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REEL GUIDE: KING OF CAMP |
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Bruce Campbell: " Now I guess it's that golden opportunity to ask any of those insightful, lame or redundant questions that you've always wanted to ask. " What's the best role you've ever gotten or didn't get? BC: " I don't know, I don't really keep track. As soon as I don't get something it's off my radar, it's out of the way. X-Files was one of the bigger ones, the replacement part. It was me, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Robert Patrick sitting outside of a casting office. It's like, what do you say to the other actors when you're sitting out there? I hope you suck? Okay good, were done!" I have a question that my friends will probably hate me for. Friends: You're right! BC: "Go ahead, shoot!" If I had a dollar and you had a dollar, could I have that dollar? BC: " No, the joke goes like this. ::laughter:: If I had a dollar and your father had a dollar, how many dollars would you have?" "I wouldn't have any. You and my father would have one." BC: "Okay, I'm gonna say it a little slower. If I had a dollar, and my father had a dollar, we're talking about my father here, how many dollars would you have? The person then says two dollars. And I say no, only one dollar. Then you say why only one dollar? And I say because you don't know my father. Nice talking to you. That was actually a lame redundant question." What's your personal favorite of the Evil Dead series? BC: "What's your personal favorite, you put the money down?" Uh, Army of Darkness. BC: "There are three distinct camps. The real gore hounds who love the first one. Then the second one which is a strange combination of horror and comedy which we've in a sense called splatstick. Then the third one which the horror aficionados claim we sold out because we did it in a studio and it's R rated and so forth. Which of coarse we did sell out. ::laughter:: So there are three distinct camps. Why did you say Army of Darkness? Because it's the least offensive of the three?" It's just damn funny. BC: "It's funny. I see. We weren't trying to make a comedy. ::laughter:: I like Evil Dead 2 because it illicits the strangest reactions from the audience. I was watching it in New Orleans, and these two guys were watching the movie. There is this one point when I jump on a trap door and squish a monsters head in the trap door, and it's eyeball pops out and flies across the room and lands in a girls mouth. The two guys ran out of the theatre, and I was like, 'Oh, I've got to see this'. They were outside doubled over and I thought they were scared, but they were laughing and patting each other on the back because they couldn't breathe. There was this time when this guy was watching with his family, and they were sitting way in the back watching Evil Dead 2. And he didn't know whether to stay or leave. Something horrible would happen and he would grab them and run out. Then the door would peak open and he'd check and see if it was all right. The second that they would sit back down something else would happen and they'd run back out. He didn't know whether to ask for his money back or praise it as the best movie he's ever seen. Anyway, they elicit strange reactions. That's why we did three and only three, because any more would be a waste of time and resources! " I'm not actually much of an Evil Dead fan, but I'm actually a Brisco County fan. BC: " Ah, one of those. You're the one! You don't have a Nielsen box do you?" No, I saw it in reruns on TNT. Don't feel bad. BC: " Well, I don't feel any worse than I did two minutes ago. " What drew you to go from Evil Dead, which is gore and horror and such, to Brisco County which is so different. BC: " What drew me is the fact that I'm an actor. Just because I did three of the bloodiest movies ever made, doesn't mean I like the damn things. I grew up you know, reading comic books, and watching Gilligan's Island, Lost In Space. I wasn't assembling little monster kits like this genius over here. ::points to the person who asked the 'dollar' question." I've heard that you're in the Spiderman movie, but you only have a small role as a ring announcer… BC: " You know, you're gonna eat those words mister. I don't have only a small role in Spiderman, I have a pivotal role, and I'll tell you why. Are you familiar with the whole Spiderman concept? This is where he wears his costume for the first time. It's a big wrestling sequence, so Toby McGuire who plays Spiderman…what do you think of Toby McGuire as Spiderman by the way?" General clapping from the crowd. It's a lot better than Leonardo Dicaprio. I think you should play Green Goblin by the way! BC: " Well you are not a studio head. Anyway, as the ring announcer in the small part that you aledge that I have, I'm going to introduce him and I ask what his name is. He says, ' T-t-the Human Spider'. So I explain to him that just isn't going to cut it, he's going to have to jazz it up a bit. So I introduce him as the Amazing Spiderman. So you see, without my character this high profile movie would be called The Human Spider." Okay, so you did Evil Dead 1 and Evil Dead 2, they show you the script for Army of Darkness where you're getting slapped around three stooges style by a bunch of skeletons. What did you think? BC: " That wasn't in the script. Sam just sort of pulled that out of his butt at the last minute. Like most of the movie. One of the best lines in the movie, 'Give me some sugar, baby', Sam Raimi just made up. We were ready to shoot that shot and no one could find Sam, he had disappeared. He was over in the corner giggling. We were like, 'Sam, were ready to go. What is the deal?'. And he goes, ' I know what you're going to say." I'm like, 'Aren't I supposed to just kiss her?' He goes, 'Nooooo. You're going to say gimme some sugar baby!' He could hardly say it he was laughing so hard. And I was like, 'No, seriously what am I going to do.' 'You're gonna say that mister!' He can go from giddy to mean very quickly. So that what I said, I said then that's what you're going to get. There's such good one liners in that movie. BC: " Yeah but that one, Gimme some sugar baby, a guy came up to me and said he had a friend who was working in Beijing, China who had it translated into Chinese, went into a bar said it to a woman and got laid. So Army of Darkness is kicking ass in Beijing. Do you have any tips or tricks on how to pull in money to make a movie? BC: " Lets see, page 162. Well I mean, for a movie like that? Two other prequels that made money. You go to the studio and say, 'The last two made money, wanna make another one?' and they go 'Sure!' You haven't read the book yet have you? There's a giant section on it in the book. We formed our own entity to raise money. There's a lot of young filmmakers that just raise money willy-nilly. They have no idea what they're going to do with it, who they pay back, when they pay it, or what any of their obligations are to the investors which is a big mistake. We formed an entity that handled all of that. How much each of the investors would invest, how much of the movie they would own, when they would get it back, What order they would get it back, and what the risk factors were. And we also covered ourselves and told them you may be throwing your money down a rat hole. So we took all the proper steps. Fortunately the average evil dead investor made about ten times their money back." Are you interested in doing voice for more video games? BC: "Well I've done about four. I did Evil Dead, Pitfall Harry, and a game called Broken Helix. I am very interested, but video games are strange because you have to account for players doing really stupid things. You know, if you just go to a window and click on it. Eventually I'll say, ' What are you doing? Step away from the window, there's nothing there.' So you have to record a bunch of stuff. So if you have any of those games run around and do a bunch of stupid stuff and see what happens." Was 'Jack of All Trades' actually created for you, with you in mind, or did you just happen to get really lucky? I think that's some of the best stuff you've done. BC: " Well I was Co-Executive Producer so I didn't get that lucky. I was very comfortable in that role, but I guess you don't have a Neilsen box either. Are you a security guard by the way? No. BC: " Would you like to be? The reason I say that is because it usually aired anywhere from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. so it was very popular amongst security guards everywhere. " How did you enjoy playing on Xena? BC: " It was probably one of the best experiences I've had creatively. Because we were encouraged to participate. Our ideas were welcomed and accepted and used, so it was great. I spent six years on and off going down to New Zealand to do that. My agents and managers couldn't understand why I would go so far just for work. And I said, 'You guys can't come up with anything that's even close to it in the States'. Hercules and Xena have always been classified as something of a guilty pleasure, and they can all bite my ass. Every single one, because the quality that goes into those shows. Every time I see something like ER nominated for costume design I want to tear my hair out. Because it means the costume designer went to a medical catalog and ordered ten pairs of this and six pairs of that. On Xena and Hercules there was a sweatshop the size of a city block. They made everything from scratch for every episode. And they built sets from scratch. They didn't just assemble it and get it from the Warner Brothers storage. So I think the fact that none of those shows ever got nominated for anything just shows you the arrogance and the snobbery that's involved in Hollywood. :: clapping from all around :: Pound for pound there was way more creativity in them than any other lame ass show on television." What's your favorite horror movie? BC: " There's a cool film called 'The Tenant' by Roman Polanski. I think it came out in like 76? But it's a creepy ass movie because it plays with your mind. It's not just cheeseball special effects. Which is why I liked the Sixth Sense, I heard that there was like no special effects in the whole movie. And I love it for that; for once there's a smart horror movie. Instead of actors cast off of WB and UPN shows, with a cool hip soundtrack. I could give a rat's ass if they live or die. ::laughter:: What do you have planned for any new television shows? BC: " I'm not looking at television right now at all. It's a real drain." What do you have coming up in movies? BC: " Well, aside from my small but pivotal role in Spiderman… I did a film with Matthew Curry and Elizabeth Hurley. I play Elizabeth Hurley's ex-husband in a film called 'Servicing Sara'. That's a film you'll see played in an airplane in a few years. It's very innocuous; I play sort of a George W Bush type character. Then there's another movie called 'Bubba Hotep'. I play a 68-year-old Elvis Presley in an east Texas resthome. Ozzie Davis is also in it. He plays a guy who thinks he's Jack Kennedy in the resthome, he's very paranoid. He thinks they've got part of his brain hooked up to batteries in the White House. But he also convinced that there's a mummy that's sneaking into the resthome at night and sucking the souls of the old people. And it turns out that he's right. So Elvis puts on his best white jumpsuit that doesn't fit him anymore gets out his walker, teams up with Jack Kennedy in his electric wheelchair and they kick that mummy's ass. I'm also in a Jim Carry movie called 'The Majestic'. Somebody outside, open the door and ask your question." I came all this way and my car broke down and you haven't signed my book! BC: " I haven't signed anyone's book. I'll sign your damn book. You have to get a number though darling. Then call triple A. Okay, we don't have any last questions? Okay then, fine, we'll get to signing some books!' |