'Warm Bodies' is romance for zombies

Based on Isaac Marion's young adult novel, “Warm Bodies” is an update of “Romeo and Juliet” set during a zombie apocalypse. But Hoult's character, who calls himself “R” because his atrophied zombie brain cannot recall his full name, begins the story already dead, a victim of a plague that turned most humans into stumbling, frustrated corpses.

Hoult said he relished the challenge of playing a character with severe communication difficulties and a seemingly inescapable stigma attached to him. But while “R” breaks ground as a zombie love interest, Hoult said he spent time studying the best of undead cinema to get his moves down.

“I watched a lot in the buildup to this, as many zombie films as possible,” Hoult said during a press day at Los Angeles' Four Seasons Hotel. “Right back from the '80s classics up until ‘Shaun of the Dead' and ‘Zombieland' and ‘28 Days Later,' just for ideas and a sense of what I was getting into.”

But Hoult said director Jonathan Levine (“The Wackness,” “50/50”) suggested a few possible influences that went beyond the zombie canon. Between checking out examples of characters trapped inside uncooperative bodies and practicing his shuffling, stumbling gait, Hoult found a way to bring his dead character to life.

“We watched other films — ‘Edward Scissorhands,' as well, stuff like that,” said Hoult, who made his film debut when he was 12 years old in “About a Boy” and went on to play Beast in “X Men: First Class.”