Why didn't Joe Pilato have a better career?

[CaldoTheKid]

I know for years Day was considered the ugly sister of the the first trilogy, so I understand why he didn't become the new A-list star. Even if Day was more successful and critically acclaimed upon release, still it's a tough nut to crack becoming the new A-list star is a tough nut to crack.

But following Day, even in crappy direct to video movies, he's playing bit parts roles and credited as detective, security guard and tech #2, so it's not like Day even typecast him as the guy you root for say Jason, Freddy, Michael to slaughter.

[Neil]

There's certainly just luck/bad luck involved.

He was up to star in Dusk til Dawn, but in the end the studio pushed and Clooney got the role.

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[JDP]

It's not just Pilato, but most of the main actors from Romero's zombie trilogy who didn't have great luck with their movie/TV acting careers. Some of them actually chose to not pursue it much further (Duane Jones, for example, who concentrated more on teaching.) The ones who have had more success are Ken Foree and Sherman Howard. They have been in quite a number of movies and TV shows.

[shootemindehead]

The bottom line is he was just not that good an actor. Also, he seemed a bit unhinged, to put it mildly. In interviews he doesn't come across well at all.

That being said, he turned in one of the greatest villain performances of all time if you ask me. Rhodes is a complete bastard, right down to the point where he abandons his own men to save his own worthless neck.

[Mike70]

It's not just Pilato, but most of the main actors from Romero's zombie trilogy who didn't have great luck with their movie/TV acting careers. Some of them actually chose to not pursue it much further (Duane Jones, for example, who concentrated more on teaching.) The ones who have had more success are Ken Foree and Sherman Howard. They have been in quite a number of movies and TV shows.

Katie Finneran is by far the best, most accomplished actor to be in any of the Dead films Romero did or was associated with. Yeah her performance in Night 90 is pretty raw but she was llike 18 or something. She's gone on to win two Tony awards and be one of the most in demand and highly regarded Broadway actresses of her generation.

and she's done a bunch of TV too.

[CaldoTheKid]

The bottom line is he was just not that good an actor. Also, he seemed a bit unhinged, to put it mildly. In interviews he doesn't come across well at all.

That being said, he turned in one of the greatest villain performances of all time if you ask me. Rhodes is a complete bastard, right down to the point where he abandons his own men to save his own worthless neck.

I've seen some videos of him at conventions and he seems normal enough, plus I believe most of the fans who have shared their experiences with him say he was a good guy. With interviews it's often hard to tell if they're somewhat staged, for example apparently Oliver Reed in quite a lot of his later day interviews they would get him to pretend he was really drunk for entertainment value.

His performance in Effects showed he could play more than the guy who shouts a lot. Even if he wasn't the greatest of actors, he still could have just repeated his Rhodes role in other films, like a lot of actors do who don't have the greatest of range.

[JDP]

Katie Finneran is by far the best, most accomplished actor to be in any of the Dead films Romero did or was associated with. Yeah her performance in Night 90 is pretty raw but she was llike 18 or something. She's gone on to win two Tony awards and be one of the most in demand and highly regarded Broadway actresses of her generation.

and she's done a bunch of TV too.

If we consider all of Romero's zombie movies, then yes, there's been more successful actors in them. John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, for example, have been way more successful than anyone from Romero's original trilogy.

[MinionZombie]

If we consider all of Romero's zombie movies, then yes, there's been more successful actors in them. John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, for example, have been way more successful than anyone from Romero's original trilogy.

To be fair, they already had well established careers by the time they appeared in Land of the Dead. At that point it's the appeal of being in a movie which marks the long-awaited return of an iconic filmmaker to the horror sub-genre he almost entirely set in motion with one film. Likewise with Asia Argento, who already had a solid career going for her at that point in time, and the dude who played Riley had also been in numerous things and then got his own big time TV show afterwards.

Of course, another aspect is that in the era of the original trilogy, particularly as low budget independent flicks made well outside of the studio system (the production itself, but also the region of the USA in which the films were made), "horror" was a dirty word for a lot of people. It was a genre that was all-too-often looked down upon, considered a dirty secret, and something that people wanted to extricate themselves from.

Now, though, it is rightly recognised for what it truly is both artistically and commercially, and so it's now often an excellent stepping stone or starting off point for so many actors - or a chance to break out from a child star career and into a leading actor career (e.g. Jessica Biel starring in the TCM remake) ... but back in the days of the original trilogy? Not so much, not so much at all.

Of course, there's also the case that some of these actors were more stage actors rather than film actors, and were perhaps more interested in treading the boards than hitting their marks - and perhaps they were happier to stay in the area where they were already living and working. Hollywood might as well be another planet compared to the rest of the USA.

[Harry633]

I think Joe Pilato didn't have a better career because Day of the Dead wasn't as popular as other movies in the series. Maybe he just didn't get lucky, and you know, sometimes actors get stuck in small roles and it's hard for them to break out.

:) (https://mazzani.pl/aranzacja-wnetrz/)

[Mike70]

If we consider all of Romero's zombie movies, then yes, there's been more successful actors in them. John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, for example, have been way more successful than anyone from Romero's original trilogy.

wasn't really considering them but more the casts from earlier on. Land of the Dead was produced with a studio behind it. the pool of cash for actors was prolly the biggest Romero worked with in his career.

[MinionZombie]

wasn't really considering them but more the casts from earlier on. Land of the Dead was produced with a studio behind it. the pool of cash for actors was prolly the biggest Romero worked with in his career.

Plus, at that point, many of the Land cast members already had well-established careers or were strong up-and-comers. You're much less likely to find such a cast with a smaller independent production, which also means it'd be harder to get industry connections - back in the 60s/70s/80s certainly. Nowadays would be a different story with a break-out hit and much more wide acceptance of the horror genre, of course.