Stories

Louie McKenna was told he had a bad attitude to work and a disinterested demeanour, and that if he didn’t improve his neck was for the chop.

With the call centre boss’s withering words ringing in his ears, and a P45 clenched in his blood-stained hand, he was determined to make an impression at his next job interview.

'Shall we shake on it?'

And he did, beating off scary competition from around 60 people to land what many would consider a ‘nightmarish’ position.

But with a £30k a year salary, joining the ranks of the dead at tourist attraction The London Bridge Experience didn’t seem so bad.

Making people jump

“I’m not a scary individual I’ve just got a naturally moody face!” says Louie, 23, from Acock’s Green.

“Well, the new job certainly beats working in a call centre – now I get paid a lot more money to run about and be frightening.

Louie on his day off

“You’ve got to be sneaky, move really quickly on your feet and be able to lash out and make people jump without actually hitting them!

“Oh, and you definitely need to being able to pull really scary faces."

Interview from hell

He added: “You can’t say, ‘Boo!’ No-one says, ‘Boo’ anymore. I think we’ve moved on from that!

“Maybe if I do well and keep my head down this time I can become head zombie!”

According to Louie, who starts his job on 3 August, it really was the interview from hell.

Here come the girls...

During two-hours of ‘terrifying’ tasks and quirky questions in front of a three-strong panel and TV cameras, Louie was asked to do everything from athletic-sounding sprint and stop tests to balancing on a pretend sinking raft.

Easily embarrassed

“It was a bit like the X-Factor and now I know how Will Young must have felt,” he jokes.

“The tasks we had to do were loopy to say the least and if you get easily embarrassed you’d have hated it.

“I’d have to crouch and run at people and stop suddenly stop without hitting into them but I think I excelled at the being-dead-and-coming-alive test.”

Louie, who moved back to London’s Elephant and Castle district in September 2008 to follow his acting dreams, has his girlfriend Michelle Baker, 24, to thank for pushing the laid-back Brummie into going for the role.

'Now, is anybody here a vegeterian?'

Romeo and Juliet

He spent £10 on make-up at a joke shop and put on army camouflage gear to create his shaven-headed WWII Sergeant Slaughter character, which landed him the coveted role.

“My parents are pleased but I don’t think my mum quite gets it,” he admits.

“In real-life everyone thinks I’m really chilled out – I guess you can’t get more chilled out than the walking dead!"

Louie’s a budding thespian and has appeared in Romeo and Juliet as Tybalt and even played a minor part as Felix in TV’s Shameless, but his CV is littered with temporary jobs.

'On your feet, soldier!'

Railway sleepers

These include helping to build a new Wetherspoon’s pub, selling gas and electricity, asking people questions for surveys and collecting pledges for charity.

“I think the most boring job I've done was grinding concrete off railway sleepers – I lasted a day!

“I love acting and have always wanted to be an actor but I’d have never have thought I’d end up being a full-time zombie.”