Actor Martin Freeman found a special rapport with young actress Simone Landers: "Simone's never acted before, she's been a joy. She's a really lovely lovely girl, she loves to laugh. She was charging me a dollar every time I swore so I ended up giving her a lot of money."
This movie is Australia's first Netflix Original feature film, the first Australian theatrical feature film to be released globally as a Netflix Original.
Actress Simone Landers, who played Thoomi, worked with Indigenous artists and learned local dialects for her role as Thoomi.
This feature film is based on a 2013 short film of the same 'Cargo' name which went on to online viral success garnering about thirteen million views on YouTube.
The favorite part of making the film for young actress Simone Landers who portrayed Thoomi was "staying up late and making new
friends." From Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, she had not spent a lot of time with Australian Indigenous
communities and so connecting with Natasha Wanganeen and Bruce Carter, who play
her parents, was a special part of the experience. Bruce, she says "was like a dad to
me, he was very friendly. He taught me to be friendly to other people. He told me
that you call David Gulpilil 'Uncle David' and he kept me warm and gave me hugs."
Landers is not a big fan of zombie films, but for her, "'Cargo' isn't really a zombie
film. 'The Virals' are symbolic of the Western pollution...the film promotes the
Indigenous respect for the land, and I am proud to be a part of that."