The CulturePulp Q&A: Bruce Campbell




As promised to readers of today's CulturePulp comic: Here's what B-movie superstar Bruce Campbell had to say during an audience Q&A at Portland's Hollywood Theatre -- just before a June 29 screening of his feature directorial debut, "Man With the Screaming Brain."

Amid some well-placed insults, the dork-hunk star of the "Evil Dead" trilogy and "Bubba Ho-Tep" held forth on "Screaming Brain"; his "Spider-Man" cameos; the "Bubba Ho-Tep" sequel; "Evil Dead 4"; the joys of filming in Bulgaria; Sam Raimi's Oldsmobile; his long-aborning documentary; and much more.

A couple of key disclaimers:

(1) Each question was asked by a different audience member. None of these queries -- particularly that first one -- were asked by me.

(2) The copious and blistering fan abuse that follows was totally played for laughs, and got them.

(Click here to read the full Q&A!)

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Q. I love you, Bruce Campbell!

A. You wanna do some lovemakin’ out here in the alley? That would go over big with my wife of 14 years!
Uh, hello, Portland! This is Portland, right? Welcome to the Portland premiere of the tender love story, “Man with the Screaming Brain.”

Q. Woo!

A. You haven’t seen it yet.

Q. I’ve heard that you might be remaking the first “Evil Dead” --

A. You’ve heard. Where did you hear it? The Internet?

Q. No, in a comic-book shop.

A. Yeah, we might remake it if we feel like it. At least it’s our own movie and we’re not doing fuckin’ “Bewitched.” Who here saw “Batman Begins … Again”? Suckers, every last one of ya!

Q. Will you have a cameo appearance in the next "Spider-Man" movie?

A. Let’s be real clear here: I named Spider-Man in the first movie. And I defeated him in the second one. I’m gonna be Spider-Man in the third one!

Q. Do you think if Jason Vorhees was a Deadite, that Ash could take him?

A. You’re a dumbass!

Q. Will there be a sequel to “Bubba Ho-Tep”?

A. Where’d you hear that? On the…. No, MGM is interested, but they just got bought out by Sony -- so it’s a year of figuring out whose desk is whose. So it’s in deep freeze right now.

Q. How’d you come up with the idea for “Man with the Screaming Brain”?

A. Years of serious research. No, the kernel of the idea was given to a friend in a rowboat in 1986. I’m not kidding. And then it took 19 years to get the money for this. It was finally financed by the Sci-Fi Channel and a German tax fund. So ya vohl, baby!
It was filmed in Bulgaria last summer. Anyone been to Bulgaria? [Someone cheers.] Why the hell were you there? I know why I was there -- because the average Bulgarian makes $110 a month. What’s your excuse? You have relatives there? How’d they deal with the packs of wild dogs? Did they eat ’em?
I’d pull up to the production office every morning, which was this bombed-out building -- and six dogs would come running from every direction. And I had a big bag of dog food that we kept in the van. You wouldn’t touch them, because they would bite you. And they’d look at you like, “You’re lucky.” And you’d feed them so you could go to work.
You can buy vodka at 10 a.m. in Bulgaria on a Sunday morning. There were no liquor laws. You could sell Xerox machines and vodka…. It was all fine.

Q. Is the movie “Crimewave” ever coming out on DVD?

A. Because of the demand, you mean? Man, the Coen Brothers strike that one right off their resume -- even though they wrote that piece of shit!




Q. What were some of the challenges of your directorial debut?

A. Uh, communicating in Bulgarian? Everything was through a translator.
[Bruce grows tired of a man with a large camera rig standing up in the audience to take his picture.] Okay, you’re done. Thank you very much. I’m gonna come over there and fart next to you.
We had this thing called the “Bulgarian Surprise” -- meaning, “What the hell was gonna happen today?” I needed a Vespa in the movie. I needed to wreck a Vespa. So I’d tell the translator, “Tell him I need a Vespa.” And they’d go, “Da.”
“And I can wreck this Vespa?”
“Da.”
So a week goes by. “How’s the Vespa coming?”
“Okay.”
“You have it yet?”
“No.”
“But you’re gonna get one, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“And I can wreck it, right?”
“Of COURSE.”
A week goes by. “How’s the Vespa?”
“Got the Vespa.”
“Let me see a picture of the Vespa. Okay. Now I can paint it pink and put little girl’s tassels on it, right?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, good.”
I don’t trust these bastards.
So I come out on the set, and there’s a crew filming a shot of the Vespa being wrecked. And I look over at my translator, and she’s crying her eyes out. So I said to the assistant director, “Why is she crying her eyes out?” And he goes, “Oh, that’s her Vespa.” Her father had just given it to her for her birthday. So I asked the translator, “How do you say ‘motherfucker’?”
Challenges like that.

Q. What's it going to take to get you to make a feature film in Portland?

A. A million-and-a-half bucks, baby! Lay it out! I’ll shoot wherever you want! I’m hoping to shoot something here in a place called the United States. It sucks that they don’t do anything here any more.

Q. When you were shooting this, were you able to get a hold of Sam Raimi’s car?

A. You’re referring to Sam’s 1973 [Oldsmobile] Delta 88 -- which has been in every one of his movies since high school. That’s about 30 years now. It’s in “Quick and the Dead.” That’s a Western, right? You know how he did that? He had it stripped down to its chassis and a wagon built over it. Yeah, he’s not crazy.
Once I found out he had this film with Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, I said, “Sam -- are you gonna hit Hackman with a 2x4 to get him ready for the scene?”

Q. What was your budget for “Man with the Screaming Brain”?

A. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. [pause] I could lie to you.

Q. Did you bring your sound crew with you to Bulgaria?

A. What do you mean by that, sir? I like sound -- it’s half a movie. This is the special silent version of “Man with the Screaming Brain.” I’ll be making the sounds along with the movie tonight.

[At this point, a woman asks him why he endorsed a particularly horrid movie. Mr. Campbell refunds her money out of his own wallet.]

Q. Which do you like better -- directing or acting?

A. I’m from the Detroit area originally. It’s a great place to be from. And there, they like the concept of job rotation. So do I. Work on tires one week and insulation the next week, windshield wipers the next. I like mixin’ it up a little bit -- working different parts of your brain.

Q. Will you ever do “Evil Dead 4”?

A. [pause] I’m only hesitating because I’ve never been asked that question before! Well, let’s get Sam Raimi on the phone right now and ask if he’d rather do “Evil Dead 4” instead of “Spider-Man 3”! He’s makin’ wheelbarrows full of cash right now!

Q. Will “Brisco County Jr.” be coming out on DVD?

A. I’m an actor. They don’t tell me anything.

Q. Will you write another book?

A. How many of my first two books did you buy?

Q. Two.

A. Two? I’m well on my way. For me to do one of those, it involves many economic factors. You cough up $23.95, we’re gonna have a ball.

Q. What are you going to do after "Spider-Man 3"?

A. You’re assuming I have a cameo in "Spider-Man 3"? I’m doing a movie for Dark Horse. It’s called the “Untitled Bruce Campbell Project” right now. It’s about a small town that’s having problems with a monster, and they can’t get rid of it -- so they decide to call the “Evil Dead” guy. But in real life, I don’t have a gun and I’ve never used a chainsaw, and more people die after I show up than before I got there. And it gets worse from there. That’s sort of what it’s about.

Q. What’s up with your documentary about public land use?

A. Yeah, there’s a little bit of public land between Washington, Oregon and northern California…. We’re just trying to finish the damn thing. To be fair about it, we shot hours of footage, and now we’re just putting it all together.
The main thing we did was not take any sides. It’s a hot-button issue, and they all hate each other. All the bureaucrats say the environmentalists are a bunch of dope-smoking losers -- and the dope-smoking losers say the bureaucrats are beer-drinking, knuckle-dragging dumb-asses. And they’re both kind of right, basically. So we’re just trying to round out the issue.
I have the BLM working on three sides of my property right now. So I have to deal with it, too.

Q. Will you please run for president?

A. No. I did all those things that politicians try and pretend that they didn’t do. And I enjoyed every bit of it.

Q. Whose idea was “Alien Apocalypse”?

A. I believe you’re referring to the Sci-Fi Channel’s number-one-rated movie in the history of the fucking channel! I mean, it fucking sucks -- I know that. You’re supposed to ask why it happened and how it happened, smart-ass!
So, besides the fact that I have a kid in college right now…. Sci-Fi Channel wanted us to do two movies. It all started because of another excellent movie called “Terminal Invasion.” And the Sci-Fi Channel didn’t really care for it, so they just sort of dumped it on the air, and it scored higher than their normal movies -- because of highly intelligent people like you who don’t seem to know what the difference is between a good movie and a bad movie. By the way, “Alien Apocalypse” shows you how bad the other movies on the Sci-Fi Channel can be!
But I digress. So I got a call the next day, and they said, “Whaddya got goin’? What else ya got?” And I said, “Oh -- because now you know who I am?” They went, “Yeah.”
And I said, “I’ve had this thing rotting on your shelf for months called ‘Man with the Screaming Brain.’”
“Well, we like it! We like it a lot!” Like they’d read it, you know?
But they wanted two movies -- they wanted to do two movies, back-to-back. So I had a friend of mine who had a script that was also rotting on the shelf. So I called my friend, and I said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, we’re gonna make your film, ‘Alien Apocalypse.’ The bad news is, you’re goin’ first, sucker!”
So I got to watch him and see how they made movies in Bulgaria. And I picked all my cast members from his movie. Because the best way to watch an actor is on the set -- not in an audition, when they’re nervous. Get 'em on the set, and see what they’re like under pressure. So you should watch the movies back to back, because you’ll see the same actors in both movies.
But I think there was a fatal error…. His movie is set in Portland, by the way, but all the actors are talking [does Bulgarian accent] like this! So they all had to be dubbed -- and now they all sound [does cheesy American-dubbing voice] like this. So it had a real bogus feel. Plus, I think the memo about the beards and the hair got read upside down, so the wigs were on their faces and the beards were on their heads.
There’s a scene at the end of the movie where we’re all supposed to be shooting arrows. So the prop department handed out the bows and the arrows. And the first take, the arrows were doing into people’s eyes and going backwards. We couldn’t figure it out. So finally the director looked at the actual arrows, and there was no slit in the back. [does a Bulgarian accent] “What? Looks like arrow.” So that’s kind of what we were dealing with over there.

Q. What’s your very favorite guest shot on a TV film?

A. It’s the usual routine: Some shows are fun to be on as a guest star, some are not, and some are just okay. Some you do because you need a water heater. I was on an episode of “Weird Science” because I needed a water heater.

Q. How do you keep a marriage while you’re doing film work?

A. Paddling as fast as I can? I don’t know. I’m an actor -- I pretend to be her husband. “Everything’s great, honey!”
I have a very understanding wife. She travels with me a lot. That helps, too.

Q. Will “Jack of Trades” ever come out on DVD?

A. “Jack of Trades”? Is that the pig-Latin version? No, most TV ages like fish -- so I wouldn’t hold my breath for that one.

Q. Do you have any advice for up-and-coming filmmakers?

A. Yeah -- don’t imitate. If you’re trying to be derivative of someone else, you’re gonna end up making “The Honeymooners” or “Herbie.” Hey, I was in a “Herbie” [remake]! You’ll remake “The Longest Yard.” You’ll remake “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” That looks like it’s gonna be scary! Gene Wilder was funny; Johnny Depp is weird! If I was a kid, I’d run from that chocolate factory! People always say Tim Burton is so creative -- but this is his second remake! Kiss my ass, Timmy!
It really is lame out there. The film industry needs your help desperately. Good, bad, or indifferent, you’re not gonna see this movie on an airplane!

Bruce-Campbell.com
Bruce Campbell (Wikipedia entry)

Posted: Fri - July 8, 2005 at 12:00 AM        

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