amazon series "Goliath" but also dealing with a lot of rejection. "Casting directors would say, 'We love her, but we can't understand her,'" Reguera recalled about her accent.
Now Reguera, 44, sees "Army of the Dead" as that much-desired turning point in her career.
It was last summer while Reguera was frantically getting the Mexican comedy series she created and stars in, "Ana," off the ground when her agent told her Zack Snyder wanted her in his next movie.
"I thought maybe I was confusing him with someone else," Reguera told Insider about how shocked she was by the offer. "Like, maybe there was another Zack Snyder I didn't know about."
Nope. It was the director of "300" and "Justice League." And what made Reguera even more shocked was that Snyder didn't even want her to audition. He just wanted her in the movie.
Reguera frantically wrapped up shooting "Ana" and was on a plane the next day on her way to the set of "Army of the Dead" (available now on Netflix).
Playing the badass Maria Cruz, a mechanic and mercenary who obliterates zombies with a large Gatling gun, Reguera shows she has the screen presence to shine opposite the likes of Dave Bautista and Tig Notaro.
Reguera says more details about her character's relationship with Dave Bautista's will be revealed in the prequel
Reguera said the making of "Army of the Dead" brought her back to her days making
Despite Snyder saying on a podcast that he banned chairs on the set, Reguera clarified that there was simply no time to sit because they were constantly shooting.
"It wasn't like you would go and sit at a table for lunch. We were just there filming, and while we're having breaks, they would come and bring us food to eat right on set," Reguera said.
"And we got to sit down. But it wasn't like a typical big movie, where you sit for a while as they set up shots," she added. "You would sit next to a zombie or sit in a car, you would find a place to sit."
Reguera also loved the sense of freedom she had with her character, Cruz. Snyder allowed her to bring more of a Latin flavor to the role by improvising some lines in Spanish.
"Sometimes he wouldn't even ask what I was saying," Reguera said. "I would ask, 'Do you want to know what I said in Spanish?' And he would say 'no.'"
However, with that freedom came a lot of material that had to be left on the cutting room floor, like the close relationship Cruz has with Bautista's Scott Ward character.
Towards the end of the movie, we see Cruz come out and profess her love for Ward. Reguera said there was more indication of the connection between the two, but it was cut out.
"I think there were just so many characters there wasn't enough time to explore that more," Reguera said of Cruz and Ward's relationship. "But you'll certainly see a lot of that in the animated prequel."
That's right, Netflix has already greenlit an animated TV series prequel, "Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas," and Reguera has voiced her character for that too.
Reguera is the only actor in the movie who shot scenes with Tig Notaro
Reguera said one of the major highlights of making "Army of the Dead" was coming back to do reshoots with Tig Notaro. In fact, Reguera was the only actor on the project to shoot with her.
Following the sexual misconduct allegations against Chris D'Elia, who was originally supposed to play the helicopter pilot character in the movie, Snyder cut him from the movie and recast the role with Notaro. The comedian spent most of her time acting alone surrounded by a green screen. Snyder would then digitally place her in scenes with the rest of the cast in post-production.
However, for two scenes Reguera said she was brought in to act opposite Notaro.
"The scene where I drop off the gas canisters on the roof," Reguera explained, "I shot that originally with Chris so we had to reshoot that."
"And the scene where the heist is being explained by the team in a warehouse," she continued, "originally Chris was standing next to me, and he's so tall, and Tig might be shorter than me, so I had to be there for her shooting that scene just to get the eye lines right."
Reguera said she built a quick friendship with Notaro during the reshoots and even got the comic's take on how the movie was because at that point Notaro was the only actor to have seen it.
"She saw the movie before doing her reshoots so she saw it eight months before any of us had," Reguera said. "So I was like, 'Did you like the movie? Is it good?' And she was like, 'Yes, it's actually very good.' And it gave me relief because Tig seems like someone who wouldn't lie about that. She's going to be honest."
Reguera says right now she's getting more parts offered to her than American actresses she knows
Reguera is also involved in one of the most surprising moments of the movie. After Cruz professes her love for Ward she's suddenly killed when a zombie comes out of an elevator and snaps her neck by twisting her head 180 degrees.
The shocking end to Cruz is one of the most unique deaths in the movie, and that's what Reguera loved about it.
"I like that mine is a surprise," she said. "And I love the risk of killing off a lead like that. It's more painful for the audience. Also, my death leads to Scott going crazy and killing a bunch of zombies."
Reguera's time in the action/horror genre is not done yet. Right after wrapping "Army of the Dead" she was offered a role in "The Forever Purge" (opening in July). Once more its director, Everardo Gout, asked her by name.
Reguera says it's weird to suddenly get these offers after years of hustling to get parts. She chalks it up to hard work and a change of the times.
"I have a lot of friends who are American, actresses who are blonde and blue-eyed, and it's hard for them to get jobs right now," Reguera said. "That's been interesting because I'm getting more offers. So I've noticed things are changing. I'm in the right moment. Hollywood wants diverse casts. They have realized that's what's working and what people want to see."