Confessions of a B-Movie Actor

The Library has a public access station called WYPL. On Tuesday at 11:00 AM, they hosted a talk show with celebrated B-Movie actor Bruce Campbell. He has a movie coming out on the Sci-Fi Network called Man With the Screaming Brain. The movie will then be released on DVD unedited. Campbell was also plugging his book How To Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. The title is misleading. It is not a guide on love. It is actually a fictional account of what would happen if Bruce Campbell finally got a huge role in an A-list movie. The movie is a complete and total disaster. Campbell said that he has no wish to become a mainstream actor. He is content with his small appearances in mainstream films such as Sky High. Campbell has also made cameos in the two Spider-Man movies. His childhood friend Sam Raimi directed those movies, and also directed Campbell in the cult classic Evil Dead trilogy.

It was interesting to hear Campbell talk about how things run so much quicker on independent film sets. On B-movies, they spend 6 hours on 10 pages. On major productions, they spend 10 hours on an eighth of a page. Campbell finds this to be ridiculous. He also said that Hollywood is "creatively bankrupt". He made mention of all the remakes that came out this year, such as War of the Worlds, Dukes of Hazzard, Herbie, Bad News Bears, Batman, Bewitched, etc. He also made an excellent point of how A-list movies have b-movie concepts: Radioactive spider bites (Spider-Man), men in bat costumes (Batman), and alien attacks (War of the Worlds).
I asked him a question at the end. I asked him is there any way to bring a new attitude or sensibility to mainstream films? He said that he doesn't care about mainstream films. He said that they do silly things, like make horror films PG-13 just to get more kids to see it. He said that that was ridiculous. He said that people like Bruce Willis have to have $50 million opening weekends. He's okay with $500 on the first weekend. He also said that people like Bruce Willis have to be concerned with what roles are good for their career, while he can select roles based on gut instincts. Campbell said that he would rather make a movie with 1.5 million and have 3 people giving him notes than make a movie with $100 million and have 300 people giving him notes. He had a very intersting view. I hope to be a mainstream actor with an independent mindset. Lord willing, it will happen. Be easy, readers.