Bruce Campbell: The horrible freedom that comes with directing yourself

Bruce Campbell discussed the “horrible” freedom that comes with directing yourself in a movie and other challenges at Flashback Weekend Horror Con in Chicago.

Bruce Campbell has worn many hats in his entertainment career. First and foremost, he has been a working actor for four decades which is none too shabby. In addition to that, he is also a writer, producer and a director.

This past weekend at FBW Horror Con in Chicago, during his panel discussion with Sam Raimi, the duo chatted about the late, great Bill Paxton acting and directing in Frailty. Then Raimi brought up the fact that Campbell has also done the same thing, adding that it seemed “impossible.”

Obviously, Sam was referring to the actor’s turn behind the camera on the trippy salute to 1950’s B-movies, The Man with the Screaming Brain and the rollicking self-parody, My Name Is Bruce, as well as Hercules, Xena and V.I.P.

Of course, this triggered Campbell to reminisce about the times that he did double duty.

"“Something will always get screwed up. I’ll nail the dialogue and I don’t know what we’re going to shoot next. Or ‘Oh, boy! I got this fight scene planned out,’ what was that monologue again?”"

While Bruce admitted that you have to do twice the amount of work and he doesn’t envy that he acknowledged that there is a “horrible, horrible freedom” that comes with directing oneself. To illustrate what he was talking about, he recounted the times that he had dual roles helming Xena while acting on camera as Autolycus. There was a lot of leeway on those shoots because no one saw the footage until 3 or 4 days later.