'28 Years Later' Star Chi Lewis-Parry Teases 'The Bone Temple', Recalls Terrifying Danny Boyle During Audition & More (EXCLUSIVE)

Portraying the primary antagonist in a sequel to one of cinema’s most cherished horror franchises is a formidable responsibility. Chi Lewis-Parry delivered a captivating performance as the Alpha Zombie in ’28 Years Later’, earning the admiration of fans who now champion (and thirst over) his chilling character.

In an exclusive interview, we spoke with the actor about the injuries he sustained on the set of ’28 Years Later’, surpassing those from his MMA career, his gripping audition where he met director Danny Boyle’s challenge to terrify him, and what audiences can anticipate from Nia DaCosta’s highly anticipated sequel, ’The Bone Temple’.

I imagine this is a very overwhelming time for you. Are you keeping up with the fan reactions?

I don’t feel overwhelmed. I feel kind of at home. I feel like this has been a lifelong work in progress. I always wanted to get here. It feels kind of like I’ve put the work in and now I’m getting to enjoy it. I just didn’t expect it to be so full on but yeah, I absolutely see the fan reaction has been very positive and I’m so grateful for that.

It’s a huge responsibility to play the main villain in a new ‘28’ movie, how did you prepare for it?

Horror, as a genre, is my cartoon. I’ve loved horror since I was a kid. I wasn’t supposed to be watching horror as a child but I had older cousins. I’d watch Tales from the Crypt, The Evil Dead, stuff that I shouldn’t have been watching. So I have this kind of strange relationship where it’s almost therapeutic to me.

So just to be given the opportunity to play such an important character in arguably the biggest franchise in horror today, I genuinely don’t have words. I’m still to this day pinching myself as I should to remind myself to take it all in and appreciate that I’m the person in this position and not take it for granted. At the same time, I’m a geek, I’m a fan. The responsibility to me doesn’t feel like a burden in any way. It feels more like a privilege. I’m grateful for this privilege.

What is your favorite scary movie?

Easy question. John Carpenter’s The Thing. That movie is also my favorite movie of all time. I know it’s hard because with some people, it changes all time. But ‘The Thing’ captures the beauty of cinematography and storytelling, and the performances. There’s not one bad performance in the whole movie and it has become more of a cult classic and it wasn’t a big box office smash at the time of release. I still feel if you watch that movie, it’s got some rewatch value. If you watch it now, it still holds up. The practical effects are amazing. I’m a big fan.

Have you seen the 2011 one?

Maybe we shouldn’t talk about that one. What I do respect about it is they made an attempt to tip the hat to John Carpenter and shoot it in a similar way. It’s just they tried to do too much. And I don’t like to criticize because I didn’t make the movie so it’s easy for me to sit here and say, “you should have done this; you should have done that”. I’m just saying as such an avid fan of John Carpenter and the original, I think it’s very tough shoes to fill. And to take on the responsibility of doing a prequel where you’re exploring that world and create a world around the visitation of the Norwegian camp. I mean, that’s brave! So, kudos to them for taking it on. It just didn’t do it for me.

Like John Carpenter, Danny Boyle is also an acclaimed horror director. Horror fans agree that the genre never receives the right amount of love at prestigious award shows like the Oscars, do you agree?

Absolutely, yeah. I think it’s actually a sin that horror isn’t recognized. We’re talking about horror okay because you can’t bunch a Danny Boyle horror with - and this is no discredit to the creators - but like, Saw. That type of horror movie and a Danny Boyle horror movie are worlds apart. Saw’s got an audience and it’s great, it’s just not my kind of thing. There has to be some element of fantasy in order for it to be enjoyable.

When it’s so realistic and so relatable to the gore and the violence, you turn to a dangerous line of losing the audience because they’re like “I didn’t like that it was too realistic”. You kind of need that little element of fantasy for people to go “that was so cool!” as opposed to “that was disgusting”. So, I mean Danny Boyle is Danny Boyle. I can’t talk about that guy positively enough.

What was the process of auditioning for 28 Years Later like?

One thing I think is incredible about him is he is at the auditions. A lot of directors don’t usually meet you until you potentially get a call back. To be in the first audition and see him in the room shows how important the casting process was for him. It’s easy to just delegate and say, “you guys take care of the costume, I’m just going to focus on the cool stuff”.

He’s there from morning till case trying to find the right people. And he’s very sure of what he wants and he’s very good at explaining that to you. Once I understand what you want to see, I’ll give it to you. Granted what he wanted to see wasn’t related to the film, so to speak he wanted to see me create a body or to embody a character that wasn’t “Samson”/The Alpha, it was just a man existing in this kind of fictitious world.

I had to create a world around me in the room and listen to the instructions of Peter Elliot, a very good movement performer. He was just narrating. I felt like I was on BBC One with David Attenborough. He was narrating the environment for me and I was reacting to what he was saying. I think it was a sense of capturing my ability to adapt but also to create something and that effectively worked. And that was the initial one. I think I did pretty well in that one because I got a second one. The second one was more intense.

I had an idea of what I was doing. I knew what I was auditioning for but I still didn’t really have much context of the character. He just said “Okay, I’m going to give you a couple minutes to get loose and when you’re ready, I want you to terrify me”. So I didn’t know if he wanted me to be a fighter, pretend I was a tough guy, use my words, he didn’t give me any directions. I ran at him as fast as I could and then I stopped right in front of his face and just let him feel my presence, and I was breathing and snarling at him. I was pretty much Samson in that moment. It hasn’t changed much from the audition.

So, your version of Samson is the one that ended up in the movie?

Yes, I mean he came kind of organically to me. He just said, “terrify me”. So, I did what I thought would be quite terrify me. If a man doubles my size runs at me full speed but has enough control to not hit me and stop. I just understood what he wanted. I could tell from his body language he was really soaking it up.

Have you had any injuries while filming?

Yes, you should have seen me at the end of the day. I was wrecked. Nothing major, nothing of concern. I’ve got a nice scar which I’m really proud. It’s from that scene in the tunnel. The moment where you see Samson appear out of the dark and actually sprinting, I was maybe 25 meters down the tunnel. Good enough distance for me to gather speed. But because we needed all the lighting off and only the lighting from the helmets, when they were facing away from me, I could see zero. We’re talking pitch blackness.

I had to practice running to remember how many steps I took so I could yell the actor’s name, so he would turn and reveal me with the lights. So when I’m running, I’m full on sprinting at him and grabbing him and I had to stop myself so we cut there. In one of the takes, where he has a rifle, he turned and he was supposed to come with it wide. But he came with it straight. He went to stab me straight in the leg. I’ve got a bowl scar, a little circle. It gave realism to the moment and it translates because like a psychopathic killer. I was covered in that all the time because my leg’s always getting chewed up with stuff. Bruises and scratches are part of the job I’m afraid. And I loved it!

Did you have many injuries when you were an MMA fighter?

No, isn’t that crazy? I had more injuries like breaking my hands, breaking my ribs, breaking my nose. This is just the occupation. That’s one injury and then you kind of train around it. But in this, it’s still like everyday because you’re capturing an image for life. Forever. Each take I’m doing, one of those is potentially immortalized. People are going to watch that in 50 years. So, I have to go 1000%.

I want to set a standard so when people watch that in 20 years' time and remake 28 Years Later and somebody else plays Samson, I’m Jack Nicholson of the row. I’m that version of the Joker so somebody’s got to push themselves to become Heath and take that mantle. So, I feel like breaking myself is a pleasure because I know that on screen, it’s all worth it. I’m just really passionate about what I do.

I can see that paid off. What should we expect from Samson in ‘The Bone Temple’?

There will be blood. And plenty of it. That’s a good logline for you. When I think about the caliber of crew that they got to make these films. It’s impossible to miss. Something that I feel is very misunderstood is the ending of 28 Years Later. People are distracted by the fact you’ve got these, as they quote, power rangers in the Jimmy scene. When they see the second film, they’ll understand. The rewatch value of the first one will skyrocket.

It’s such a beautiful film. I’m so proud to be part of it. I don’t want to spoil it for anybody because sitting in the cinema right now is such a privilege. We’ve missed it. We don’t do it anymore. Everyone watches the film at home. The social quality of going to the movies with a group of friends and watching something that you say “Wow, this is actually horrifically beautiful”, I think, is missed. This franchise is giving it back.

You’ve worked as a bodyguard early on in your career. Now you’re going to need a bodyguard yourself, right?

I don’t think so. You know what’s really sweet about this whole thing? I was in Oxford street yesterday minding my own business and a gentleman is coming towards me and I’m like “I know that face” and it was Mr. Bill Nighy. So we just crossed paths and I stopped him. He looked at me and smiled and I smiled it him saying “I’m such a big fan. I appreciate your craft. Thank you so much for what you do. He smiled at me and said “Thank you so much, I really appreciate that” and we walked our ways. He didn’t have a bodyguard.

He was just a man with his newspaper. I shared a moment with him, and I carried on. And that is how I want to be going forward. I don’t want to be unreachable. I like my privacy but if I walk the street and engage with people and they’re respectful and somebody want to stop me to do the same thing I did, then I welcome it.

Did Bill Nighy recognize you?

No. I’ve actually strangely worked with him before, but he would never remember. One of my early jobs was a motion capture artist on Jack The Giant Slayer and he played the two headed giant. So, we spent like 3 weeks in the Mocap room doing these movements.

Are you still interested in doing stunt work or was that a steppingstone in your career?

That was my segue. There are 1000 people right now sending a self-tape for the role of “Mickey” who got one line, and he just found out his girlfriends in a hospital, etc. Those roles are always hard to get when you’re starting out because no one has seen you do anything, can they trust you? But when you’re a big physical person, you can perform very small niche . It’s not that many people my size that can move the way I do, look the way I do and have the physical skills I have. There’s always a good way for me to get in and get seen and then actual meaningful substance acting kind of gets discovered. Once I’m in the room, I’m like “I could do that”. You start volunteering yourself.

The Academy has recently announced an Oscar category for stunt workers, how do you feel about that?

I’ve watched people get seriously hurt and get nothing for it, like a card and bouquet of flowers. And I just think “what? That person’s never going to walk the same again”. When I did Gladiator, I was broken just from throwing myself on the floor. I was running in gravel sand. By the end of it, my whole side was black. But you love it. When you watch it, you’re like “Yes! That’s why I did it”.

But what if that got cut and I just lost two years of the use my legs because I’ve abused them? There are performers I know that are out of this world and they don’t get any acknowledgement and it’s a shame. I’m super glad the Oscars are recognizing them.

Your upcoming projects include ‘Lotus’, what can you say about that one?

‘Lotus’ is a friend of mine’s creation. Phillip Ray Tommy is a brilliant writer and director, and he put together this project while we were shooting Gladiator. He was stunt performing there. Any time my friends want me to do something with them, absolutely. I’m always going to support my friends. I play a character named Hemlock. It’s set for release later in the year and there’s going to be a sequel.

'28 Years Later' is now available to watch on Digital. 'The Bone Temple' will be released in theaters on 16 January 2026, by Sony Pictures Releasing.