TED RAIMI INTERVIEW
BY ALAN JONES.
1992 STARBURST MAGAZINE (UK)
( VISUAL IMAGINATION LTD.)

TED RAIMI INTERVIEWED

MEDIEVAL DEAD
(EDITED EXTRACT)

STARBURST INTERVIEW BY ALAN JONES

<Continued from pg1

Introvision

But what will get every nation talking positively about Army of Darkness is
the extensive use of Introvision, raves Raimi. " A good third of the picture
relies on Introvision [ creating believable plate backgrounds for seamless
foreground action]. It's state of the art stuff. Those guys were incredible
geniuses and knew just what to do . Sam needed a castle background. He
got it. He needed a windswept plain. He got it. We were dragged to this
dumpy Hollywood studio and got taken through this creaky door. And
there would be this massive castle set-up plus big effects rigs which
could make us look like we were anywhere Sam wanted. That made for
a very slow shoot . Well , that and the fact everything is on a much
grander scale . The first Evil Dead was set up and shoot it.
The second was set up, worry about this, that and the other, and
shoot it. Army of Darkness was set up and whoaaa...."
But working for Sam is a dream according to his brother.
" I know exactly what he wants . We grew up watching the same movies,
so we have the same visual vocabulary. ' Give me that Captain Kirk punch
right over there,' he'd say . The other actors would look puzzled, but I
knew exactly what he meant.
And how does he think Sam has grown as a director?
"Oh, about an inch," Comes the deadpan reply." Actually his style has
become so slick and sophisticated in terms of camera movement ,
dialogue , and the actors he chooses . Yet he still retains that wonderful
rawness which was always one of his best qualities. He'll never lose that
, even though he'll move onto more interesting , bigger and complicated
tales."
There's nothing in Army of Darkness that worried Raimi as much as the
stunt he had to do in Darkman though.
" I played Rick, the curly haired mobster, who burns Liam Neeson's face.
When he returned as Darkman, he shoved me up through a manhole
cover and truck squashed my head flat. There I was in an L.A.. street at
two in the morning with trucks driven by stunt drivers buzzing past my
head. ' Are you sure you know how to drive these vehicles?' I'd Tremble.
' Oh yeah, we've been doing it for years. Don't worry'. It was very scary."
Would he be an actor if it weren't for his brother? " Truthfully I can't
say. Sam's career did narrow the choices down, I suppose, but I'm
such a show off it was a natural vocation for me.
Sam helped by becoming a director first as it softened Mom and Dad's
attitude towards the film industry. It's difficult living in his shadow
sometimes, because he's so famous. I can't step out on my own without
being compared to him . But I'm an actor, he's a director, so we don't
compete on that level,. We just have a similar style. He does behind
the camera what I do in front of it."
And ten years after Sam an Co. hit the big time, does he think the industry
still views the Renaissance Pictures personnel as upstart Young Turks?
" Sam never really conformed because he was never really let in.
The big boys never wanted to know us . So we said, to heck with
you guys , we'll start our own club. And we did. That's where the
unusual Ren Pics style comes from- that sense of angst of not
being part of the Hollywood in-crowd. We were never ' The Angry
Young Men'. We were 'The Whiny Young Boys' because we were
never given the chance to be anything else."