Actor, writer, and filmmaker Bruce Campbell describes his latest project as “a Disney movie with drugs, alcohol, swearing, and implied infidelity.”
Entirely scripted, directed, produced, and funded by Campbell and his wife, Ida Gearon, Ernie & Emma makes its Detroit debut on June 5 at the Redford Theatre — the same venue that premiered The Evil Dead in 1981, launching Campbell’s enduring role as demon-fighting horror hero Ash Williams and his subsequent film and television career. The Royal Oak native plans to host a live Q&A post-screening, and tickets are just $25.
The film follows Ernie Tyler, a pear salesman grieving the death of his wife, Emma. She leaves him a set of letters instructing him to scatter her ashes across locations tied to their relationship. On a journey both comedic and poignant, Ernie comes to terms with loss, reconciles with the past, and finds a way forward.
Free from studio oversight, Campbell’s first directorial effort since My Name Is Bruce in 2007 is also his most personal. And even as he battles a form of cancer that he announced in March as “treatable, not curable,” he remains dedicated to attending the film’s screenings, including a fall tour to 20 Alamo Drafthouse-owned theaters.
From its setting just miles from his southern Oregon home to its bittersweet theme, Ernie & Emma speaks to Campbell’s own experiences — and it hits home now more than ever.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you relate to Ernie Tyler?
I know what it’s like to be labeled. This guy’s the Pear Guy. I’m The Evil Dead guy. It’ll be on my tombstone somewhere in Royal Oak. Some would say some of my success is in the rearview mirror. Cheesy horror movies were fun when I was 21, but now that I’m into my late 60s, that crap doesn’t really hold water anymore. I’m like, let’s make an adult story about a subject matter that’s not hilarious. No blood, no shotguns, no one-liners. It’s just a movie.
What was the story’s main draw for you?
It was nice to tell a story I could relate to. Someone who’s had heartache and loss. And now, after I’ve been married 35 years to the same woman, there’s lots of ups and downs. It’s 100% the most personal thing I’ve ever done. And there was no pattern for this. Someone said, “I don’t think anyone’s made a movie about a pear salesman before.” Maybe there’s a reason why they haven’t, but what the hell. Why not?
Where did the pear salesman detail come from?
It was gonna be in Detroit. My father was a Detroit Mad Man in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s. General Motors was one of his clients for years. He lost one of his accounts. He got fired, so he was the broken-down ad guy. I was gonna play a guy like my dad and use these cool downriver locations, these old factories that are abandoned, because I watched the car industry die. But my wife, God bless her, was like, “Hey, it’s our money. We don’t live in Detroit anymore. Wouldn’t you like to sleep in your own bed? Could you adapt this story for Oregon?” And I thought about it for two minutes and went, “Of course.”
Pears were the industry standard forever, but they’re tearing the orchards out. We actually have orchards he could walk through that had been freshly cut down. We shot in these abandoned pear-packing facilities that are just rotting wood. In 27 days, we went to 27 different locations. We decided to shoot in the best part of the year, which is June. There’s no wildfire smoke. You can see for miles. The rivers are flowing, and the grass is green. That’s the nice thing when you can make decisions that are better for your project. It wanted to be shot in Oregon.
It must be empowering to be in control from start to finish.
It’s ruinous because you don’t want anything else. I’ll be honest, I’ll be hard-pressed to envision myself on somebody else’s film set ever again. Because I look around and go, “Ah jeez, well I wouldn’t do it that way.” My hero is Clint Eastwood. He was done filming every day about 3 o’clock. He wants to go golfing; he’s out of there. He’s my kind of guy. I want to get in, get to work, be intense about it, and go home.
Was it more vulnerable for you to put out a film that is different than what you’re known for?
I am entirely vulnerable. I can’t go, “Hey, the studio made me reshoot it. The studio ruined my script.” I have removed every filmmaker complaint from the process. If this goes down in flames, I’m the guy who lit it. And I’m fully capable of taking responsibility for my own motion picture.
In the arts, you should be free, but movies have always been a weird combination of art and commerce. Filmmakers complaining about a studio’s behavior doesn’t make any sense. You’re taking their money. But over the years, I’ve seen the way movies are made that I don’t like. I’ve seen money wasted. Hours and hours down the toilet. I just felt, be more efficient when you shoot. I learned a lot of tricks over the years. And it’s fun to put it all to work.
I understand you got started with Super 8 films you and your friends made while growing up in Michigan.
That was all training for us. We probably avoided a lot of drugs and police activity because we were making movies. We’d go to a party not to go to the party but to film something at the party. It was incredibly constructive from junior high through high school. And then when high school ended, we were all like, “Crap, what are we gonna do for a living? Could we actually make a movie like we’ve been practicing?” Super 8 was just enough of a stepping stone to get us into a theater.
We’re also coming up on 45 years since The Evil Dead premiered. Could you have imagined it would grow into such a cult classic?
We didn’t even think we would finish the movie. We kept running out of money. We’d shoot for three months, run out of money, wait three, four months, shoot a little more. It took about two, three years just to finish the movie. The fact that there’s an Evil Dead movie coming out later this year cracks me up, too. It’s outlived us. Ash no longer has to be in any of these movies. Sam Raimi no longer has to direct these movies. They’ve created their own life.
Do you see there being an upcoming boom in the indie movie industry?
I hope so. You need less and less to make a movie these days because of the advanced technology. We did a bare-bones shoot where I think the movie looks just like a movie, and you didn’t have to go crazy. I hope people will figure out a way to sell financing. One of our Evil Dead investors was a guy who gave us $5,000. He said, “I normally go to Vegas every year. I want to invest my Vegas money in your movie.” And he made 25 times his money. Better than Vegas. I hope filmmakers will bring it back home. Stop making movies in stupid places. Stop spending too much money on movies. And make original s—! What’s with this derivative stuff?
Are you gravitating toward more serious stories for future work?
Not necessarily. This one just shook out that way. I wanted a flawed main character that we can all identify with. I was gonna start the Q&A of the screenings with “Raise your hand if you’ve lost a loved one.” Every hand’s gonna go up. Everyone’s lost somebody: their dog, their hamster, or Uncle Billy. There’s room for those stories because they can be cathartic.
I call Ernie & Emma a sunrise story. It’s not the sunniest beginning, but hopefully by the end of it, we’re gonna root for the old f—er. It’s a love story from beyond the grave because his wife knows that he’s gonna be screwed, and she knows what he needs to do. This is sort of like what would happen if my wife croaked. She’s an incredibly capable individual, and I’m sort of an airhead. If I croaked, she would not miss a beat. And if she croaked, I’d be like, “What the hell was that plumber’s number?”
What was it like to work with your wife on the film?
We got along the best that we’ve ever gotten along. She gets the next one. She’s a very creative person, and she has a couple stories she wants to tell. She was sort of the den mother. She put out fires every day. The advantage is, she was a costume designer for years. The two of us know how a set runs. We were definitely in sync.
It must be special to work on a film with people you love.
I rounded up everyone I knew from a decade past to work on this movie. Kurt Rauf was a crewmember on Evil Dead. Kaye Davis edited Evil Dead 2. Joe LoDuca, our composer, goes all the way back to The Evil Dead. Most of the time you’re talking small talk. You’re not even talking about the movie because they know what they have to do. Nobody hassled me about getting approvals. Same with casting. I will fall on my own sword. If I cast the wrong actor, okay. It’s no big deal. I like to complain, but I didn’t give myself much to complain about.
How has your recent cancer diagnosis impacted how you view the movie?
Well, it’s kind of ironic now. It’s about a guy whose wife dies when the guy who made the movie’s actually dying. For me personally, it sharpens the focus of what you care about. That’s been better, being way more present and caring more about stuff that maybe you didn’t care about before and not caring about stuff that you did care about before.
What is the priority for you now?
Quality of life and squeezing every drop out of it. And appreciating what you’ve got. It’s so easy to just roll along through life a big bag of worries. And most older people will tell younger people to stop worrying about crap. Live your life with a capital L. Live it for real.
You’re known as the Evil Dead guy. What would you want to be known for?
A journeyman actor. A good worker bee. A good craftsman. There’s a lot of things actors do that’s not seen or noticed. I’ve been at it for a while now, and it’s nice to be able to apply tricks that you’ve learned. And I’m confident enough as an actor that I can direct myself. I’d like to be known as hirable. If you hire him, he’ll show up and he’ll know his stuff, and he’ll try to give you something. For the most part, he won’t be a problem. That’s really it.
I’m trying to debrand a little bit, if you really want to know. I’m trying to downshift from the suspected. I think a lot of people would find it hard to believe that I don’t care for horror movies. Ironic that I’m the Evil Dead guy? Maybe so.
This is more of an actual Bruce Campbell movie. Anyone who wants to know Bruce Campbell, go see Ernie & Emma. That’s 90% of my sensibility that was not influenced by a studio or anybody else. Again, I’ll take the heat. I’ll take my chances at the mighty Redford Theatre. The ghosts of The Evil Dead will help me.
Tickets to the June 5 screening of Ernie & Emma and Campell’s live Q&A at the Redford Theatre are available at redfordtheatre.com.
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