Bruce Campbell at San Diego Comic Con! Part One
Bruce Campbell at San Diego Comic Con! Part one
Of the many exciting things that happened during San Diego Comic Con, being able to join the Round Table interviews with Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless was up on the list of things! We talked to Bruce about his new television series Ash Vs. Evil Dead! You’ll be able to see Bruce in action Halloween on STARZ! Check out the trailer below:
Bruce Campbell: “I love all of the different methods of recording, some old school some new, all of which will be incorrectly reported!”
Reporter: “Just take all of the quotes out of context.”
Bruce Campbell: “Exactly! It will be the exact quote you said, but we’ll just put it here, here, and here. We’ll just break it up!”
Q: “Congratulations on the series!”
A: “Yeah it was a long road to get here.”
Q: “So there were a lot of successful comics for the Evil Dead series as well, before the TV show. Did that episodic nature of the comics…”
A: “No, there were only three comics, you’re talking about those Dynamite Comics?”
Q: “The Dark Horse ones, the Army of Darkness follow-ons and things”
A: “I don’t think that had anything to do with it. Army of Darkness bombed, which caused the movies to stop in their tracks. So people who are like ‘Where are the movies?’ and if your biggest movie bombs, there’s your answer. So it was only in the afterlife that Army of Darkness has 17 different DVD versions. That’s what put new life into it, the DVD aspects. Before that it was dead in the water.”
Q: “What has happened to Ash from the last time we’ve seen him?”
A: “Nothing! He’s been doing nothing. Ya know, he’s not a very reputable character and now you’re adding 30 years on top of that, it’s a recipe for disaster and that’s why I like it.”
Q: “Has he had any interactions with the Evil Dead over those 30 years?”
A: “No, everything’s been fine he just runs around with his wooden hand and tells stories late at night at bars to women. No he doesn’t have anything going on, he thought that this was all done. So, he’s in for trouble, he’s in way way over his head.”
Q: “So in a sense it’s like we’re picking up right after Army of Darkness, nothing has changed since then.”
A: “Yeah, he’s 25 years older since Army of Darkness. Army of Darkness was 24 years ago. So yeah, he’s not the same guy. He’s a crabby old man version of Ash.”
Q: “Can you recall the first conversation you had with Sam to come up with this genesis of the TV show?”
A: “I think I went over to his house and tormented him. That’s how you do it! Some people you have to go to their house and they’re like ‘why are you at my house?’ but I want to talk about this show. Look, Robert Tapert (producer) is a great TV producer, he’s a great producer but he really has the TV thing down and he’s done a lot of really good work out of New Zealand, yet the economics of just doing another movie, Sam does really big movies now, so do we need 100 million dollar version of Evil Dead?”
Reporter: “YES!”
BC: “No, no! You’re so wrong, -laughs- there’s a lot of fans who are very fervent fans but it’s not like there are millions and millions and millions of fans. No we didn’t think that would make sense (because) then you’d risk it all. If that movie bombed you’d never see the light of day ever again. This way fans will actually get way more than they bargained for. With movies you have to wait two, three, five years in between unless they’re Spiderman! Then it’s every 18 months there’s a new Spiderman. A lot of times you have to wait for movies, with this there’s no wait you get all 10 episodes, you want more? We’ll keep making ‘em.”
Via STARZQ: “So how was the experience with Sam Rami filming Ash Vs Evil Dead compared to the very first Evil Dead?”
A: “Great, we’re both more experienced. Ya know? We can use our tricks that we’ve learned. I’ve worked with Sam in this capacity for years, decades. I’ve always shown up at his big movies to have a little tiny part or whatever, but this was different, you’re back to working with him all day long, face to face and it was just great because you know, he’s a master filmmaker so it was good to come back as like professional adults and do the same dumb shit that we did before.”
Q: “The trailer is fantastic, and there’s seems to be more of a sense of an ensemble.”
A: “Oh there is because if you go to TV you must have a whole group, I mean I’m not going to carry the whole damn show we’re going to spread the love around to these very willing and able and beautiful young talented people.”
Q: “How does that feel during the shooting compared to the films?”
A: “Good, yeah, because Ash is more like a mentor, he’s their leader, but he doesn’t have all the answers so he needs help. It takes a village to raise an idiot.”
Via STARZQ: “What happens to your hand when you’re acting?”
A: “What happens to it when I’m acting? I’m not sure what that means.”
Q: “Do they just CGI it out now or?”
A: “That’s too easy! Don’t say that like you think CGI is easy you’ll see CGI effects guys wince. Well he’s got a stump sometimes, he’s got different attachments, it’s like an ‘Attach O’Hand’”
Q: “Where does your hand actually physically go?”
A: “You hide it in a mitten. Since your wrist is cut off nothing would bend anymore so this has to be solid so you need a bar that keeps this (points at wrist) from going back and forth and you wrap that around and then you have a sleeve that’s a little longer that goes around and then you sort of tuck it in and don’t pay attention to it. Hope that answered your question.”
Q: “So in your opinion is Ash the chosen one or he just a guy who keeps finding himself in difficult situations?”
A: “He is the chosen one, this is kinda biblical I think it’s Job, that the devil was like ‘ok God, give me your best guy and I’ll give you my best guy and we’ll duke it out and that will decide who’s going to rule the Earth’, so God sends Job. He’s just a schmo and he’s like ‘We’re so good my worst guy can take your best guy’, so Ash is the worst guy, Ash is Job. To me that makes it way more interesting, if your lead guy might not succeed, when you see superhero movies it’s like unless you have kryptonite nothing is going to hurt Superman. Superman vs Batman, it’s a mistake! It’s a huge mistake Superman would crush him in like three seconds and Batman can’t fly! Well, sorta, he can’t go out of the stratosphere though he can’t go out of Earth like Superman can. It’s a dumb contest; they better team up because otherwise it’s over! Ash vs Batman now you got something! But, I think playing vulnerable characters audience’s can relate to is way more important than a guy in a shiny suit. The thing I liked about Spiderman is that at least was a normal kid from Queens who got bitten by a radioactive spider! Things you can relate to happening, not ‘he’s from planet Zorgof and ya know his name is Zandar and I’m part this’ it’s like Fuck you!”
Q: “Why are these comic book movies so successful?”
A: “Because I think when the world is challenged people love to escape into fantasy and I also think it’s the age of film goers. In the 1940’s your average film-goer was in his 40’s so who were the actors they were watching? Humphrey Bogart who is in his 40’s. If you’re in your 20’s what do you want to do? You want to watch movies that appeal to you in your 20’s and you want to watch people who are in their 20’s, so all the movie stars are in their 20’s all the people who go are in their teens or 20’s, what do they want to see? Not adult movies. So I think it’s just a matter of who is seeing the movies now and who is paying the money for the movies, it’s people who like fantasy, sci-fi, horror, ya know? The geeks are ruling the Earth and so I think that’s why, one of the sure, I’m sure many reasons why.”
Q: “Do you see AvED going for more than 10 episodes?”
A: “Hell yeah, years! Like 5 years worth, and you have to plan for that. Look, this was not a hobby for us, this wasn’t ‘oh let’s go make a little series, it’ll be fun’ we’re working our asses off on this show and we want it to stand the test of time so obviously if we fail it will only go 10 episodes but if we don’t fail then we’ll keep bringing it as long as people want it.”
Q: “Do you consider it to be in the same universe as the recent movie?”
A: “That one wasn’t real funny because Fede Alvarez, the director, wanted to take it back to the original Evil Dead, which was not funny, it was more of a melodrama, just a cheese-ball melodrama, but no that’s a different tone. We’ll have, hopefully, as many laughs as there are scares because we want this to be fun. Horror can be fun, horror doesn’t have to be tortured porn where you put some guys’ penis in a vice for half an hour, to me that’s just lazy filmmaking. Making someone jump, you need to be a good filmmaker to make someone jump and you need to be a good filmmaker to make someone laugh! You know, those torture porn movies were boring and you know that just disturbs me, that doesn’t scare me. That’s just the 6 o’clock news. AvED isn’t something you’re ever going to see on the 6 o’clock news it’s too ridiculous, it’s too over-the-top. We don’t want to disturb anybody while they’re watching this, we want them to go ‘Fuck yeah that beheading was really hilarious, that was awesome! You see how much blood there was!’ that’s what we want, we don’t want people to be disturbed. I never want to watch something I can see on the 6 o’clock news, why would I? I’d just watch the shitty news.”
Stay tuned for part two!
