What Would Bruce Campbell Do?

“As Fangoria put it, it’s a love letter
to my fans dipped in poison,” says Bruce Campbell of his new meta-flick
My Name Is Bruce, in which he directs and stars as a B-movie
actor named Bruce Campbell. “It’s an acerbic love letter.”

The Bruce of Bruce is a hard-drinking, fan-harangued, morally
suspect genre actor, one who lives in a trailer and stars in films like
Cave Alien II. So when über-fan Jeff (Taylor Sharpe) knocks
him over the head with a baseball bat and drags him to Gold Lick,
Oregon, to fight an evil monster, Bruce thinks it’s an elaborate
birthday present from his smarmy agent (Ted Raimi). Mistaken for his
character Ash from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, Bruce is
enlisted to help fight a demonic Chinese god—and, unaware that
the monster is real, he takes on the challenge with characteristic
zeal. As is usually the case, Campbell’s bravado and swagger make him
the best damned reason to see any film, period—take one exchange
in Bruce, when a fan asks, “Did being on Ellen make you
gay?” and Campbell counters with, “No, but that question did.” That’s
My Name Is Bruce—funny, self-referential, and full of
Campbell verve.

Bruce is near and dear to Campbell, in more ways than
one—it was filmed on Campbell’s actual property, a lavender farm
near Medford, Oregon. “Most of it was filmed on my property. Now I have
a Western town [we built there] that I can’t get rid of. It’s so big I
can’t take it down. It confuses the hell out of delivery
people—some guy comes up and he’s like, ‘I didn’t know there was
a town of Gold Lick out here!’ My wife and I say, ‘Let’s meet out by
the tavern!’ or ‘I’ll meet you in the livery!’ It’s a great
conversation piece.”

I doubt Campbell needs much in the way of conversation
starters—he’s a man who’s got a lot to say, especially when he
was directing himself in Bruce. “It’s only bad when I get in an
argument with myself. I walked off the set a couple times [on
Bruce], and I had to direct around that actor. Well, what I did
was I told him I was just going to step in front of the camera and do
this myself. It’s not that hard! I showed him. Bruce Campbell’s not
even in the movie anymore! I put myself in it. That’ll show those
uppity actors,” Campbell says.

Speaking via phone from Madison, Wisconsin—where he’s in city
12 out of a 22 city tour promoting Bruce—Campbell promises
the Portland event will be an experience. “We’ve broken the East
Coast’s back, and we’ve punched the Midwest in the face. Now we’re
going to attack the West Coast. We’re going to kick [Portland] in the
teeth. We’ll do whatever a 20-year-old homeless slacker would want us
to do… force feed it?”

One question Cambell inevitably gets asked in his Q&As is about
the long-hoped for Evil Dead 4. “I was in a room once and
someone asked,” he says. “So I asked how many people there had wanted
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Two people
raised their hands out of 200. I think it’s pretty much the same for
Evil Dead 4—even if we made a bang-up movie, there would
still be disappointment. I mean, it’s been 16 years since Army of
Darkness, and 30 years since we filmed the first one. That’s a long
time. Anyway, [director] Sam [Raimi] is a top Hollywood director
now—he’s really busy with Spider-Man.”

Ask Campbell your own smartass fanboy questions at this weekend’s
screenings of Bruce, like, “In Army of Darkness, how did
Ash shoot his double-barreled shotgun three times in a row?,” or, “In
My Name Is Bruce, you say the Candyman comes out if you say his
name three times, but it’s really five times. Did you know
that?” Then sit back and wait for the snappy one-liners.