If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor (38 page)

YOU'RE IN THE "ARMY" NOW.

After years of making it up as I went along, I had to learn new skills. Since the film took place largely in the 1300s, the main mode of transportation was by horse. I couldn't ride to save my life, so lessons were arranged.

To me, horses were just big, dumb animals to be feared and left alone. I'm sure my horse Buster could sense this right from the start, and he launched me off his back the first day in the corral. From then on, we agreed to hate each other and I never really did learn how to ride.

Unfortunately, Sam wanted numerous shots of me racing across the wasteland like Roy Rogers and even wrote a horse chase sequence -- it's a good thing we were doing a horror film, because the fear in my eyes was real.

The character Ash, now elevated to full-blown hero, also had to know his way around medieval combat. This required fighting lessons, which included hand-to-hand techniques as well as staffs and swords. The main reason for this was because Sam wanted the climactic sword fight to play out as elegantly as a Fred Astaire movie and he wanted it all in one crane shot.

I must have rehearsed the routine for three weeks, but when it came time to shoot, the rigors of running up and down steps, fighting with both hands, and flipping skeletons over my head was too much to pull off without cuts. After ten takes, I knew Sam was pissed off, because he yanked the bullhorn from John Cameron.

"Okay, obviously, this is
not working,
and it's not
going to work,
so we're going to break it up into
a thousand little pieces."

When Sam gets upset, he lets you know it, and he'll torture you for days afterward because he's one of those guys who never forgets. The first "little piece" of the sequence was a shot of me ducking as a sword glances off the stone wall behind me.

"So, you think you can do this, Bruce?" he'd say, loud enough for the entire crew to hear. "Or should I break this
one
shot into
three more shots?"

Sam also threatened to put Ash in a chorus line with skeletons.

"Okay, mister, we're gonna do a number like they do at Radio City Music Hall -- only the Rockettes are skeletons."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am -- you have to be able to dance like Gene Kelly."

I took jazz dance lessons for weeks, but thankfully, the budget put an end to that absurd idea.

EXTRAS, EXTRAS, READ ALL ABOUT THEM!

We filmed primarily on a private ranch in the desert, north of Los Angeles. In the city, things like police sirens, airplanes and traffic can plague a production -- out in the desert, it's another story. With nothing to block the sound . . it
carries.

Actress Tippi Hedron maintained a lion sanctuary near our location, and whenever feeding time came around, the hungry roars of the big cats would carry across the broad valley and freak the living daylights out of the horses.

Night shooting also made it harder to keep track of another animal -- "the Hollywood Extra." Most of these folks come well-prepared for the long day ahead of them -- any extra worth their salt shows up ready for any kind of weather, provides their own chair and the thickest book they can find.

Some of the less motivated folks snuck out of the available light, which was easy to do, and passed the night sleeping or, in one scandalous case, making love inside the castle set. Mating in a skeleton suit was quite an accomplishment because, as a monster myself (I also played "Evil Ash"), I couldn't even get the hang of urinating -- and it wasn't exactly a task you asked for help with.

I usually get along well with extras. In many cases, they are instructed not to talk to the actors, but I have no problem interacting with them as long as it's not distracting from the job at hand.

Most background artists get a feel for the film they are working on within a day or two -- where their "characters" fit in the scheme of things and the general tone, but like any profession, some folks just don't get it.

One guy learned the trick of "finding the lens" -- he knew just enough to be dangerous. It wasn't until viewing rushes that we saw what a gigantic camera hog he was. God bless the man for his enthusiasm, but damn him all the same for his lack of discretion.

Another man, a Mr. Ryan, managed to fall into the opposite category -- that of immovable object. During a scene where my character is led in chains back to the castle, I was surrounded by a column of soldiers. Sam gave these men rigid instructions to keep pace and to conduct themselves in a soldierly fashion, and he made them maintain a unified marching cadence.

Geographically, Mr. Ryan was at the back of the line, far from Sam's discerning eye. He was, however, about four paces in front of me and I witnessed his refusal to cooperate with any such thing. Sam seemed satisfied and headed off to prep the shot.

"Hey, pal," I asked, as friendly as a chained man in the scorching heat could. "You gonna do what the director asked?"

He turned back to me. "I'm not in the army. I don't have to do this if I don't want to."

"True," I agreed, "but you also don't have to get paid either."

With that, Mr. Ryan threw down his spear and stomped off into the desert, never to be seen again. The production report documented the incident as follows:

6/6/91

P. Ryan (b.g. foot soldier) removed himself from a shooting set-up. While doing so, he removed his wig and beard. The beard fell to the ground and when it was found, it was unusable and will need to be replaced. It was priced at $29.95 by the Hair/Makeup department.

And people wonder why movies cost millions of dollars...

"BRUISE" CAMPBELL

On a stunt-laden film like this, something was bound to go amiss. One night, while flipping a stuntman down the castle stairs, I gouged my face on a protruding piece of armor. I didn't even know what had happened until someone pointed out my bloody breastplate. It appeared as though I needed stitches, but of course, I was a messy mixture of real blood and Karo syrup, so who could tell? I was taken to the local emergency room anyway. And because I was an actor, Rob Tapert summoned a plastic surgeon, in case an extra nip or tuck was needed to maintain my looks.

This is a good time to explain what the character, Ash, looked like. Because of the abuse heaped on our hero, the makeup woman had to devise a plastic template that fit over my face so she could keep track of the cuts I had inherited from the other two films, as well as the new wounds inflicted.

At this point in our shooting schedule, my face was in full disarray -- I already had eight to ten cuts, along with slashes, welts and dirt. As the surgeon leaned toward my face, I had to assure him that I had only
really
been cut once.

"Which one is it?" he asked.

I pointed out the real one and two nips and a tuck later, I was in the van, zooming back toward the castle. Because of the amount of damage my face already displayed, we had no need to shoot around my injury -- nobody could tell the difference.

Army
shaped up to be one of
those
productions -- because it was a long and challenging shoot, few people were spared some form of indignity, as notes from the production reports will attest:

6/3/91: Wrangler (D. York) kicked by a horse. He refused medical assistance.

6/12/91: L. Lawrence (extra) had possible allergic reaction to sting of unknown insect.

6/27/91: R. Betancourt who was working as a mounted warrior fell from his horse during a scene which involved a mounted charge of the castle with approximately 50 other riders.

6/28/91: M. Faba, mechanical effects technician, ingested diesel fuel while attempting to siphon fuel for special effects torches.

7/5/91: R. Ledair, extra, crushed tip of middle finger on left hand while attempting to free his car, which had become stuck on a large rock in the Polsa Rosa parking lot.

7/15/91: Three trenches uphill of castle were left unmarked at night. R. Jacobson, mechanical effects, stumbled into a trench. He was treated by the Set Medic, rested briefly in his car, and returned to the set.

7/22/91: C. Garnell, assistant props, injured nose when she ran into another person on set.

7/29/91: At 11:50 a.m. a small fire ignited the interior walls of the Blacksmith's furnace.

7/30/91: E. Davidtz, principal actress, bumped her lip on the Evil Ash armor during scene.

8/8/91: A. Rizzo, Sound Mixer, went to visit Dr. D. Evangelatos for treatment for overexertion.

By the time August rolled around, those of us who weren't already incapacitated wished we were.

LIFE IMITATES ART

We also had one disaster of spectacular proportions. The opening of the film finds Ash dumped out of the sky into a barren wasteland -- in this case, a gravel pit in Southern California. The desired effect was for Ash to fall from the sky as his car crashes down behind him, and the solution was simple enough: just do it.

My part was easy -- I had to jump off a ladder and crumple when I hit the ground. Behind me, Sam's crappy Delta 88 was suspended via aircraft cable from a large crane on an access road. On cue, I would jump and the car would be released. We knew that this was within the realm of possibility, because we had already done it once back in 1986 for Part II. Why didn't we just use that footage, you ask? It was a rights issue -- don't ask...