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If you heard there’s a new movie in which Bruce Campbell wrestles with a presence from beyond the grave, the logical follow-up might be: “How many chain saws are in it?”
But the B-movie icon of the Evil Dead films now directs and stars in an Oregon-made dramedy in which the dead try to heal Campbell’s character.
Ernie & Emma centers on a washed-up TV commercial pitchman (Campbell) going on a veritable scavenger hunt around Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley. He’s guided by 22 instructional letters from his recently deceased wife, Emma (Robin McAlpine), aiming to help Ernie move forward.
“It’s kind of a weird love story, right?” says Campbell of his fourth directorial effort. “I wrote a character that had been married a long time because I’ve been married a long time [to Ernie & Emma producer Ida Gearon], and when you’ve been married a long time, there’s a lot of shit that went under that bridge.”
While filled with poignant moments, Ernie & Emma is still unmistakably a Bruce Campbell project. He carries long stretches doing what he’s done best for 45 years—acting alone, turning narrated exposition into slapstick, and hurling his body around the frame.
Earlier this month, Campbell announced he’d been diagnosed with an undisclosed form of a “treatable, not curable” cancer. The following interview was completed before that announcement and in anticipation of Ernie & Emma’s sold-out Portland premiere at the Hollywood Theatre on April 4 with Campbell in attendance.
Campbell spoke with WW about inventing an Oregon town, filming at his local dispensary, and the key to convincingly punching himself in the face. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
WW: You’ve been a Rogue Valley guy for decades, right?
Bruce Campbell: Since ’98. My mother lived up here, and she was dabbling in real estate, so she would fax me [listings]. We came up to visit Ashland on a four-day weekend. About the fourth place we looked at was out deep in the Applegate Valley, past cell service, and the hair on the back of my neck went up. I was like, oh my God, we got to move here. So I dragged my wife away from L.A. She was in film school. It really was not the best thing to do, but I felt like I was going to go insane if I spent one more minute in Los Angeles.
How soon did you start dreaming about making a movie in Oregon?
Pretty quick. [On Ernie & Emma], I went home to lunch every day. I slept in my bed every night. I should have done this years ago. But we couldn’t really bankroll something [then]. We were too busy just working in the industry.
In your first book, If Chins Could Kill, you write about being the dude on Evil Dead 2 who would go into town in North Carolina to recruit locals for the movie. Did you find yourself doing that for Ernie & Emma?
Every day!
What was your pitch?
I got a scene in a local pot shop. So we went to my pot shop—Top Shelf in Medford. “Hey, I’m a good customer, but I want to shoot in your store, which means you got to sign a piece of paper, and we give you money, and we film here. It means you have to kick people out for half a day.” Can’t have potheads coming in until…I think we made a deal for 1 o’clock.
I’ve heard you say many times that as an actor, it’s tough when a script is too locked in or too precious. Is there ever any conflict between Bruce the writer and Bruce the actor when it’s your movie?
No, we’re good partners. The beautiful thing is that you can solve any problem in movies, especially if it only needs to be solved by a couple of people. So, Cerina Vincent (Ernie’s possible love interest) gets into town, and she goes, “I don’t understand the progression of our characters.” And you think it’s a bullshit question from an actor, but then I went, “No, she’s right. I need to [write] better on these sequences.”
For a movie about grief, physical comedy still seems like your preferred storytelling device. You’re running face-first into trees, mooning an entire valley from a mountain top.
I have a little left in the tank. Not much, but just enough to want to do it.
Beyond the fact that Southern Oregon exports so many pears, how’d you come up with the concept for Pear Valley? Your press packet has a whole chamber of commerce-style brochure for this fictional town.
We even showed where it is on the map. It’s somewhere between Ashland and Medford. I’ve got the hats! I wear them too. It’s awesome. I have [hats for] Runway Motors, one of Ernie’s shitty commercials that he does. I’ve had several guys ask, “Where is Runway Motors?” And I’ll just say it’s outside of Tigard.
If you’ll indulge some career-spanning questions…from Evil Dead to Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, what’s the key to pretending to punch yourself in the face?
You have to punch yourself in the face a little bit. You don’t always know where the camera is, so you’d better overdo it. It’s not going to be the end of the world. It’s better than having to go again.
I was delighted to see you pop up in Send Help, the latest from Evil Dead director Sam Raimi.
That’s right. Only in spirit.
Was there a portrait shoot? Did they send you a painting to approve?
No, I just sent him one of my 10 million photographs. They can dick with it however they want.
What’s your favorite memory of working with the great Ossie Davis on Bubba Ho-Tep?
I go, “Ossie, I know why I’m in this movie. I don’t know why you’re in this movie!” He goes, “My kids were Evil Dead fans.” The guy was such class. He did the eulogy for Malcolm X! He met [John] Kennedy, and here he is playing Kennedy! Incredible.
Of your three Spider-Man cameos, which was the most fun to shoot?
It’s not really about that. It’s about how pivotal they are. In the first Spider-Man, I named the character. It would’ve been a billion-dollar franchise called The Human Spider. In the second one, I’m the snooty usher; I won’t let him into [Mary Jane’s] play. So I’m the only character that has actually ever defeated Spider-Man. And then, as the French maitre d’ [in Spider-Man 3], how often do superheroes come to mortals to ask for help, especially when getting married? They don’t. But I don’t really help him because he was kind of a dick to me in the first movies.
SEE IT: Ernie & Emma premiere followed by a Q&A with Bruce Campbell at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128. hollywoodtheatre.org. 7 pm Saturday, April 4. Sold out.
