'Army of the Dead' star clarifies Zack Snyder's 'chair ban' amid controversy, explaining the chairs were 'just really far away'

• Zack Snyder said he "banned chairs" on the set of "Army of the Dead."
• Star Ana de la Reguera told Insider there were chairs, but "they were just really far away."
• Reguera said they were constantly shooting, so there was no time for the long breaks.

Typically, big Hollywood movie sets have a "hurry up and wait" vibe with actors sitting around for hours on set until the camera and lighting are done to the director's specifications. But that wasn't the case for Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead."

For almost four months shooting the zombie heist movie, everyone was on their feet for hours constantly working, including Snyder, who along with directing the movie was also its cinematographer and camera operator.

Snyder even said that those fancy director chairs usually scattered around a movie set for anyone to sit in were nowhere to be found.

"I banned chairs from the set," Snyder told The Playlist's "Fourth Wall" podcast. "But the nice thing is, it's really intimate. I can just talk to the actors right there. I'm not back in a monitor across the room. It was definitely the most purely engaged I've been making a movie."

When Insider asked the "Army of the Dead" star Ana de la Reguera, who plays the mercenary member Maria Cruz in the movie, about Snyder's chair "ban," she was a bit perplexed.

"There were chairs. They were just really far away from set," she said.

But she did say working on "Army of the Dead" (available Friday on Netflix) was unlike any Hollywood movie she'd been in because they were constantly working.

"My first day on set, we did a lot of scenes, and after that, we would go and train," Reguera said.

Alongside Dave Bautista, Reguera's Cruz character is part of the well-armored mercenary team that goes into Las Vegas to take millions from a casino vault that's surrounded by zombies.

"So the first 10 days, we were shooting non-fight scenes in the morning, and we would go train in the evenings," she said. "And two weeks later, we started doing the action scenes."

But Reguera said because the movie was shot in natural light, the days were fast-paced.

"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."

Insider contacted Snyder's rep for comment but didn't get a response.

Reguera compared working on "Army of the Dead" to how movies are made in her native Mexico, where there are no stand-ins and actors are always on set so they can be lit properly before a shot.

She said the one downfall was not getting a proper lunch break on "Army of the Dead."

"That's a super Latino thing. That's sacred for us," she said. "I missed my time where I could go to lunch, have a meal, have a good chat, go back to your trailer, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, and go back to set. That, I missed."

But Reguera added that the high energy on set made up for the lack of trailer time.

"I remember doing 'Cowboys & Aliens,' and one scene would take two weeks, and sometimes movies like that, things can get boring and you lose the flow of acting," she said. "So with this, you never lost that. For almost four months, you never lost the rhythm. I liked that a lot."