Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell in Berkeley tonight, read the Awesome Exclusive Interview here

When you say “movie star”, Bruce Campbell might not come to mind as quickly as Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and Tom Cruise. But Campbell fits comfortably into the definition of “cult movie icon”, thanks to roles in popcorn flicks like The Evil Dead trilogy, the Spider-Man films, and the epic B-movie Bubba Ho-Tep, in which Campbell played a geriatric Elvis Presley who has to battle a mummy. Needless to say, I’m a fan.

Campbell is currently acting in the TV show Burn Notice on the USA network. He also recently directed and starred in My Name is Bruce, a movie that spoofs his status as a movie star who appeals to uber-geeks of the horror and sci-fi genres. In Bruce, Campbell plays a version of himself (albeit an alcoholic and degenerate one), who is recruited by the residents of a small Oregon town to fight an ancient Chinese god who lives in a graveyard and decapitates people. And protects bean curd. It’s camp cinema of the goriest, silliest variety. Again, I’m a fan. I had a chance to chat with Campbell while he was in Madison, Wisconsin, doing Q&A’s before screenings of My Name is Bruce. He’ll be in San Francisco’s Bridge Theater on December 17 at 7 p.m. and 9:40 p.m., and Berkeley’s California Theater on December 18 at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.—so if you’re a fan, check it out.

My Name is Bruce is obviously made on a very low budget, but I was impressed with costume and effects and mythology of the Chinese warrior god.
Thanks! I knew I wanted the killer to be related to mining caves and Chinese lore. I did some research, and the Chinese God of War does really does protect the dead and bean curd. I thought, “Wow! Now we now have the killer and the Achilles heel. Because, you have to be able to kill the killer, you know.”

He looked cool and actually kind of scary.
We knew he was going to be a guy in a suit, that was never an issue. We shot him in the suit and then added a couple of layers—like a heat wave around him and light coming out of his eyes.

You’re on tour with My Name is Bruce, taking it around the country. How do audiences in Austin compare to San Francisco, with the common denominator of having Bruce Campbell there to introduce the movie?
You will find a lot of similarity if you are a demographic person. 2/3 guys, 1/3 women. But there are definite differences regionally. Here in Madison they love to laugh. We have four showings tonight to go to. Madison, they drink beer and want to be entertained. New York is tough. They want Saw in New York City, really violent movies. Urban crowds are different, they like to come off as cool. Suburban crowds tend to be a little more rabid.

What was one of the earliest bizarre run-ins you had with a fan?
I’m not sure if there’s been a seminal moment really. But I’m definitely seeing a lot more tattoos. In Austin alone, I signed eight appendages that were going straight to the tattoo parlor. Some of them already had the Evil Dead art, they just needed my autograph.

This one guy, comes up and says, “Bruce, I have to show you this” and takes off his shirt. His whole back was a tattoo of the poster of Army of Darkness. It was beautiful. You know, Tom Cruise has a good career, made a lot of great movies and made a lot of money. But no one is tattooing Risky Business on their back.

I was just watching the dvd of Tropic Thunder, and the commentary track cracked me up, because Robert Downey Jr. did the whole thing in character. He has a line in the film, “I don’t break character until the dvd commentary” It reminded me of the greatest dvd commentary I’ve ever heard, which was on Bubba Ho-Tep, when you played Elvis watching the film for the first time from an undisclosed location.
(Laughs) That’s right, we got him to go to an undisclosed location. What I thought was funny about that was that he didn’t necessarily really like the movie. He kept complaining about how it was a terror picture.

Do you enjoy creating these extra layers of content for the dvd version?
No! It’s just a horrible burden. You have to have 17 hours of extras for any movie now. For My Name is Bruce, we did really thorough, hour-long making of documentaries. We have as much extra stuff as Lord of the Rings. The one thing I’m against is showing eery scene that was cut out of the movie. Because usually we cut it out because it blew.

Bruce is out around the same time as JCVD, in which Jean Claude Van Damme plays himself, in an action movie. If you could pick one other celebrity to walk that heightened celebrity art-imitating-life tightrope, who would you choose?
Wow, that’s a good one. Someone like incredibly famous…Will Smith or someone…the full pop route. Or George Clooney. It would be fun to torment them.

I was looking at your filmography on IMDB.com, and it says there’s a 2009 version of Evil Dead in the works. What’s up with that?
Oh, that’s just talk (director) Sam Raimi is busy, I’m busy, I don’t see how it’s going to happen. Plus, I’ve been asking audiences at these screenings lately, ‘Raise your hand yes if you wanted Indiana Jones 4’. Literally no one says yes. I think it’s the same thing for Evil Dead—do you really want to see a 50-year-old guy running around with a chainsaw? I don’t think so. It’s time for me to movie into the 'crooked politician' phase of my career.
 

Posted at 11:56 AM in Pete's Popcorn Picks | Permalink