I'm not the kind of guy who fawns over celebrities. Sure, I've sent a few copies of Cashiers out to a few of my favorite actors and directors, but I don't see anything wrong with that! I don't even know what to say in a fan letter. I usually just say, "I always enjoy your work and I hope this pays you back a bit of all the pleasure you've given me." Cheesy, I know, but it's from the heart. And I'd also close the letters with, "and if you would consider granting us an interview we'd be more than honored."
Until November no one but Jack Hill took us up on our offer. I thought about interviewing Mr. Hill but Rich Osmond did such a great job in his zine, Teenage Rampage, that anything I did would pale in comparison.
But on November Third I got a call from Craig Sandbourne on behalf of Bruce Campbell, telling me that Mr. Campbell got my zine and would be very interested in doing an interview. Ching!
I called back the next day and the voice on the answering machine was Bruce's! I stammered a bit but managed to leave my phone numbers and the best times to reach me. I imagined that I'd have to call back on Monday since everyone was probably out of the office until then.
Wrong. Sunday afternoon I was at work and the phone rang. "It's not for me," said Andrew, my buddy and co-worker, thinking it was going to be Carol calling me.
Nope. It was Bruce.
Now, if there's anything I hate about magazines it's when they do an interview with someone and they tell all of their feelings. It's like those damn "Movieline" articles where they go on about what the other person is eating, how they eat it, what clothes they're wearing, and how all of this makes the reporter feel. So, I'll knock that shit off right now.
Also, I hate when you read an interview or article on someone and the writer just assumes you know all the subtle nuances of this person's career where you might not even know who they're talking about. When I called up a few of my friends to let them know I just got off the phone with Bruce Campbell and that we were doing an interview over the internet, half of them were completely ecstatic while the other half said, "I'm so happy for you," with a "Bruce-who?" undertone to their voice.
So, let me tell you a bit about Bruce Campbell. He's a Michigan native, born in Royal Oak (about two minutes from the CdC office) and raised outside of Birmingham, MI, who has gone on to star in some of the most popular movies ever made: the Evil Dead series. Campbell has also been the star of the critically acclaimed television series, "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." as well as currently directing and starring in one of the most highly rated syndicated shows today, "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys."
After years of working at video stores I have to say that Evil Dead 2 is still one of the most popular video rentals around. I don't know if such a table exists but I would put ED2 right behind Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Grease as all-time renters, no matter what the demographics of the store's area.
All three of the Evil Dead movies (the third being Army of Darkness—originally titled "The Medieval Dead") were directed by Sam Raimi. Raimi and Campbell have one of those director/actor relationships like Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro or John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat, with Campbell being involved or starring in all of Raimi's films to date.
Campbell met Raimi in their high school Drama class and also had a Radio Speech class together where they did a Friday morning show for the school every week on a local radio station.
"The Continuing Saga of Captain Nemo" was a radio play done in the vein of the Firesign Theater. They would also play a few songs and Campbell, being a fan of Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens, and other balladeers, enjoyed messing around with KISS records, putting his finger on the vinyl to slow and finally stop the music. At times like this he would make sure that the door to the booth was secure, in the event of burn-out retribution.
Having already performed in several of Scott Spiegel and Josh Becker movies, two Junior High chums he met in study hall, Campbell felt at ease when he began acting in some of Raimi's short super-8 movies. Intruder made take-offs of Three Stooges; Lunatics: A Love Story would make movies like "Oedipus Rex," which Campbell describes as "a heavy drama with sub-titles on a chalk board."
When he was growing up, Campbell wanted to be either an actor or a cartoonist. He kept a leather case in his closet, filled with everything he could find about these two professions. Campbell has never had any formal acting training but by the time he was in the first Evil Dead he had starred in hundreds of movies for his old chums: "I mainly learned while doing it. I feel, ultimately, that is the most practical way of doing it."
It's a common misconception that Bruce Campbell went to Michigan State University. He attended Western for half a year and then dropped out—feeling he had no need for it. He must have spent a lot of time in East Lansing, though, making movies with Raimi, Becker, and Spiegel, and that's from where the confusion probably stems. Some of these early movies are available on a compilation tape from Video Search of Miami but their poor quality and high prices keep me from recommending it.
It was also during this time that Campbell started doing some professional work. He did a series of automotive commercials and even got his Screen Actors Guild card doing an industrial film for auto dealers.
Evil Dead is a really scary movie to me. I'm not a horror aficionado, but something about the possessed people spewing multi-colored blood at three hundred pounds per square inch, the creepy camera angles and good pacing give me the willies every time I watch it. It was low-budget and very well made and got Raimi noticed.
Raimi teamed up with Evil Dead's editor, Joel Coen, and his brother, Ethan, to write "The XYZ Murders" (also known as "Broken Hearts and Broken Noses"—released as Crimewave). Bruce Campbell was up for the lead but the head of production nixed him, "so we beefed up the Heel role. It was a blessing in disguise," meaning that Campbell could avoid being associated with the mess that became Crimewave. There were problems with the studio and problems with even the Detroit police over the movie, which was re-cut before release and not to the satisfaction of anyone involved, nor audiences, apparently.
It's always been a rumor that Raimi, Campbell, and their partner, Robert Tapert, were told not to ever shoot in Detroit again as per Mayor Coleman Young's orders. Not true! The sordid story is that there was a meeting between the Michigan Film office, Embassy Pictures' rep and Sam, Bruce, and Robert. The Michigan film office guy told them all that the use of Detroit police during filming was free (to control the crowds, block off streets, keep the crew safe, etc) but at the end of shooting they got a bill for $36 grand(!), which they fought, and eventually the film office conceded that they only need to pay half.
They attempted to get the remaining $18 thousand taken care of by the completion bond guy but he refused to pay. They tried to get Embassy to eat it but they were at the same meeting and they out-right denied them the funds. "A miscommunication of grand proportions," says Campbell. It never got paid and for several years they were personas non grata. That's why Darkman wasn't shot here as it was originally planned.
After their flop, Raimi and Campbell returned to the woods with their pal Scott Spiegel in tow to remake The Evil Dead, but this time it would be a comedy. Since the original cabin in Morristown, Tennessee had been burnt down by squatters, a duplicate of the movie's locale was constructed in Wadesboro, North Carolina, on the same property where The Color Purple was shot.
As I said, Evil Dead 2 is one of the most popular videos around and for good reason. It's hilarious! When Jim Carrey made a splash with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a lot of people said that he wasn't doing anything Bruce Campbell hadn't done before. Evil Dead 2 is one of those movies that has comedy working on every level: from physical gags (at one point Campbell's hand becomes possessed and tries to kill him), to dramatic irony (after Campbell removes said hand he puts a bucket over it and weighs it down with a copy of A Farewell to Arms), to ingenious and humorous camera movements (my favorite shot is of what appears to be Bruce Campbell's point-of-view, but isn't—it's so simple but entirely clever).
Campbell says of his role, "Ash was the most fun, because I had the most leeway." In ED2, Campbell runs the gamut of emotions; from sympathetic doofus to a kick-ass zombie killer who, after strapping on a chainsaw to replace his severed hand, has one of the all time great lines in cinematic history, "Groovy."
After a movie like Evil Dead 2, I would have expected Campbell to take Hollywood by storm. Unfortunately this was not the case and Campbell remained, as he calls it, a "low-budget leading man." That's not to say that his roles since then have not been memorable nor his performances any less stunning.
He wasn't about to return to Detroit, but Bruce Campbell was in another movie shot in Michigan after the Crimewave debacle. After years of playing second banana to William Shatner on "Star Trek," Walter "Chekov" Koenig thought that Moontrap was going to be his big break. Although he and Campbell got along famously, Koenig was very nervous about the success of the film and known to be a little less than friendly to the crew. Despite all of Koenig's worrying and Campbell's performance, Moontrap only paved the way for Walter back to the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Campbell may have not been the star but he certainly left his mark on Darkman. He was involved in a lot of the post-production work including the sound mix. It was common practice on the Darkman set to imitate Liam Neeson's distinctive vocal stylings and Campbell excelled at this. So, instead of calling Neeson back whenever there was an extra line of dialogue needed, Raimi would have Campbell work his magic. Raimi also knew what a fantastic screamer Campbell was and used this to his advantage, having Campbell do all the screams for criminals falling to their deaths.
Of course, Bruce Campbell also has his moment in the sun in Darkman—the final shot of the movie. They had shot Neeson too but Raimi opted to use Campbell as a nod to fans of the Evil Dead series. Despite its great "Who is Darkman?" ad campaign, the movie was never quite as successful as it was meant to be. I think this came from the fact that the audience I saw it with was never sure what they were supposed to be feeling.
I had always heard that, similar to Crimewave, Bruce Campbell was up for the lead in Darkman but the studio wanted a "name" actor instead. Not so, says Campbell. He never discussed the lead for Darkman with its director, Sam Raimi. "He's a big boy and he knew what he wanted. I was still a low-budget leading man but he wanted a medium budget lead so they got Liam. Plus, he had quite a following in artistic circles."
After Darkman's lack of commercial success, Raimi went back to familiar territory and decided to make the third installment of the Evil Dead series. "We looked at each of the movies as if the audience hadn't seen the one before it," said Campbell, explaining the discrepancy between the ending of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. Of course, Evil Dead 2 is a remake and not a sequel in the truest sense of the word because the character of Ash appears to have no recollection that everything has happened to him before.
Army of Darkness was an innocent bystander that suffered almost a year delay because of Dino De Laurentiis' "pissing war" over the rights to the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. During this time, none of De Laurentiis' films were released. Army missed its summer release and was put on the back burner for a few more months until a better release date was found. Ultimately, despite Campbell's superb performance, Army relied too heavily on Three Stooges style humor and looked like it had a lower production value than its predecessors. Army of Darkness was fun to watch the first time but is definitely not a movie I'd be akin to watching multiple times like the first two Evil Deads.
After Crimewave, the future looked dim for another Coen brothers and Sam Raimi script called, oddly enough, The Hudsucker Proxy. Hudsucker; the protagonist in Crimewave tells his tale of woe on his way to the electric chair in Hudsucker State Prison. Hudsucker is the name emblazoned on H.I. McDonagh's work uniform in Raising Arizona. What does it mean? From what I hear, nothing. Rumor has it they just liked the sound of the word.
Working on Hudsucker was, to Bruce Campbell, "a dream." He had been making low-budget movies for over a decade but now was involved in a movie being produced by Joel Silver. Finally, Bruce was on a professionally run set. He was used to the chaos and frustration of low-budget movies where there was little to no time for rehearsing and the crew was always there, running around like decapitated chickens.
Campbell is a big believer in rehearsing. He feels that it's the best way to reconcile the technical and artistic sides of his profession. By allowing the actors to go over their lines and movements while the cameras are out of the way and the crew is out of the building, the actors can become comfortable with their dialogue and become more aware of their movements, so when the crew is brought back in and the scene is blocked for lighting and focus, it can then be shot in any order the director pleases since the actors will then know where they're supposed to be and exactly what they are doing in any part of the scene.
There were two solid weeks of rehearsing before shooting began on The Hudsucker Proxy and the Coen brothers asked Campbell to sit in on all of it and read not only his part but any other smaller roles. Doing this, Campbell was able to observe and interact with his co-stars. "Jennifer Jason Leigh is incredible, she's an acting machine," said Campbell. Leigh had memorized all of her extensive dialogue before she even set foot on the set.
Watching The Hudsucker Proxy one realizes how incredible Bruce Campbell really is. The self-taught actor is there alongside such luminaries and seasoned pros as Tim Robbins and Paul Newman but one would never be able to pick Campbell out as a "low-budget" actor—he's a natural.
It's a sad fact, though, that like Crimewave, this second Coen brothers/Raimi project was doomed to fail. It had a threadbare advertising campaign, was opened in only a few art-houses across the country, and had a title most people were afraid to even attempt to say. So, instead of being Campbell's salvation, it became Joel Silver's albatross.
After Hudsucker failed to make back its budget, I feared that the Coen brothers wouldn't even be able to make "medium" budget pictures. Not so, says Campbell. "They just finished their next nine million dollar film, Fargo. It's supposed to be really good, Blood Simple-like." Campbell has a very small role in the movie in the form of a fourteen year old soap opera that he was in on a Detroit UHF channel called "Generations" which Fargo's antagonist watches in a hotel room.
Bruce Campbell really regrets signing any paperwork when he went out to visit Sam Raimi on the set of The Quick and the Dead in Tucson, Arizona. Although the role of the priest was written for him, Campbell couldn't be in Q&D since he was starring at that time on Fox's "The Adventures of Brisco County Junior." It was on one of his few days off from shooting that he decided to visit his old friend while he was shooting his new movie.
When Campbell came on set Raimi grabbed him and told him he had to be in the next scene. They put him in a costume, put some sores on his lips, messed up his hair, and put him in a scene that was only designed to placate Pat Hingle.
Hingle (Hang 'Em High, Bloody Mama) had been pestering Raimi that his character never redeemed himself and remained an emasculated, snivelling dweeb through the whole film and never got revenge for his daughter's deflowerment. It was Campbell's job, then, to go up to the daughter and be a real cad—"Hey darlin', ya wanna do the Devil's dance?" Then Hingle came up and threw a headlock on him.
"They never even cut the scene together, if you looked at the footage now it'd still have the slates on it." Yet, much to Campbell's chagrin, his name is still in the credits listed as "Wedding Shemp" and he has been badgered with the same question time and again, "Where are you in The Quick and the Dead?" Campbell can be seen, in theory, during one of the gunfights in a shot from about two stories up but you'd have to have a laser disc player and a really keen eye to see him: he even had trouble picking himself out of the crowd!
Maybe it was that great scream of his that got him hired, because that was almost the entire extent of his role in Congo. A lot of people might not remember Campbell in this surprise hit of early '95 because he was killed in the first five minutes but he played quite a crucial character (if not for him, the woman would have never made her expedition). What first appeared to be a scheduling nightmare soon turned out to be one of the most relaxing shoots he's been on.
It sounds crazy but for his few minutes in the movie, he was on location in Costa Rica for a month! It was due to him being in all the establishing shots. He and the few other guys in the doomed research party would come in and walk by the volcano then they'd take off as the rest of the cast came in to shoot a bunch of scenes in the same locale for a day or even a week. He'd have to come back a few days later and walk by a river or whatever, then go back to the hotel while the majority of the movie was shot. "I must have taken every river rafting trip around and would spend a lot of time just taking it easy on the beach."
Bruce Campbell is a very busy guy these days. Along with his TV work (see interview), he just completed a remake of The Love Bug that is scheduled to be shown on ABC in February and a low-budget "off brand" movie called Chase, which was the total opposite of his Hudsucker experience.
Chase is a "Die Hard in a space station" movie. Campbell was first offered the protagonist's role but enjoyed the speeches that the bad guy had so he took the Alan Rickman role. It was back to the old grind for Chase; when he went in for his costume it was like, "here you go, hope it fits," as opposed to the posh lifestyle he enjoyed on The Hudsucker Proxy where he had three costume changes, got to try on a few dozen hats, had everything custom altered and even had a shirt dyed to better match the hue of his suit. "I could learn to like this."
Boy, "Movieline" is dumb. In their November '95 issue they talk about Escape from LA and say, "No word yet whether what's left of the original Escape from New York cast—which includes both ex-Mrs. John Carpenter, Adrienne Barbeau, and the ex-Mrs. Kurt Russell, Season Hubley—will return, too." Duh, guess they haven't seen the original to know that these characters are dead. And if they had any sense, maybe they'd report on Bruce Campbell's involvement. On the day I spoke to him, Campbell had just gotten his head casted for his small role as the Surgeon General, a character he describes as being kind of like Michael Jackson; someone that has done way too much plastic surgery on himself so that his face is really messed up.
I'm still waiting for Bruce Campbell to get his big break—possibly even more than he is. Not just so if I mention his name all of my friends will know who I'm talking about, no. It's because I think he's got what it takes to make it big. No matter what kind of role he's given, I think he could shine. If a crappy movie like Speed can make an uncharismatic lump like Keanu Reeves into an "in demand" action star, what will it take to get people to notice Bruce Campbell? Who will have the guts and the ability to make him a household name? Actually, I think Campbell has the chutzpah to do it himself.
Okay, maybe that wasn't the best "food for thought" article ending but, unlike other magazines, I didn't have a running commentary on some sort of quirky body language or food item to use as a metaphor for Bruce Campbell's life and I could end it by talking about what it was like when he got up and left the restaurant we were dining in. But I guess I could end this article with an actual interview...
You can reach Mr. Campbell on the internet. Write to BCACT@AOL.COM
Bruce Campbell Filmography
Going Back—Evil Dead—Crimewave—Evil Dead 2—Intruder—Maniac Cop—Moontrap—Maniac Cop 2—Mindwarp—Sundown—Waxwork 2—Darkman—Lunatics: A Love Story—Army of Darkness—The Hudsucker Proxy—Congo—Chase—Escape From LA
Television Work: Generations—Lois & Clark—Adventures of Brisco County Jr.—Hercules: The Legendary Journeys—Xena: Warrior Princess—The Love Bug
"Who's laughing now?!?!?"