Hail to the Chin

by Bruce Campbell

  Here’s an interesting fact: Bees love lavender. Specifically, aggressive Oregon bees love the lavender growing on my property. Summer was the season to harvest lavender and the crops on the southern slope were almost bursting.

  The catering truck was set up not far from the edge of the lavender, if only because the spot was flat and hidden from the camera. The bees were already swarming because of the lavender, but they love all kinds of herbs – and caterers tend to cook with lots of herbs. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme lured the insects toward the dining cast and crew.

  The lavender managed to keep the bees relatively calm, but it wasn’t long before they got the taste of flesh. I watched as one bee landed on a piece of chicken, carved off a hunk with its chainsaw of a mandible and flew away, struggling under the strain of the oversized chicken nugget in its grasp.

  A plate with meat on it would get attacked by an entire platoon of bees, so it wasn’t long before the crew abandoned the catering area and ate lunch in their cars.

  The aggressive bees made lunch interesting, but their effect on production paled in comparison to the impact of plants. We filmed several scenes in the deeper woods – beyond the cleared safety of the Gold Lick backlot. Without money in the budget for proper greenskeeping, we were oblivious to the fact that we were dragging ourselves and our equipment through patches of heinous Poison Oak.

  Some people reacted immediately with red rashes. Even the ones with no reaction unwittingly brought the toxic oil back home, where it would spread to their allergic spouses and children. Poison Oak got all over the cables that snaked through the forest, which meant that the poor grips and electricians working on the equipment trucks got infected – even if they hadn’t set foot in the woods.

  As a result of the slowish production pace, I lobbied for an extra day of shooting. The general response from the bee-stung, oak-infected crew was, “Fuck that. We’re not coming back to your goddamn property.”

  I conceded to the mutineers and our last night of filming was in a public park – about twenty yards from a massive interstate.

  GET OFF MY LAND!

  Production wrapped, and I headed straight to the airport to kick off my book tour. With no time to catch my breath afterward, I was off to Miami to film the pilot for Burn Notice. I returned to southern Oregon in time for the holidays and saw with fresh eyes how My Name Is Bruce had ravaged my property.

  A shredded driveway and trampled yard were lingering evidence of the production, but those could be repaired or left to heal on their own. I still had a goddamned town to deal with. There was never any plan or budget to have production demolish the backlot.

  For a while, the “general store” was left standing, if only because it was anchored to a storage container and could harbor my equipment that valued even a primitive shelter. The gas station facade attached to my office outbuilding was kept around so we could play cards and lollygag beneath the canopy.

  Soon enough, the cost of not building something to code became very evident. Nothing was sealed. Nothing was caulked. Camera-ready coats of stain and paint had done little to keep the materials from becoming saturated by the ultimate enemy to structures: moisture. The windows were warping. One of the doors practically imploded and metal siding began to peel away in sheets, so I eventually got a contractor to take it down. The only really smart thing I did in building this dumb backlot was to ensure that everything was bolted together and that no concrete was poured. We could just take it apart.

  The town of Gold Lick is a fading memory now and Ida is in good health. To make My Name Is Bruce I crossed a few lines, but at the end of the day there is only one true cardinal rule in filmmaking and it’s simple: There are no cardinal rules.

  The only business truth that continues to reveal itself in my everyday life is that I’ve never made money without spending some first. Don’t be afraid to sow some seeds. The arts are always risky and if you want to be part of the process you have to accept risk and live with it.

  Mercifully, the film gods smiled enough to sell about a hundred thousand DVD units of My Name Is Bruce – well enough to cover the roughly $2 million outlay. That’s what it’s all about – returning money to the investors, so you can get it back and do it all over again.

  13

  RISE OF THE MASTER CYLINDER

  When I was a kid, I read Sad Sack comic books. I could relate to the main character: a down-on-his-luck schmo in the U.S. Army, just trying to make it through his day. The guy was nothing special, with no super-skill set – he was born on this planet and wore a plain, wool uniform.

  Sam Raimi read Spider-Man comics and became well versed in that universe. His main guy was also an average schmo from Queens, New York, but he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes a web-slinging superhero – a little different from my guy.

  It’s a good thing it wasn’t the other way around, because Sam landed one of the primo directing gigs of his era – the motion picture adaptation of Spider-Man. Apparently, the project had been languishing for years, changing studios and directors.

  I was impressed as hell when I found out that Sam got the gig. Hollywood gets this stuff wrong all the time, but it was a good fit – Sam was intimately familiar with Spidey’s myth, he could direct special effects all day long and his visual style was long influenced by comic books anyway. I was mostly pleased for Sam in that he’s always had an epic sensibility. He loved things that were big and complicated and this movie could finally let the magician within Sam out of the box.

  ENTERING THE RING

  Selfishly, I informed Sam that there was no way in hell he was going to make this highly anticipated, epic movie without letting me play some kind of meaningless part.

  For the first film, Sam threw me the role of Ring Announcer and I was off to my fitting on the Sony lot. My part was a little “Las Vegas-y,” a little over-the-top, in both look and delivery. The wardrobe department gave me a flashy, heavily shoulder-padded gold jacket and put my look over-the-top with a Cadillac logo, dangling on a chain around my neck.

  Scenes in big movies like this aren’t really rehearsed, they’re storyboarded and on any given day the workload is judged more by “shots” than “page count.” The sequences involving my character all take place in an amateur wrestling ring. Between twelve hundred extras, stunts and choreography, there were a lot of moving parts.

  In the van, on the way to set for my first day of work, I glanced inside an open soundstage and saw none other than Sam’s self-proclaimed “Classic,” attended by several serious-looking men in mechanic overalls.

  “That’s Sam Raimi’s car, isn’t it?” I asked knowingly.

  Earl, the driver, looked back at me nervously. “Why do you ask?”

  I then realized that Earl, a loyal teamster, wasn’t going to spill the beans. For all I knew, Sam had issued a gag order about his beloved Delta, now playing the role of “Uncle Ben’s Car.”

  “That’s okay, Earl,” I reassured him. “Just curious.”

  Earl dropped me at the corner of stages 32, 33 and 35. The backlot was a beehive of activity – really looking like it did in the movies with all kinds of crew members driving, pushing or pulling some ridiculously cumbersome piece of equipment in every direction. The only things missing to complete the cliché were a couple of Roman soldiers, casually walking by, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

  I collared the first person with a walkie-talkie who approached our van.

  “Excuse me, which one is the Spider-Man stage?” I asked, oblivious to the actual scope of the production.

  The assistant director smiled at me. “Spider-Man is on ten stages. You’re the Ring guy, right?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I think you’re in Thirty-three. Let me check.”

  She barked into her headset, then waited for the information to be passed along and up the ranks until she got a reliable answer. It took some doing. Productions like this are pretty much a military operation – very segm
ented and individually goal oriented, with a sometime Byzantine chain of command.

  “Yep. You’re in Thirty-three. Head over there. Someone will meet you.”

  Inside stage 33, which was ancient and enormous, the place was already loud and warm from twelve hundred wrestling fan extras shuffling and chitchatting. Bullhorn-wielding assistant directors were shouting orders and reminders to the anxious crowd.

  Across the large ring set, I could see Sam behind a bank of video monitors. He looked really busy and our handlers on set didn’t want us wandering around, randomly bugging the director – even if he was an old pal.

  Sam started the wrestling sequence by filming the wider, more establishing shots first. After a week of this, finding out whether I was even in a given shot became something of a game. Sam had five cameras among the throngs in the arena, so it was anybody’s guess.

  When in doubt, keep acting! I figured.

  “Am I even in this shot? Oh, there I am…”

  Eventually, I caught Sam during a break. He looked tired but excited. I asked him what it was like to take filmmaking up to the next level – to the A-list.

  Sam smiled and shrugged. “I’m doing the same stuff we did in the Super-8 movie days, I just have a lot more money to play with.”

  Whatever Sam did, it worked. Spider-Man opened to a record $112 million. It’s not as big as the oversized mega-openings of today, but it smashed a box office record or two at the time.

  USHERING IN THE SEQUEL

  With the massive success of Spider-Man, you could bet your Buster Browns there was going to be a sequel – this franchise was off and running. Naturally, the second film had to be bigger, better, with more villains, more stunts, more everything. Naturally, I had to invite myself into the cast.

  The second time around, Peter Parker’s romance to Mary Jane intensifies and he tries to see her in a play on Broadway, but since he’s so busy saving the world, he’s late to the show. That’s where I come in. My role as the Snooty Usher is to intervene and keep the tardy playgoer out of the theater.

  Tobey Maguire was a nice chap. He was a little confused when he saw me back again, playing a different character, but he was happy to play along.

  “Hey, Tobey, great to see you again!” I exclaimed, genuinely happy to be back. “Looks like it’s time for me to play another pivotal role.”

  “Oh yeah? How so?” Tobey asked, trying not to be snotty.

  “Well, as you recall in the first one, Peter Parker wanted to be called ‘The Human Spider.’ My character changed it, calling him ‘The Amazing Spider-Man,’ so, technically, I named your character.”

  Tobey’s smile faded a bit and he arched an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, I guess…”

  “And I love how this new part is pivotal, too.”

  “Is it now?” Tobey asked, his expression back to smiling again, no doubt bemused by my audacity.

  “Yeah. In this scene, Peter Parker tries to get into the theater to see Mary Jane perform, right?”

  “Right. So?”

  “‘Tries.’ That’s the operative word. The Snooty Usher won’t let Peter in late. Technically, he’s the only character who ever defeated Spider-Man.”

  Tobey rolled his eyes.

  The scene went fine and I got to see the finished film in, of all places, Sofia, Bulgaria. I was there filming the modern-day classic Man with the Screaming Brain. My partner and old Raimi family friend David Goodman was with me and we both lamented to Sam that we wouldn’t be around to see the opening of his very anticipated sequel.

  Somehow, Sam pulled a few strings – or a whole ton of strings – and arranged for a screening of Spider-Man 2 for our entire crew and their families in a brand-new, four-hundred-seat stadium-style multiplex in Sofia. This type of theater seems normal to most of us, but it was a rarity in economically burgeoning Bulgaria.

  I am of the opinion that the second installment of the Spidey series really hit the nail on the head. It was just the right combination of myth, romance, action, huge set pieces and humor. Our private audience “oohed” and “aahhed” the whole way through. The only depressing thing about the entire affair was when the lights came back up and our humble crew had to get back to work on our crappy little movie.

  DÉJÀ-VU

  Back in high school, I had a French teacher named Elizabeth Tessem. She was Le Grande Dame of teachers. Mrs. Tessem had been teaching so long, my mother was also one of her students. Mrs. Tessem lived her teaching. She loved everything French, mostly speaking it during class, and she created a very fun learning environment. Who knew I would enjoy a French class?

  It didn’t hurt that Sam Raimi and old friend (even by high school age) Matt Dickson were also in the class. We were very happy to create and perform French skits, demonstrating our “amazing” grasp of the language but mostly overacting and doing cheap gags. When Sam tracked me down for my bit in Spider-Man 3, this was immediately what he referred to.

  “Okay, listen – we’re going to basically do one of those skits we did in Mrs. Tessem’s old class, with the maître d’, only it’s Peter Parker trying to get a table, and –”

  “Say no more, Sam. It’s the perfect trilogy for my appearances in this franchise: I named him; I defeated him. Now Spider-Man, a superhero, comes to me, a mere mortal, for help. How often does that happen?”

  “Not very often,” Sam agreed, mostly just to end the conversation. “Okay, so –”

  “So, it’s pivotal. My role as the maître d’ is pivotal.”

  “Look, pal, you can call it whatever you want. Show up Monday morning and do your job.”

  Click. Sam had hung up.

  I pumped a fist in the air. “Nailed it!”

  My scene in Spidey 3 was a personal fave, in that Tobey and I could actually let the scene play – it wasn’t some quick bit, with extras and mayhem all around. Tobey was amused by seeing me on set for the third time, to play yet another annoying character.

  “Of course he’s back.” Tobey grinned. “We can’t make a Spider-Man movie without Bruce Campbell!”

  “You’re starting to understand how Hollywood works, Tobey.”

  Our scene played out as planned, with the usual additions, tweaks and changes that Sam makes all day long, every day that he shoots. I hope Madame Tessem would be proud of the end results.

  Spider-Man 3 took a lot of flak. It was a bigger, more convoluted story with maybe one too many villains and it went a bit dark for some. Still, for me, it’s hard to put in words how delighted I was to watch Sam – my boyhood buddy and filmmaking fraternal brother – direct one of the most successful movie franchises in history.

  There were superhero movies before Spider-Man, but Sam’s series truly set that particular genre in motion for decades to come. I’m not a film historian, but I sense that Spider-Man also represents a turning of the tide – or taste – where even A-list movies are now B movies, conceptually. Believe me, if your hero is bitten by a radioactive spider and starts web-swinging from buildings, that’s not only a B movie; that’s a 1950s B movie.

  I’m just happy that genre fare is no longer frowned upon in the world of entertainment – and that we’re finally seeing how popular fantasy, horror and sci-fi stories really are.

  14

  ASHES TO AXES

  I was no stranger to Miami, Florida. Thanks to both Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way and Man with the Screaming Brain, I spent a nice chunk of time touring the nation in the mid-00s. As an international outpost at the tip of a massive peninsula, Miami was an obvious destination for each tour.

  As it turned out, attendance at both of these appearances consisted of merely a handful of fans and a fistful of empty seats. I have a great excuse for the Screaming Brain debacle – the Emmys were on, it was game seven of the baseball World Series and there was a hurricane watch in the area. That’s a hell of a trifecta.

  The Make Love event/bust in Miami had no such competition – the weather was great, it was a good store in a prime location, and nothing
was on the tube. Still, folks just didn’t show up. I was baffled, because in Orlando at a recent event fans were out the door and around the block. Perhaps it was Miami’s incredible collision of cultures that blotted out the influence of Deadites upon the local consciousness. Whatever the reason, I concluded that trying to promote or further my career there wasn’t worth the time or effort, so a new rule went into effect: Never go back to Miami.

  “Curse you, Miami!”

  If you were watching a movie, this is where the screen would cut to black and a title card would slowly fade in:

  “One Year Later…”

  The phone rings.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Bruce, Barry here. I have an offer for you to be a regular on a new, cool TV show pilot.”

  “Oh yeah? Where does it shoot?”

  “Miami.”

  “Pass.”

  I explained – passionately – that I was not only done with episodic television, but I was also done with Miami and its “bad juju.” I was really enjoying life in the boonies of Oregon, returning to my roots, making a couple of “homegrown” movies and doing cameos in the films of old colleagues like Sam Raimi and the Coen brothers.

  “Ya gotta understand, Barry. Jack of All Trades left a bad taste in my mouth. Episodic TV is too much work for too much heartache.”

  “Let’s just treat television on a case-by-case basis,” Barry advised. “The script is really fresh. The role is perfect for you – and it’s just a pilot.”