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Salon Interviews Bruce Campbell
vonpookie writes "Salon has posted an interview with Bruce Campbell on the subject of his new book Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way, as well as on Tom Cruise, his career, and the realities of the movie biz." From the interview: "Q:Seriously. There was a hilarious interview with Cruise and Spielberg in Der Spiegel recently, reporting that there was a Scientology tent on the set of War of the Worlds, because in between shots Tom wanted to help people kick drugs and alcohol. A: I can believe that. That's fine; it's sort of a way of life for Tom. It's not really a charity. It's more like his religion. Q: He's got a reputation for it! A: Yeah, he's got a reputation for helping people. But my feeling is, 'Shut up and act.'"
"Shut up and learn to act" might be better advice.
And my feeling is that Bruce Campbell's a closet Katie Holmes fan.
"Shut up and act"
"Evil Dead" star Bruce Campbell discusses Tom Cruise, idiot film executives, his hilarious debut novel -- and the joys of not being famous.
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By Scott Thill
July 14, 2005 | There are some people who don't know who Bruce Campbell is, and there are others who will wait hours in line just to get next to him. The 47-year-old actor's uproarious roles in horror films like "Bubba Ho-Tep" and the essential "Evil Dead" franchise -- which he created along with his high school buddy and fellow Michigan native, director Sam Raimi -- have earned him a dedicated cult following. Indeed, legions of aspiring horror-show nuts have followed Campbell and Raimi, who parleyed his own "Evil Dead" accomplishments into a career helming Hollywood blockbusters like the "Spider-Man" movies, ever since the two do-it-yourselfers first decided to produce and shoot their own films instead of waiting for a billionaire studio to discover them.
"It's the old cliché about grabbing the bull by the horns," Campbell says. "There is no mystery to it, just an incredible amount of elbow grease, and most people just aren't built for that."
To be sure, Campbell's road, which has also included stops behind or in front of the camera at other fandom bonanzas like the "Hercules" and "Xena: Warrior Princess" television series, has not led directly to the Emerald City of the Hollywood mainstream. But that's fine by him. In fact, his new, side-splitting exercise in hard-boiled Hollyweird, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way," shows just what kind of chaos can emerge when the straight-shooting icon known mostly by his "Evil Dead" alter ego (the actor-author feels compelled to sign his book jacket "Bruce 'Don't Call Me Ash' Campbell") enters the ranks of the Hollywood elite ruled by stars like Richard Gere and Renée Zellwegger.
Unlike his previous autobiographical tour de force, "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor" -- which became a national bestseller to the surprise only of those who haven't seen the "Evil Dead" films -- Campbell's newest book is straight-up fiction, a mash-up of noir action and gut-busting humor centered on the artist's long-awaited jump to the Big Time. In the book, he stars with Gere and Zellwegger in a Mike Nichols update of George Cukor's 1960 Marilyn Monroe vehicle, "Let's Make Love," a movie Gregory Peck abandoned because he famously felt the script was "about as funny as pushing Grandma down the stairs in a wheelchair."
Which, come to think of it, happens to Campbell in his new book, although he's no grandma and it's Richard Gere who eventually does the honors by throwing him down a flight of stairs. Still, that's just a taste of the abuse Campbell undergoes on his quixotic mission to make the A-list. For the entirety of "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way," its doomed protagonist spends more time getting his ass thoroughly kicked by any number of people rather than doing any actual acting. But perhaps that's the object lesson to be learned in this metafictional exercise in mayhem, which just happens to moonlight as a relationship advice manual of sorts: If you want to make love the Hollywood way, then perhaps you'd better be ready to take a beating.
I caught up with the opinionated and refreshingly honest Campbell by phone from his Oregon home, where he was setting off to visit some local swimming holes before leaving for a four-month promotional tour. It's strange, but besides being one of schlock cinema's enduring supernovas, Campbell is also an environmentalist of sorts; he's currently wrapping up a three-hour documentary called "A Community Speaks," a nonpartisan examination of the thorny issue of land stewardship, which he produced and directed with his wife, costume designer Ida Gearon. (This is especially weird if you remember that this is a guy who starred in a horror classic where an ingénue gets raped by a tree.) But Campbell's tongue is built for more than resting smarmily in his cheek. During our chat, h
that trying to read a Salon article is like going to look at timeshares just to get the free trip?
the only explanation I have is that making love the bruce campbell way somehow involves the left hand...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This is news for nerds... Ok... Film nerds, but still nerds.
Just because your particular brand of nerd-dom doesn't care about Bruce Campbell doesn't mean the rest of us are indifferent... I hope!
"Good, Bad, I'm the guy with the gun."
Would you even be asking this question if it were an article about Harrison Ford's latest book?
Bruce Campbell is a cult film actor. Cult films are generally appreciated by Nerds. This is so because of the often campy, but entertaining, material of the cult films.
In a related subject, Nerds are known to "Geek out" when they see a cult film actor, such as Bruce Campbell, in major films.
Support Liberty, Support Ron Paul
I'm not a horror film fan, but I very much enjoyed Campbells Brisco County Jr. He reminded me of Clint Walker but not quite taking anything seriously. It was a great series.
When the hell did /. turn into a celebrity gossip site? News for nerds? Really?
/. is not a programmer. Some of us nerds have interests and skills beyond pure technology, Linux, and programming.
Everyone that reads
what epitomizes film-nerd culture more than the b-movie, and I can think of few more cult actors within b-movies than Bruce "Dont Call Me Ash" Campbell. I'm a massive fan of Campbell and would certainly hope to see news about him on /.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
"Dude, you're blacker than Al Jolson!"
Tom Cruise is a bit of a nutbar - no doubt about it - but he is a fascinating, headstrong A-list actor who stirs up controversy and sells copy. His fanatical devotion to Scientology seems to have hurt "War of the Worlds" at the box office (and threatens to cripple his own career) and yet he doesn't even flinch.
Bruce, on the other hand, hasn't really turned the world on it's ear since Army of Darkness. It was that single brilliant movie filmed 20 years ago (give or take - too lazy to find out exactly when) that strangely continues to buoy him to B-list celebrity status.
Good or bad, Tom Cruise pumps out the big Hollywood blockbusters like a tennis ball machine gone evil. He has as much a right to speak about whatever he believes as much as anybody. Bruce should maybe take his own advice and "shut-up and act", or at least stop being such a bloody hypocrite.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I see a lot of "who the hell is Bruce Campbell?" posts and I'd like to make a few points -
Bruce Campbell is a guy who actively does Q&A with audience memebers. When's the last time you've heard of any multi-million dollar actor do that?
He seems like he's generally a decent guy - he understands his fans make him money, so he treats them with respect & admiration.
He's been in several cult horror films, some of which were actually really good but lacked any A-list actors to be taken seriously.
For those that can't picture who Bruce Campbell is - he was the door guy in Spiderman 2 that didn't let Peter in the theater because he was late.
Lately, he's been in Bubba Ho-Tep, which is another really good movie that didn't garner big box office dollars, but was still incredibly fun to watch. He plays Elvis in a retirement home which is invaded by a mummy, and his best friend (John F. Kennedy) who happens to be african american and has a bag of sand implanted in his head, helps him fend off the evil mummy.
You can't get any better than that.
Did you not ever wonder why a Space Marine carried a chainsaw !
Thematically, Doom was viewed as 'Aliens' meets 'Evil Dead 2'.
* John Carmack
There is a scene in 'The Color of Money' where Tom Cruise shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. 'What do you have in there?' asks someone. 'Doom.' replied Cruise with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry.
* John Carmack on why the game was named "Doom"
The game was called "Doom: Evil Unleashed" in early builds
"Evil Dead" is also why Duke Nukem utters the awesome : "Come get some!"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
BC: Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
#define CLUE 0
It is sad that slashdot focuses on the tabloid side of the interview instead of the surprising stuff: the king of B-grade horror movies has turned out what is supposed to be a really good educational documentary about land management.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
1. Salon is the only remaining indepdendent online news site with actual journalists that I know of.
2. They don't require payment, they require payment or sitting through an ad. If you can't be bothered to watch an ad, then they can't be bothered to waste bandwidth on you. Seems fair enough.
3. Their political commentary is completely irrelevant in this context.
"because in between shots Tom wanted to help people kick drugs and alcohol. "
translates:
"because in between shots Tom wanted to help people convert over from drugs and alcohol to scientology."
I'm noticing a disturbing trend here.
One of the reasons I joined Slashdot in the first place (in late 1997) was the wide variety of geek-like interests that CmdrTaco and Hemos held -- from Linux / BSD / UNIX, to Perl, free sw / open source, Python, C, or Java programming, to gaming, to crackers/pirates, to Jon Katz's sometimes-interesting rants on culture, to cult movies, to casemods, to online rights, and a curious & growing interest in Apple (Jobs had just rejoined), etc.
But now there seems to be a lot of geeks that have a real track mind. They don't know classic cult TV or movie heros. They bitch about music / musicians because they're not a kernel mod. They hate TV or movie news (Battlestar sucks, Firefly sucks, Buffy/Angel sucked, Babylon 5 sucked, etc. --- What do you watch, The Weather Channel?).
Basically, all they want to talk shop! It's all about is Linux, or FOSS license pro/cons, or how Apache, MySQL, perl, etc. will somehow create a New Geek World Order.
What happened to the renaissance geek? Where's the passion for the obscure and beautiful, no matter the subject area?
-Stu
Netcraft confirms it: evil is dead.
Circumcision is child abuse.
When it comes to being a geek, Bruce Campbell DOES matter. He is brilliant, quirky, hilarious and has produced some of our collectively favorite movies as well as a couple very honest, sincere, well-written books.
I've had the pleasure of meeting the man in real life (he lives in Medford, Oregon) and though I've met a long of noteworthy people, none have been so charming and friendly and unrushed as he was. Bruce Campbell may not be a Tom Cruise, but he has a viewpoint and a way of looking at the entertainment business that would benefit most of today's "hot stars/starlets" to adopt.
Buckaroo Bonzai, Adventures of Brisco County Junior, Evil Dead series... HELLO?! He makes nothing BUT geek films. This is incredibly on-topic for Slashdot. A-fucking-men.
All religions and philosophies expect a person
to be willing to examine and modify thier lifestyle in
order to achieve some higher level of enlightenment.
But most religions do not expect you to pay your
way to paradise in cash. Or to have to pay to
gain the teachings of the faithful.
In fact, much like Open Source, most religions
are perfectly happy with giving away their
teachings to anyone interested in learning more.
Also like Open Source, it can be open for abuse by
those who do not accurately apply what they have learned,
or attempt to modify what is available in less beneficial
ways.
Not all distributions of Religion expect you to act,
Love, or Hate in the same way. Some want you to
abide by thier CodeBase, and reject strange and
unusual package management tools. Others allow
you to roll your own, and encourage the expression
of ideas and exploration into new areas of application.
And some are based on a foundation of mutual trust
and respect, with the goal of being totally free and
beneficial to all who come to build on the community.
Blindly challenging everything is not belief, it is a
lack of Scientific Detachment.