My personal heroes come in two varieties: major and minor. A minor hero is someone who does some pretty awesome stuff, but who has not necessarily led a life worthy of awe. Examples include Richard Dean Anderson (as much as I love MacGuyver and Colonel O'Neil, and that he was in Fallout, I've yet to be suitably impressed) , Justin Long (I loved Live Free or Die Hard, and Dodgeball, and he does an awesome job of making geeks look cool), and Jeremy Bullock (yes, he was Fett, but we need a little something more).
A step above these are my major heroes. While I can (and do) add people to the minor hero list all the time, I am far more particular when it comes to picking my major heroes. Only those who have lived the most awesomely of all, and who have ventured where no sane man dare venture, can make this elite list. For this reason, only three men to this day have earned this prestigious standing:
- Bruce Campbell
- Bill Nye
- James Cromwell
Bruce Campbell is a B-movie actor who awesome beyond belief. He has been friends with the Raimi brothers (Sam, the director of Spiderman; Ivan, a writer for Spiderman; Ted, who played Hoffman in Spiderman) since childhood, when they all started out making movies together. DESTINY! Bruce is "famous" for his roles in the Evil Dead trilogy, the glorious Bubba Ho-Tep, and his self-produced film The Man With the Screaming Brain (among various campy scifi movies such as Alien Apocalypse and Terminal Invasion. Glorious). He had a TV show back in the late 90's called Jack of All Trades, which was hilarious; he was in a comedic western, Brisco Country Jr.; and was a recurring character in Hercules/Xena as the King of Thieves. He has a unique acting style that is there in all his roles, which is simultaneously why he's a B-actor, and why he's got such a devoted fan base.
Bill Nye the Science Guy is probably the reason I'm a physics major. Was it his bow-tied goodness that led to my predisposition towards math and science altogether? Debatable. But he's just so damn awesome, besides my history with PBS. Who else gets married at a scientific convention to a world-renowned oboist, and exchanges watches instead of rings to "symbolize man's eternal struggle with time", while a mathematician plays the wedding march on the piano? Nobody does, that's who. Only the Nye. I plan on being him for Halloween, once I dye a lab coat and find a bow tie.
James Cromwell is the most recent addition to this list: I added him after staring in awe at his IMDB record. You will know him best as the farmer in Babe, but he has appeared in "I, Robot" as Dr. Lanning, in that horse-based Disney movie as The Colonel, in "The Longest Yard" and "The Green Mile" as prison wardens, and in "Rudy" and "'Salem's Lot" as priests. He was in "Revenge of the Nerds" 1-4. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Name pretty much every show ever, he's in it. He appeared in every Star Trek series except the latest one (remember the clip I posted last night? SWEET JESUS? That was him in "First Contact"). He was Jack Bauer's father in 24. The West Wing. 6 Feet Under. ER. Home Improvement. Magnum PI. The Twilight Zone. Knight Rider. Diff'rent Strokes. Barney Miller. A Little House on the Prairie. Three's Company. M*A*S*H. All In The Family. The man is a MACHINE. He is also an active member of PETA, appears in some of their commercials, is a vegan, and is(was?) the treasurer for the Screen Actors' Guild.
The reason I bring this up is I was talking with Alex tonight, and James Cromwell came up in conversation. I believe it went something like this:
ME: SWEET JESUS!
ALEX: Haha, is that your new thing now?
ME: Thank you, James Cromwell!
ALEX: Want to put him in the movie?
When people choose their heroes (or when I do, anyway) they don't generally plan on meeting them in person. They plan on living out their lives, worshipping the hero in secret, and letting him or her die blissfully unaware of their existence. Never did the thought of actually HIRING James Cromwell enter my mind. It sounds far too good to be true.
This is only the most hypothetical of plans, of course. There's no way to know if we can get James for even a day at the time when we're going to film. There's no way of knowing if we'll even be able to afford a single day of filming with the man. All I know for sure is that my producers instinct (save money!) and my fanboy instinct (pay a million dollars, if you have to, just get the man close enough to smell!) are in serious conflict right now.
More on this as it develops. Meaning, you probably won't hear anything more for another year or so. Doesn't matter to me; even having entertained this idea is enough to make me light-headed. Now I need to see Bill Nye give a lecture, and I have no idea where to find Bruce Campbell. Oh well.
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