http://www.metro.co.uk/metro/interviews/interview.html?in_page_id=8&in_interview_id=1045
Bruce Campbell
by James Ellis, March 18th, 2005
Bruce Campbell played Ash in Sam Raimi's seminal "Evil Dead"
films but you may have also seen the independent filmmaker and
actor in cameo roles in movies such as "The Hudsucker Proxy"
and "Spider-Man 2". Last year's "Bubba Ho-tep" saw him play
an ageing Elvis forced out of retirement to fight the spirit
of an Egyptian mummy. The film is out on DVD on Monday.
Q: You make a pretty good Elvis.
BC: Well, that's my job, acting.
Q: Who, aside from you, has played The King best?
BC: There aren't that many guys who have actually tried. People
seem to think everyone must have played him but there aren't
that many. There's like, maybe Nicolas Cage, Kurt Russell, who
did a very good one, and David Keith. But they all did him young.
No one has tried to do him at 68 like I have. I had an advantage.
Q: Are you a fan?
BC: To a very mild degree. I didn't even know it was his 70th
birthday in January until I read about it in the newspapers.
I became more of a fan after the movie was done. By the time I
became a teenager, Elvis was considered a joke. He was bloated
Elvis at that point and died a year after I graduated from high
school. To my generation, at the time, he was just a fading
Vegas lounge singer. The legend came back after he died.
Q: Is he not alive?
BC: No. He is very dead. Dead, dead, dead.
Q: Have you any idea what Lisa Marie thinks of the movie?
BC: No, I don't. But I'm sure that if she saw the movie,
she'd be very OK with it. We treat him as an iconic figure and,
by the end of the movie, he is a real hero.
Q: How do you prepare to play someone aged 68 who died at 40?
BC: There are tonnes of sources. And then you have to extrapolate.
He's in a retirement home, with JFK. He no longer has the Memphis
Mafia, he no longer has fame or fortune. He's just a bitter,
dried-up old guy. Men like that are a dime a dozen.
The underlying story is, what do we do with old people?
Q: Is it true that Ash will be joining the new "Freddy vs Jason"
movie?
BC: Not true at all. That's a dead deal. We got into very
serious discussions about it but we did not pursue it as it's a
pretty creatively bankrupt idea. Money-wise, we would have to
split the pie three ways as it is three different franchises
and, to me, that is a boring way for movie discussions to go.
Q: Do you mean the first "Freddy Vs Jason" was creatively bankrupt?
BC: No. I mean adding a third universe is a bankrupt idea. They
are not coming up with an original story. They are taking three
established horror genres and trying to combine them into one film.
It doesn't work. Then we would only be allowed creative control
over Ash -- so we couldn't do much if the script was awful.
Q: Is Hollywood lazy?
BC: It's horribly lazy. Are you kidding? Last year, there were
35 sequels, remakes or films made from comic book stories and
video games. They take the easy way out now. Hollywood thinks
it's so cool but they are dying for an original idea. They love
the term 'independent' as it makes them sound more creative,
so they even steal that. I love it when movies like "Sideways"
get a lot of notice. It's a movie where nothing blows up.
They use the term 'independent' way too often. If you can trace
a film back to a Fortune 500 company, it cannot be independent.
Q: There are 300 million people in America. Surely someone
can sell Hollywood an interesting idea?
BC: It all comes down to money -- which wrecks everything.
Movies will always be a clash between art and commerce. They have
become very expensive to market. The marketing costs almost exceed
production. That makes people come up with strange decisions.
Look at the movies being touted: "Ray", about Ray Charles -- a
famous character; "The Aviator" is about Howard Hughes. Even these
so-called original movies are based on someone you've heard of.
Q: Did you see "Alexander"?
BC: No. It looked like a bore.
Q: So what's the best big-budget movie you've seen in the last year?
BC: "Spider-Man 2". Not the most original idea but it's not bad
for a man-in-tights movie.
Q: Is there an Ash action toy?
There have been several of them. Some have been good and some
have been terrible. I've an 18-inch figure that's cool but
the small bobble-head ones are pretty awful. None of them are
realistic. Most merchandising sucks. The likeness is terrible
and they use the same body for all the toys.
Q: Do your fans get a little weird?
BC: I've seen other actors go to conventions and freak out at the
attention and vow never to go to them again. I'll always go if I
have something to sell and I've interacted with fans since the 1980s,
so I'm pretty cool with it all. I'm comfortable in the environment.
There are lots of people with "Evil Dead" tattoos out there.
I once signed the leg of a guy who was just about to
go to the tattoo parlour and have it inked onto his leg.
A tattoo is forever but that's OK. It's free advertising.
Q: Your new book is called "Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way".
How do you do it that differs from the rest of us?
BC: Fortunately, this is a novel. There's no real love advice.
Q: I'm disappointed.
BC: Well, you're certainly welcome to look and see if you can find it.
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