Hail to the Chin

by Bruce Campbell

  The good news was that if I had inadvertently started a major shoot-out, the crew of Burn Notice wouldn’t be outgunned. More than a few of them told me on the sly that they were packing heat “just in case.”

  We also had plenty of uniformed police assisting us with blocking roads and rerouting traffic when they were off duty. One of the officers we regularly had on set with us was a robust fellow I nicknamed Taser Ted – a likable guy with a perverse love of Tasering “perps.” Over the course of seven seasons, Ted often invited me to do a late-night “ride along” with him when he was on duty. I never took him up on that offer, but I did enjoy playing certain “Tase the Perp” games with him in between camera setups.

  “Okay, Ted,” I would begin, “let’s say you get a call that I’m in a Seven-Eleven and the pissed-off owner says I refuse to leave. What would you do?”

  “I’d insist that you leave the store,” he replied with an almost eerie tone of control.

  “Would you give me a time limit or a countdown to leave?”

  “No, I’d ask you to get out of the store now.”

  “Or what?”

  “I’m going to ask you to get out of the store now,” he repeated, this time resting his hand on his namesake Taser.

  Apparently, by that point I had already disobeyed a direct order from a keeper of the peace and he could have Tased me – but Ted made an effort to remain calm and professional.

  Pushing his buttons, I always wanted to see what would make him actually draw. “Hey, buddy,” my play-acting character responded, “I just want to buy a peanut cluster. I’m a customer.”

  “Then buy it and get out.”

  “What about now? Would you Tase me now?”

  “Well, I haven’t decided yet … hmmm … which one…”

  I loved to torment Ted because I knew he had to put up with jerks like that all day long, but this ad hoc training session was becoming all too real. Ted’s face turned red, his hand twitching involuntarily on the Taser.

  “Oh, you know what?” I would balk. “I loved Spree when I was a kid. Maybe I’ll get some Spree instead…”

  Zap! Ted had had enough of my bullshit. He didn’t actually Tase me, but he often encouraged me to “experience” it – and I often declined.

  WE BLEW IT – BIG-TIME

  During the preparations to film Burn Notice, Matt Nix delivered an early and irrevocable edict: There will be no digital explosions on Burn Notice – they all have to be real.

  Matt’s explanation was along the lines of, “When a car blows up, you see these amazing fire funnels curling up underneath them in the aftermath. No digital guy is gonna do something freaky and random like that. Explosions have a mind of their own.”

  And so, it turned out, did the special effects guys! In the course of seven seasons, we saw and felt some doozies. Writers, directors and producers could not get enough of blowing the living shit out of everything around us. In the opening credits, one beautiful blast almost blows Jeffrey and me off our feet as we run away from an erupting boat.

  And how do you really protect yourself from an explosion anyway? I didn’t pack the charge. I don’t know how much – or even what – material they used. Is the guy good with timing? Is he a trigger-happy son of a bitch? Honestly, as far as explosions went, I never knew if I was in any real danger or not.

  With regard to the deafening noise of explosives, you can always protect your ears with wax plugs, but being part of the shot, I needed to hear all the cues distinctly, so I tended to put in just enough wax to dampen a loud blast but not enough to mask the voice of the stunt coordinator.

  Of course, there wasn’t much to stop a given explosion from launching errant shrapnel into your retreating ass. I guess overall, I was thankful to be running away from most explosions. But no matter how much you prep, there are always variables.

  An explosion once launched a car hood fifty feet into the air, spinning like a giant metallic Frisbee of death. Crew members shaded their eyes to track its descent in the blinding sun.

  One day, I heard they were going to set off a big one just before lunch, so I showed up early to take pictures from a “safe zone.” When they called action I clicked away, but the first shot was tilted sideways from the concussion of the blast. It was only after I regained my balance and composure that I could finish the series of shots – and I was half a football field away! I can’t imagine the jolt those stunt folks felt, being so much closer to ground zero.

  Bruce vs. Shockwave.

  We maxed out, explosion-wise, at an office complex one day. Usually, when you film at a location where gunplay or explosions occur, you issue a memo to residents and nearby businesses, warning them about the noise so nobody becomes alarmed when chaos ensues. I’m sure the leaflets were distributed, but sometimes it’s hard to reach every last person.

  In this case, a massive explosion was to be set off on the second floor of an office building – and it was a whopper. Crew members filming on top of the building reported later that the building actually shook from the impact. Office workers inside hadn’t expected the size of the blast and the people who never even got the memo were convinced that an airplane had struck the building, terrorist-style. I’m not exaggerating when I say mayhem ensued.

  In a classic example of “timing is everything,” one muggy afternoon we blew off a Big Bertha of an explosion just as Air Force One was departing Miami International Airport. I wondered if more than a few Secret Service guys on board didn’t spit out their black coffee when that sucker blew directly beneath their ascending craft.

  Welcome to Burn Notice, Mr. President, I hope you like the show!

  SEND IN MR. PARKER, PLEASE

  Stunt guys are mostly anonymous. You couldn’t pick the average one out of a police lineup. That’s kind of the idea. Stunt performers do their thing in painful silence and the actors take most of the credit. It’s all part of the movie magic. I’m very happy, however, to shine an appreciative light on my longtime Burn Notice stuntman, Chris Parker.

  When stunt coordinator Artie introduced us, Chris was a studly, polite man about twenty years my junior. That’s just how I like my stunt guys – young and limber. Chris had solid facial features and he was game for anything. After clearly busting his ass on a fall or some kind of impact, he’d always crack a boyish smile and shoot a thumbs-up – no matter how shaky he really felt.

  I’m very thankful for all the running, jumping, swimming, fighting and legitimate crazy-ass driving Chris did for me over the course of the show. Chris and the rest of the stunt team all got busier after the cast members refused to be part of any future explosions. We’d had enough. Let the stunt folks handle it, we reasoned. That’s what they do.

  So, thanks, Chris, for sweating your nads off and making me look badass for seven seasons. I hope I can be your “dialogue double” again someday!

  MOON OVER MY HAMMY

  If you’re not chasing international drug-runners in a car or shooting at them, you’re going to use your fists. With a bunch of action-based entertainment under my belt, I was no stranger to performing fight scenes, but my body wasn’t so sure anymore.

  For my fiftieth birthday, Ida and I enjoyed a leisurely weekend at Islamorada, a swanky spot in the Florida Keys where middle-aged, slightly paunchy guys like me go to relax. I relaxed all right. I showed up on set the following Monday loose as a goose.

  But not loose enough.

  The scene called for me to fight two henchmen. It was all planned – and while we never really fight, actors and stunt guys like to at least show “exertion” when they go at it. One of my moves was to knee a guy in the face – a sharp, short movement. We did it several different times from several different angles. We basically had it in the can, but they wanted one more take.

  It always seems to work that way.

  The additional take rolled, we fought and as my knee extended to “hit” the stunt guy’s face I heard a distinct “pop,” followed by a sharp pain in my right thigh.
Before I could react, the second stunt guy was upon me from behind – all part of the routine. Without thinking, being the good little soldier, I continued with the fight for another beat, flipped the baddie over my right shoulder and collapsed to the pavement on my back. There was an agonizing beat as the stunt guys halted their routine and looked back at me to see what the problem was.

  “Should we call cut?” Jeremiah, the director, asked.

  “Yeah,” I responded. “And get a van around to take me to the hospital because I can’t walk.”

  Getting an MRI done to see the extent of the damage was a comedy of terrors. The nurse saw me lying on my back in front of the Tube of Doom, right leg bent in the air.

  “You’ll have to flatten your leg for the MRI.”

  “I can’t straighten my leg.”

  “You’ll have to. Otherwise we can’t do the MRI.”

  “What do you suggest? I’m all ears.”

  “We’ll have to strap it down flat.”

  Beautiful.

  The MRI proceeded and the prognosis was not great. I fully tore two out of three connecting hamstring tendons. In all of my random roughhousing I had never hurt myself this badly before and it was as alarming as it was disabling. I literally could not walk or even straighten my right leg.

  Through the production office, I was referred to a specialist – who was also a surgeon.

  “So, Doc, as you can see, I have a torn hamstring. What are my options here?”

  “The options are physical therapy or surgery. I recommend surgery. You have a bad tear.”

  Coming from a surgeon, his opinion wasn’t a shocker. “Okay, Doc,” I asked casually, “if I went down that road, what’s involved in reattaching my hamstring?”

  “Well, first, we’d have to move the sciatic nerve…”

  “You can stop right there, Doc. I saw my dad go through that. No deal. Let me ask you, have you ever torn a hammy?”

  “I have, actually, windsurfing.”

  “Did you get surgery?”

  “No. I was young and foolish back then.”

  Due to my hamstring injury, the scripts needed a few “tweaks.”

  “Did you go to physical therapy?”

  “No. I was young and foolish.”

  “I’m starting to get that. Without doing any of that, what percentage would you say you are back now?”

  “About eighty percent.”

  “Then, Doc, sign me up for physical therapy!”

  For the next ten weeks, I got to know the world of physical therapy, going multiple times a week, grinding it out, whenever the shooting schedule would allow.

  The news that I was released on set was sometimes embarrassing by way of the words used. Oscar, our intrepid first assistant director, would bark over the walkie-talkie, “Bruce Campbell is released. He’s going to rehab.”

  I’d always jump in immediately to correct him. “No, Oscar! It’s ‘physical therapy,’ not ‘rehab.’”

  Whatever you called it, the Burn Notice production marched on unabated. Since I could still sit and talk without impediment and all the signs of injury were disguised under my pant leg, I was back on set thirty-six hours later, sitting in a car talking with Gabrielle.

  For the rest of that episode, I leaned, or had a foot up or was sitting every time you saw me. By the end of shooting, our director, Jeremiah, could have subsequently published a Filming Actors with Disabilities manual, from what he learned about faking the shots with me.

  As I slowly got better, I could stand in scenes again and do simple, smaller movements. The next episode was directed by Tim Matheson and he fully adapted to my lessened abilities. There was a big moment during his episode when I had to walk across the set, imploring Michael Westen to listen to reason. The entire take, as I gingerly made my way forward, all I could think was, C’mon, hamstring, don’t fail me now.

  As the weeks went by, I gradually got limited strength, stability and flexibility back. It was a huge relief and I give my Miami pool a lot of credit. I had always loved swimming, but now the pool was a necessity. Floating in water took most of the weight off my leg – it also slowed down and smoothed out my movements, which was very appealing. The chances of getting reinjured in the pool were practically nil, apart from getting in and out on slick tile.

  The real test came about four weeks later when my character had to fight Jeffrey’s. Donovan was great about it all, being careful to avoid certain danger zones and we broke the fight into enough pieces to avoid any real strain. For my part, it was a relief to be able to complete enough moves to at least be convincing in the scene – it meant that I was on the mend.

  In retrospect, I feel that doing ten weeks of intensive physical therapy was enough to do the trick and I highly recommend the process if you ever bash yourself or tear something bad. Thankfully, ten years later, I can still do most anything now that I could do before the injury and the ol’ sciatic nerve remains intact.

  OFF SET

  Time, weather and schedule permitting, Coby and I would hang out after hours, watching some of the thirty-seven Lawrence Welk episodes I had recorded on PBS – yes, Lawrence Welk. People ask me, “Bruce, why the hell do you watch Lawrence Welk? Isn’t that show for people over eighty-five?” My answer is long and circuitous, but “Lars” is entertaining on multiple levels.

  The show ran on U.S. television from 1952 to 1982 and became a staple of “wholesome” American entertainment on Saturday nights. Lawrence himself was an accomplished bandleader and his cartoonish accent was a broad imitation of the immigrants he grew up with in North Dakota. The weekly Lawrence Welk Show, considered “embarrassing and grueling” by Ida – who was forced to watch it as an unruly teenager – was so relentlessly square it was hip, so tragically unfunny it was hilarious. You get my meaning? When Coby and I laughed ourselves senseless, it wasn’t because of a scripted joke. With hokey dance numbers, costumes from Planet Polyester and old-timey musical themes, the whole show was kind of a joke.

  Bruce: “Hi, I’d like to order the Lawrence Welk box set.” Coby: “Make it two.”

  Because Lawrence Welk ran for so many decades, fashion historians everywhere can rejoice that thirty years’ worth of skinny ties, bouffant hairdos, long sideburns and bell-bottoms are preserved forever for our viewing pleasure.

  To round out our after-hours viewing, we added the occasional Soul Train episode, which was the funk version of Lawrence Welk, or a T.J. Hooker rerun.

  This graphic is actually real.

  As an actor in his mid-fifties doing Burn Notice, I couldn’t take my eyes off of William Shatner, also in his mid-fifties, on T.J. Hooker. What was he up to when he was that age? What did he look like? Did he do his own stunts? It turned out that he did. In fact, Bill repeatedly executed what I have since called The Shatner Power Slide.

  Any time Bill’s character had to arrive at a crime scene on T.J. Hooker, his squad car would race up and screech to a smoky halt. The shot would continue and, without editing, Bill would step out of the car – which meant that he had done it without the aid of a stuntman or an editor. I was always impressed by that and mentioned it the first time I met him in the greenroom at a Wizard World Comic Con convention a few years ago.

  “You know, the producer didn’t want me to do that,” Bill added, with obvious delight at the recollection. “Too dangerous, they said.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you do those either,” I said. “How does one actually pull that kind of a slide off?”

  Shatner looked over his shoulder quickly, like he was still keeping this a secret. “I got with the stunt guys and they feathered the emergency brake, so it wouldn’t catch. It’s a four-part maneuver as you come to your mark: foot off the gas; pull the emergency brake; steer; foot on the actual brake to stop.”

  Counter-intuitively, you can still steer when the emergency brake is on. If you follow the first three steps, by the time you hit the actual brake the car will come to a dead stop. I was particularly thankful to Bill for
that little tidbit, as I was asked to perform just such a maneuver in the pilot of Ash vs. Evil Dead. Ash was supposed to pull his hulking Delta up to a dive bar and skid sideways. I smiled at Sam as he explained the scene.

  “Don’t worry, pal. I got this.”

  I recently won a Saturn Award for Ash vs. Evil Dead and ran into William Shatner at the event. It was the first time I had seen him since his advice and I was able to dedicate my award to him and The Shatner Power Slide.

  WHEELING AND DEALING

  When I was a kid, my universe wasn’t divided into nations or continents – it was divided into neighborhoods, the largest geographical division I could imagine. The expansion of my universe was only made possible by the advent of the bicycle.

  Once Burn Notice was picked up as a series, I knew I had to plan for what could be a long haul. Production had taken over a massive former performance center on Dinner Key – the one where Jim Morrison infamously attempted to “free Willy” in concert – so the place had some history, albeit questionable.

  This leaking, molding million-square-foot building became our makeshift studio for seven years. A handful of permanent sets were erected – Michael Westen’s loft, Fiona’s apartment and Madeline’s house among them. A small fleet of Dodge Chargers, fake cop cars and burned-out wrecks packed the place to the gills.

  Based on the way everything was laid out, cast trailers positioned outside were actually quite a “schlep” from the interior sets. Considering the debilitating heat, I looked for a quick, easy way to crisscross the “campus.”