'My Name Is Bruce': Campbell as auteur
G. Allen Johnson
Barnstorming around the country with his latest movie as director-star, cult film actor Bruce Campbell isn't your normal indie director desperate for publicity. He's got fans who ask questions like, "In the event of a real zombie attack, what's your plan?"
"My fans are 98 percent docile and a little bit shy. They only look scary," Campbell, who appears in the television series "Burn Notice," said by phone from Madison, Wis., where his latest movie, "My Name Is Bruce," was screening. "But you get a guy who comes up and goes, 'Hey, check out my tattoo on my back,' and he turns around, takes his shirt off, and his whole back is the poster from 'Army of Darkness.' That's a little crazy.
"In Austin (Texas), I signed eight different arms for people who were going to go right to the tattoo parlor and get it made permanent."
The craziness was in San Francisco on Wednesday night - Campbell appeared with Peaches Christ at the Bridge Theatre, where the film is playing for a week - and continues tonight at the California Theatre in Berkeley, where Campbell will present both evening shows. He's winding down a 21-city tour that began Oct. 26 (details at
www.bruce-campbell.com) and should get him home for Christmas. He lives with his wife near Medford, Ore.; his daughter, a gymnastics coach, lives in San Rafael.
Campbell was De Niro to Sam Raimi's Scorsese when they were making cheap horror films in the 1980s ("Evil Dead"). He makes fun of his B-movie persona in the horror-comedy "My Name Is Bruce," in which he plays Bruce Campbell, a down-and-out B-movie actor going through a divorce and living in a trailer in rural Oregon. When the residents of a nearby town become terrorized by a Chinese god of war, they beg Campbell to help them - and he goes along, figuring it's all a joke.
Wrong. It's real, and Campbell freaks out, just as scared of the monster as everyone else.
Campbell says in a real-life horror situation, "I would react exactly how I do in the movie - like a coward. I would scream and run and probably shoot the wrong person."
"Evil Dead" came out in 1983, so Campbell has had remarkable staying power. He appears in all movies directed by Raimi, his high school pal back in their Detroit days, including the "Spider-Man" films (in "Spider-Man 3" he had a memorably amusing scene as a maitre d'). He has worked with the Coen brothers four times - Raimi gave them their first writing credit in the low-budget comedy thriller "Crimewave" - and "Bruce" is his second film as director (after 2005's "The Man With the Screaming Brain," if you must know).
Campbell says he's pretty pleased to be going strong at 50. "I'm entering the crooked-politician phase of my career," he laughed.
"Two days after I turned 50, I did a fight with a stuntman and pulled my hamstring. I'm like, 'OK, I guess my expiration date is up!' "
Playing at the Bridge Theatre, 3010 Geary Blvd., S.F., (415) 267-4893, and the California Theatre, 2113 Kittredge St., Berkeley, (510) 464-5980.
www.landmarktheatres.com.
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