Nothing really seems to scare Kim Coates. Over his career, the Canadian actor (pictured above in Bandido) has encountered curses, vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, and now zombies in Resident Evil: Afterlife. Recently, on the Toronto set, an enthusiastic Coates spoke with me about his character Bennett, joining the Resident Evil franchise, and embracing the revolutionary 3-D technology. Hit the jump for our conversation.

What can you tell us about your character?

He's a survivor. He's the local dickhead for sure, but everyone needs a dickhead. When I met with Paul [W.S. Anderson], when I read the script, I thought, "This guy has to be funny"; not that he's funny funny, but he has to come off as funny and he totally agreed. I play a lot of bad boys, I play a lot of heavies, but I love comedy more than anything, so it's been a lot of fun to make Milla [Jovovich] pee her pants. And Paul's letting me go with the script so I'm having a great, great time. When I did Blackhawk Down, we filmed literally a half a page to a quarter of a page a day. It was an incredibly intense five months.

What are your thoughts on 3-D?

You know, that's a great question. It's the wave of the future. This whole James Cameron thing coming out with Avatar, we've done a lot of 3-D in animation obviously, we've done a lot of 3-D in some horror stuff, but this is a real step forward. Kids love it. As long as the story is good and it's done well, it can be very exciting. For me, it's odd putting the glasses on in the theatre, but that's just me. I'm really excited to see what it's going to look like because I think Glen [McPherson] is doing an amazing job lighting this thing. Going back to Blackhawk Down, for me this show, we do so little pages a day. These massive cameras are on cranes… and they are always on cranes or have to be really still. Yes, you can dolly with them but because of the mirrors, it really takes a long time to shoot this puppy. I'm doing a big series right now in the States and it's all hand-held, almost, so it's all fast-paced, crazy, great writing. And to come to this has been a joy in a different way, right? It takes forever, but oh my God! It's so much fun and to see these cameras move on these huge sets we have… We were up in an airplane last week. We were in an airplane inside the studio. What they did was phenomenal. Of course there's a lot of green screen obviously, but the production values of this script have been-mind blowing. I'm as excited as you guys to see how it does, and the whole 3-D element.

You play a Hollywood producer in the film?

I think they say there's seven humans left, that's it, and I'm one of them. Like I mentioned earlier, he's the dickhead, he's the asshole, but he's a survivor. He's tenacious, and he still has to have things his way. He survived this world that we're in now and things change for him near the end of the film, but he will not give in to anybody at anytime. Yeah, he's one of the seven left.

In your wide career, is he based on any particular producer?

That's what everyone wants to know. Ah, yeah, there's three guys, but obviously I can't say which three.

You can give their initials right? Are any of them working on this movie?

Maybe. [Laughs.] That's all I'm going to say! There's three different little things I remember about certain producers. We all have good parts but the great thing about Paul, who I just find the most fun, loving, smart, visualist as a director I've worked with in a long time, he has let me go. "Just go, do what you want, say what you want, please, please."

Milla was saying that you improvised a bit, and yet in the design and camera department they were saying how regimented it is due to the 3-D atmosphere, so how do you find room to play within that and still be physically regimented in what you are doing?

Shawn [Roberts] answered this really well in the other room and that is because of the 3-D; and this is probably my first one too, and I think this is probably a lot of our first ones unless you've been in a horror movie before – this is the new genre now, the new frontier. For me, it is no different except that when there is a mark to hit, and it's a scene where it's imperative that we be on that mark, I can still do what I need to do, but I can't really do a lot of that at times.  However, that's what my character does, so the boys have been really open with their apertures and camera to make sure I'm covered on one angle on one of the cameras doing whatever it is I need to do. I don't ever like to think we're being constricted, but this world of 3-D is not a world like I've ever been in. It's really weird. It's really different.

Did you get to do any of the action/wire work stuff?

Yeah, in Skinwalkers I did a little flying with the harness and flipped 60 feet in the air with that sort of werewolf gig on. It was a bit of a deal. I love doing stunts. I'll do as many as he'll let me do, even at my age where I'm getting a little bit sore now. Listen, I've done Blackhawk Down and then being in little birds and Blackhawk helicopters and zipping down and going to boot camp, those things blew my mind. We're so lucky to be able to do what we do. And the occasional time we get to work Ridley Scott or now Paul Anderson with his visual action, it's a great thing. It's just the 3-D element of this is just.....I'm so used to hand-held cameras and five pages a day and quick, and this is really slow. Not bad slow at all, just really different slow because of the cameras. It's all going to be neat when we see... like, I'm flying in a plane. I'm in a plane and yet we're in a studio. The whole imagery, the whole CGI that they're going to put in, all this green screen is going to be an amazing thing to watch in 3-D, I think, I hope. That's why they're putting so much money into this one. This is what they want to see happen, and hopefully, visually, it will be amazing.

Is it a little bit frustrating though? Because when you are looking at playback, you can sort of see what you are doing or react to the scenery, but with green screen, it's very difficult. You are sort of acting against nothing. How does that affect you as an actor and are you looking for more direction?

Yeah, it's really important in that on the day when we're looking at a plane coming to land, well, there's no plane, so it's really important that the five actors that were on top of that roof were like, "Where's it going?" We had a spot that we would all watch, because it's green screen, so those things are really important. They are always hard to recreate in your head. I mean, I'm an internal actor so those are really hard things to recreate, but, you know, I'm getting used to it now because this is the way of the future with some of these big films. There's a lot of CGI and a lot of green screen. Just make it work visually, and hopefully it will be; but it is harder. There's no doubt. It's much easier to do a scene with an actor when you can respond to what he or she is giving you. That's golden. It's all about listening to me.