Bruce Campbell AMA - Friday 9/4 at 11:15 AM ET

[Kain]

Actor Bruce Campbell will be joining us here in r/movies for an AMA/Q&A on Friday 9/4. It'll go live that morning around 8 AM ET, and he'll be back at 11:15 AM ET to answer questions. You may know Bruce from things such as Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, Crimewave, Bubba Ho-Tep, Maniac Cop, and lots more.

Please stop by on Friday 9/4 if you have questions for Bruce

Bruce's new film, Ernie & Emma, is going on tour at Alamo locations.

Trailer:

Please note that this is not the AMA, just an announcement. Hold your questions for the actual AMA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1vv9vnt/amaqa_announcement_bruce_campbell_friday_94_at/

 

[Hurley]

And nobody let the r/BruceCampbell moderator know.

 

[MaidOfKandar]

And nobody let the r/BruceCampbell moderator know.

Oh God, this is giving me war flashbacks to trying to organize stuff with fan accounts on Twitter.

 

[Hurley]

The AMA is now live

 

[MCT28]

AMA is over. It's a lot of repeats of the usual questions, but I'll share the interesting bits:

Hi Bruce! I saw Ernie & Emma at the Redford Theater in June. It was excellent! I think the movie should be studied as a "how-to" guide on how to make a film with essentially only one actor, considering how much Ernie (you) is on screen alone, particularly in the first half. From a writing and performance perspective, what were some of the challenges you faced having to play off of an urn, rather than another performer?

The urn was very good, they never screwed their lines up and always hit their mark. The urn was professional, I was more the problem. When you have essentially one role that's the dominant part of a movie, it's both rewarding and challenging. The only downside is homework. When you think you've got it figured out, how you're going to shoot something, you remember "ah shit I've got a monologue to do too". Thankfully I also wrote it so it was already half-imprinted in my brain. If you prep enough, nothing is really a problem.

Hey Bruce! As someone who's been in the film industry for decades, what are your thoughts on the new class of 'Youtubers Turned Directors' and the success that they've been having with horror movies? Any similarities to how things were when you and Sam first started with Evil Dead?

Movies are a little bit easier to make now because of the technology advances, as far as capturing an image with a camera and editing and putting it out. I think all the Youtuber stuff is great. We would have done the same thing. Me, Sam, Rob Tapert, we would all jump right in on that any way we could. When we were younger, there was no shingle, no place to just say "here's my movie, watch it". We didn't have our own Youtube-channel-like outlet. You either got it into a theater or you didn't get it anywhere. There's a great advantage to the current Youtubers. Massive reach and not that hard to get involved. Filmmakers out there, make your movie, man. Post it. Get out there. Get going. I believe that the avenues are more than we had then. People say it's hard to get into the film business, I dispute that.

Now for the most important question out of the whole thing:

Hi Bruce! You recently mentioned that the newer Evil Dead movies have moved away from the humor of the earlier films. Do you think humor is an essential part of what makes Evil Dead feel like Evil Dead or do you think the franchise works just as well when it goes completely serious and horror-focused?

The answer is yes for sure. Horror should come in many shades. I don't think horror needs to be like torture porn like it was, I think you can have components of all that. Most importantly, horror needs good filmmaking, and good filmmaking involves not just gore, but suspense and shock and mystery and mood. So I just encourage good filmmaking, more than type of film. I also think that you should let character be real.. They can joke around even in bad situations, Soldiers in World War 1 trenches were still cracking jokes with each other, even when they knew bombs were coming. For me personally, without humor things are just too damn boring. i like to be amused at the movies. The last 3 Evil Dead movies were made by very competent filmmakers who've all gone on to have very good careers, and we're happy to help them along the way. Maybe their sensibilities are a little different than mine, which is fine. These are all smart, independent-thinking filmmakers.

Hey Bruce! what is your go-to show or movie that always makes you laugh?

Ted Lasso! Some people have been hating on it recently, and I think those people are evil. Ted Lasso is a very innocent show. My wife and I watched season four, not because it really knows what it's doing, but because we know and like the characters. Sometimes it's just that simple.

 

[Surtur]

Regarding the second to last question, I find it somewhat hard to believe that all three of the recent film directors had the exact tone they did without some sort of studio influence/say from Raimi and Tapert. Hell, they handpicked them to direct the films. I do agree with Bruce here that the best horror comes with nuance, but if the powers that be wanted another ED2/AoD style movie, they would make sure it happens by stepping in or finding a director that wants to make that film, and I wish they would.