28 Years Later’s Monstrously Hung Zombie Tells All

The following article contains major spoilers for 28 Years Later.

A far cry from your average blockbuster sequel, 28 Years Later is full of surprises. First and foremost, when was the last time you were left a sobbing wreck by a zombie movie? Hell, forget genre: when has a film ever ended with a kung-fu fighting cult of Power Ranger wannabes who style themselves after, ehm, Jimmy Savile? And yet, the biggest surprise of all is decidedly… well, big.

That would be the gargantuan, quickly-viral manhood slung around by Samson, the hulking leader of an infected pack that roams the post-apocalyptic British mainland. (Be it because their clothes have worn away over the years, or Danny Boyle and Alex Garland are just little freaks, most of the infected in 28 Years Later are naked, but none aside from Samson pack his level of heat.)

He is played by Chi Lewis-Parry, an ex-MMA fighter who stands at a mammoth six-foot nine, to terrifying effect: among his scenes is a sequence in a pitch black tunnel wherein he tears the head off a Swedish NATO soldier like a human-sized prawn, a gnarly fate later suffered by The Young Royals‘ Edvin Ryder. It’s a towering physical performance, and one for which Lewis-Parry deserves all of the plaudits.

Nonetheless, much of the online conversation around Samson—and 28 Years Later, frankly—has returned to the elephant-sized prosthetic in the room. (One of the film’s leads is then-13-year-old newcomer Alfie Williams, so child labor laws prevented the actors playing the infected from actually going full-frontal.) Vulture published a think-piece on Friday titled, “We Need to Talk About the Massively Hung Zombie in 28 Years Later.” And in their review of the film on Instagram, i-D wrote: “I think it’s probably the most moving film featuring a seven-foot-tall naked zombie with a gigantic dick I’ve ever seen.”

Speaking to GQ from his car over Zoom on Tuesday afternoon, Lewis-Parry was relatively upbeat about his fake giga-schlong stealing headlines. “It’s very interesting to see that people have taken to that aspect of the… I would say character, but it’s broader than that, it’s the film,” he said. “I’m here for it, man! No matter how bizarre people’s reactions might be, it’s all part of the world we’ve created, and I’m proud of it. So if people want to talk about my willy, they can talk about my willy.”

Below, Lewis-Parry talks all things Samson, that train scene, and whether Samson is still out there, marauding zombified Britain.

GQ: When you were on set, strapping that thing on, did you not ever have a moment to yourself, like… this is going to be something that people really react to?

Chi Lewis-Parry: I can’t recall definitively yes, but I think there must have been a time where I was surprised by it, and that would’ve been when I first saw it… We did a test in makeup, but that was without [it]. I think the first time I actually saw it would’ve been when we were putting it on. And you go, “Wow. That’s a lot. That’s gonna be out, just walking around.”