Chapter 10: Shemping for Gods
Excerpt from All You Need is a Chin: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell
So for most of 1998 I basically lived in New Zealand. When I wasn’t filming
Lysia or
Telemachus, I was Shemping as Thor or Loki or whatever Norse God du jour as the New Zealand Alps stood in for the mountains of Norway or Asgard. Sam was filming parts of
The Mighty Thor there (when he wasn’t in Norway or Minnesota) and I practically got frostbite tromping through the snow wearing a fur cloak that was more for show than actual protection from the elements. And I was loving every minute[1].
The Warriors Three (Image source Comic Vine)
I even got to play the supporting part of Fandral the Dashing alongside my old friend “Professor” Toru Tanaka as Hogun the Grim and Mark Addy as Volstagg the Valiant. The three of us mostly played supporting bit parts as the, um, “Warriors Three”, fighting alongside Thor in the flashback scenes and the big final battle, sort of a Three Stooges as Warriors, only with serious violent action rather than slapstick. We didn’t play much of a part in the story, other than one part where I tried to talk Thor out of attacking the Rock Trolls, and a lot of our best footage in my mind got cut for time. We ad-libbed many of our lines and came up with some crazy fight choreography just to stand out in the background, though, so despite our limited screen time, we gained a fan following. This got us more screen time in
Thor 2 in 2001 and eventually got us our own TV series in the 2000s,
The Warriors Three, all in the semi-campy, semi-serious tone of
Lysia.
This also meant getting to work alongside some of the big screen’s biggest actors, like Michael Cane, Ian McShane, Samuel Jackson, and of course Brad Pitt, some of whom I got to Shemp for. I also got to work with Daniel Craig, who had his big break as Donald Blake, and of course David Tenet of
Dr. Who fame, who played the villainous Loki, and proved as fun behind the scenes as he did on screen. It was also a blast seeing the various other actors that played Loki in disguise doing their best to imitate David’s mannerisms and mischievous grin, especially you-know-who with the big reveal moment.
But that’s enough name-dropping, what about the juicy behind-the-scenes stuff? That’s what you nerds are here for, right?
First off, our release date got bumped up. We were supposed to be the late summer film following Ron Howard’s
Captain America, but then some genius in marketing realized that July 4th fell on a Sunday in 1999, and that July 4th Weekend was perfect for dropping
Captain America. So we got pushed up to May and I had to do several days of Shemp Shots with Ted to make up for the time lost. How’s that for a behind-the-scenes?
Also, Doug Jones did what we’d now call Digital Acting, though it was pretty early in the game back then. He wore the “suit of ping pong balls” and stood in for Ulik, King of the the Rock Trolls and principal antagonist, and wore the latex suit for close-ups and the like. Jones was also playing Elric on the
Stormbringer pilot, which was also filming at the time, thankfully also largely shot on location in New Zealand, and he had been doing some guest spots on
Lysia and
Telemachus, so he and I had a few laughs behind the scenes. He told me, being a rather devout Christian, that playing a Rock Troll in a Pagan Gods story and a servant of a Satanic god in
Stormbringer was a bit of a challenge of faith, but that following some long talks with the writers and his minister he was starting to see the value and, well, Values in the stories. My advice was simpler: “It’s fiction, Doug. I doubt that anyone’s going to start worshiping the Aesir because of Sam Raimi or Arioch because of Tim Burton.”
Not my best advice, but I am an ordained minister, after all[2]. That fact alone seemed to help him.
Hey, I did my Good Works for the day, what’s your problem?
Fandril vs. Ulik (Image source Pintrest)
Ulik was a largely digital creation, kind of like Moog and Ba Ba, but generally better loved. Animation voice guy Frank Welker ultimately did the voice since Sam didn’t want to do the “special guest actors” schtick. In fact, the only reason he took on Brad Pitt was because he’d already worked with him producing
Wonder Woman and found out that Brad was a comics fan. Brad was as pissed off as any of us over how Warner treated Sam.
Sadly, we all ended up reuniting with a lot of the cast and crew of the DC films for Robert Downey Jr.’s funeral. It was like we’d actually lost Superman in real life! I was there, having worked with him on
Superman, of course. Such a damned loss. Robert had finally cleaned up and was on the straight and narrow, and those yellow press jackals that tried to insinuate a Hollywood coverup[3] can eat one. Brad threatened to stick Mjolnir where the sun don’t shine if he ever saw David Pecker in person.
In happier news, Sam was able to recycle some of his ideas for Darkseid into the Marvel Movie Universe.
Justice League completely wasted DS, and Sam was livid. He had this whole crazy idea that Darkseid and his people were actually fleeing the Anti-Monitor, who destroyed Apokolips – you know, basically the classic “invading refugees” thing. Their aim was to use the Mother Boxes to terraform Earth into a more suitable home for them, with the intsy-wintsy little side-problem that this would wipe out most life on Earth, to include humanity. But hey, not DS’s problem, right? Naturally some of that got recycled into the Galactus plot, but I get ahead of myself.
Image apropos of nothing (image source BraveAndBoldLost Blogspot)
So, anyway, the workout to play Fandral, not to mention stand in for Brad, was serious. We’d all get up at 4 am to hit the gym. I was spending hours every day in the gym or on the track with Brad and Toru, eating a ludicrously strict diet, and learning to really appreciate what the muscleheads have to do to look the way that they do. By week seven I would have thrown Sam off the mountain for a handful of French fries! Few people appreciate how much work goes in to looking buff for you nerds. I’d never worked harder before or since, but soon enough I had actual serious pecs and abs and my wife Ida was loving it, so, hey, hard work has its benefits.
She was less amused by my attempts to grow the pencil thin mustache and goatee to play Fandral. “You look like a pimp, Bruce.”
I ended up shaving and just having them put it on in makeup. The glue did not hold up in the cold mountain air. There’s a whole gag reel of my beards and mustaches falling off.
Mount Cook in New Zealand (Image source Oh Fact!)
And all said, the experience was a good one. Ida fell in love with New Zealand, and we even bought a home there. If World War 3 starts I know where I’m going. The work hours were long, but the set was a blast. Even the mountain shots, fighting frostbite and perpetually out of breath, were incredible. Helicopter rides through gorgeous Alpine wonderlands every day. I never realized that glaciers were so amazing in real life. I mean, they’re just ice, right? Speaking of ice, we had to shelter from a sudden ice storm one day, which wasn’t fun, but we made it through with no casualties other than Sam’s Coke can, which exploded in the cold, resulting in a fantastical Cokecicle. Every day an adventure.
Seriously, Brad can keep all of the stresses and strains of trying to maintain a career as an A-lister. I’ll take a week of Shemping in the Southern Alps, and a double-helping of French fries when the shoot wraps.
[1] Aesir helmet tip to by
@Plateosaurus,
@Nathanoraptor and Mr. Harris Syed for the casting and behind the scenes of
The Mighty Thor. Dedicated guest post coming in 1999.
[2] True!! He has officiated weddings, including a “zombie wedding”. No idea what denomination or even religion.
[3] Downey’s family will launch a libel lawsuit against the
National Enquirer and other tabloid rags for spreading rumors that RDJ was using again and had been intoxicated when the fatal crash happened. They ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed amount and running a retraction and apology.