Хорт хавдрын эмчилгээ хийлгэж буй нэрт жүжигчин өөрийн зохиож, найруулсан Ernie & Emma киноны сурталчилгааны аялалд гарахаар болжээ.
Жүжигчин Брюс Кэмпбелл энэ оны эхээр эмчлэгдэх боломжтой ч бүрэн эдгэрэх боломжгүй хорт хавдартай гэсэн онош сонссоныхоо дараа фэнүүдтэйгээ уулзах арга хэмжээнүүдээ түр хойшлуулж, эмчилгээндээ анхаарлаа хандуулж байв. Таван сарын дараа тэрээр биеийн байдал нь эмчилгээнд эерэгээр нөлөөлж байгаа тул шинэ бүтээлээ танилцуулахаар эргэн ирлээ. Түүний эхнэр Ида Геаронтой хамтран бүтээсэн Ernie & Emma кино нь амьдрал, үхэл, гашуудлын тухай өгүүлдэг бөгөөд энэхүү төсөл нь түүнд сэтгэл санааны хувьд ихээхэн дэмжлэг болж байгаа аж.
Evil Dead цувралаараа олонд танигдсан Брюс Кэмпбелл энэ удаагийн киног бүтээхдээ студийн нөлөөгүйгээр, өөрийн хүрээллийн хүмүүстэй хамтран ажиллах эрх чөлөөг эдэлсэн байна. Тэрээр өөрийн биеэр найруулж, гол дүрд нь тоглосон нь түүнд илүү их эрх мэдэл, сэтгэл ханамжийг өгч байгааг онцлов. Киноны зураг авалтыг жүжигчний амьдардаг Орегон муж улсад хийсэн нь түүнд гэр бүлтэйгээ ойр байх боломжийг олгосон байна.
Ирэх есдүгээр сарын 4-нөөс эхлэн Лос-Анжелес хотын Alamo Drafthouse-аас эхлэх аялан тоглолтынхоо хүрээнд тэрээр 18 хотоор зочилж, үзэгчидтэй уулзалт хийхээр төлөвлөжээ. Эмчилгээнийхээ хажуугаар үзэгчидтэй уулзаж байгаадаа маш их талархалтай байгаагаа илэрхийлсэн жүжигчин маань энэхүү аялал нь түүний хувьд эмчилгээний нэг хэсэг хэмээн тодорхойлсон юм. Тэрээр цаашид фэнүүдийн уулзалт, арга хэмжээнүүдэд тогтмол оролцохыг зорьж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Bruce Campbell is feeling groovy.
And that’s just what fans want to hear, after the 68-year-old actor announced earlier this year that he was diagnosed with a “treatable” but “not curable” form of cancer. At the same time, he revealed he’d be stepping back from fan convention appearances to focus on his health.
Five months later, Campbell is ready to get back out in front of fans, hitting the road to promote his new film, Ernie & Emma, with a series of in-person appearances at Alamo Drafthouse locations around the country. Written, directed, and starring Campbell, the movie is a passion project for the actor, one that he made with his wife Ida Gearon by his side as co-producer.
The project a far cry from the blood-spattered Evil Dead films for which he’s become a cult favorite. Ernie & Emma instead takes a touching and humorous look at life, death, grief, and what comes next as a widower (Campbell) follows his late wife’s meticulous plans to spread her ashes following her death.
It’s his love for the movie that has put an added spring in his step, at a time he tells Men’s Journal that he’s also “responding to treatment.”
‘Gratitude Meter Is Way Up’
When asked whether his diagnosis has changed the way he looks at the film, Campbell shared he’s “just been more grateful for everything.”
“The gratitude meter is way up. The fact that I can tour, that’s very, very special. Because in my little world, with my situation, it’s a whack-a-mole,” he continued. “It happens, then you whack it, and then it tends to calm down in between the whacks. So basically, I’m hoping I can tour in between the whacks, September, October, November, and take it from there.”
“I am in the middle of treatment, I am responding to treatment, to the point where I’m able to tour,” Campbell continued. “Had you asked me that 4 months ago, I’d go, ‘Mmm, I might be done.’ So, yeah, this has been a good thing.”
A vital part of his health management, he said, is having something he’s excited to share with the world.
“It’s very uplifting. This is treatment. Because they tell you a lot of this crap, when you get challenged like this, your mental state is really important,” he explained. “So, I’m going on tricycle adventures, and I’m gonna have a blast until the tour. I’m gonna have a summer. Last year, I was finishing the movie, so I had no summer. This year, I’m swimming in rivers, you know? Happy this year.”
In time, he shared that he hopes to get back to fan conventions soon, too.
From Ash Williams to Spreading Ashes
Campbell is best known for his work as Ash Williams—the man tasked with dispatching Deadites with his trusty boomstick and chainsaw hand—in the Evil Dead films.
He played the blood-covered badass in 1981’s The Evil Dead, 1987’s Evil Dead II, 1992’s Army of Darkness, and the Starz TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead. He’s also made cameos in the 2013 reboot and follow-ups Evil Dead Rise and Evil Dead Burn, while working as an executive producer on the franchise.
While also recognized for starring on Burn Notice, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., and his cameos across Sam Raimi’s films, Ernie & Emma is a pretty big departure from Campbell’s usual fare.
“I can’t sling the chainsaws anymore, you know what I mean?” said Campbell when asked why now was the right time to do a movie like this one. “I’ve seen enough of these movies where they bring these geezers back, and you go, ‘Oh, dude, stay on the ranch, stay on the ranch.’ So I didn’t want to be that guy.”
“And, you know, sensibilities change. In your 20s, making Evil Dead, creatures, monsters, let’s go nuts, special effects, makeup, long shoots, stunts,” he continued. “Then, after 40, you start going, ‘Huh, hmm, yeah, I don’t know about this script.’ You start asking a lot of questions, and you get to 50—I think I started doing Burn Notice when I was 50—no demons, just chasing bad guys and s–t blowing up and all that, and my sensibilities just have changed to the point where I care more about people.”
Taking Grief on Tour
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With Ernie & Emma, Campbell sought to make a more relatable kind of film, one driven by the thought that life doesn’t always go the way you plan. It’s something he saw his own father struggle with after being fired from his ad firm job in his 50s, as well as many in his hometown of Detroit deal with after the auto industry died “pretty much in front of my eyes.”
In the film, Campbell plays a pear farmer in Oregon, a once-thriving industry that’s also disappearing. He’s also depressed and unmoored following the sudden death of his wife. As he follows her instructions to spread her ashes, he revisits sites of their relationship milestones—both good and bad—before having an epiphany about how to move forward without her.
It’s all material that Campbell fans may be surprised to see at one of his upcoming road show appearances, with the actor revealing that a man at one of the film’s first screenings was upset that the movie made him cry.
“He cried five times. I gave him $5, one for each cry,” Campbell told Men’s Journal, saying he’s loved how different it’s been to talk about this film.
“The questions are different now. If I go to a midnight Evil Dead thing, or introduce a double bill, I know every question, and I know every snarky answer, I practice, and I’m really good at it, and I can get all the zingers,” he explained. “This is more fun, because I don’t know what these people are gonna ask.”
Calling the movie “an interesting study of how we channel grief,” Campbell said he doesn’t believe that subject is something Americans are all that good at.
Pointing to the death of his own grandfather, he said he wasn’t allowed to visit him in the hospital or attend the funeral. That’s something he didn’t want to pass on to his own children when it came time for his father’s passing.
“When my dad passed years ago, I brought my kids; they watched him die. He was in hospice, and he had a beautiful 4-day finish with the classical music playing, the light coming in through the window; he had the proper exit,” Campbell explained, joking that the “mother of my children was not crazy about that.”
He, however, wanted to show them that “this happens,” wondering, “Why are we pretending that it doesn’t happen?”
“Everybody croaks. Everybody on this planet’s gonna croak. So, I think it affected them in a positive way, because they could see that he eased out,” he added. “They just watched him kind of just fade out; it was amazing.”
Making It on His Own
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Campbell made the movie with his wife Ida Gearon (pictured above), outside the studio system. It was Gearon’s idea to shoot the film in Oregon, where they live, a move that drastically changed his experience.
“I went home for lunch every day. I never eat lunch at home when I work,” he explained, adding that he was also able to sleep in his own bed every night. Another freedom that came with doing the movie without studio interference was being able to hire his friends and family—including crew members who worked on the original Evil Dead films, longtime friend Ted Raimi, and the daughter of Evil Dead director Sam Raimi, Emma.
“Ted is contractual,” Campbell quipped of his casting. “Sam in high school made me sign a piece of paper that said I would care for Ted. Because he was worried about Ted. And Ted, I put Ted in my movies to make me look subtle.”
“The other thing is, who’s writing that part for me? Nobody. ‘I gotta write Bruce Campbell a big, fat part,’ what writer is waking up in Hollywood saying, ‘I gotta get that’?” he asked. “My fingers ain’t broken. That’s the beauty of this: I tell any actor, learn how to write…it was very empowering to be able to do that, and I’m grateful for my wife; she let me pull the trigger on this.”
Of course, there is a downside: there’s nobody to point the finger at for any shortcomings but yourself.
“You can’t blame anybody,” Campbell explained. “That writer, that writer screwed me with his lousy dialogue. That director, he threw me under the bus. That cheapskate producer didn’t give me the days that I wanted to tell this proper story, and he screwed me with the crew. I can’t complain about anything. “
“If someone says, ‘This movie sucks,’ you have to go, ‘There’s nobody else I could point a finger at.’ So that’s the risk, but I don’t care, I can’t care at this point,” he added. “But I also am trying to make a movie that people like. I’m not a cynical filmmaker. I want people to like the movie.”
Hitting the Road
Thankfully, Campbell is proud of how the film turned out—and even more thrilled that the Alamo Drafthouse agreed to take it on the road.
“We used to show Evil Dead there in the early Drafthouse days. That’s how I knew [founder] Tim League, and that’s how I was able to basically contact Tim and go, ‘Tim. What do you think? Can we give this a shot?’” Campbell said of his pitch.
After showing League a cut of the film in Austin, Texas, Campbell committed to visiting 18 markets for an in-person Q&A experience.
“Look, I want to support that type of theater. They show cool movies, they don’t show advertising before the movies, they are very fan-friendly,” he added of the chain. “So I’m really, really, really looking forward to it, and the response so far has been good.”
The tour officially kicks off on September 4 at the Alamo Drafthouse location in Downtown Los Angeles. See the full list of stops and buy tickets here.
