American Psycho
In his farewell interview for Xena: Warrior Princess Magazine, Ted Raimi talks to K. Stoddard Hayes about his final appearances on Xena, his upcoming movie and music video projects, and his passion for chocolate ice cream…
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 24
Ted Raimi has a fat lip. He excuses himself from the telephone for a moment to put medication on it, then explains that he got it while shooting his latest film, The Illusion. During a fight scene, another actor accidentally socked him in the mouth. Getting socked, either by accident or, more likely on purpose, would be business as usual for Joxer. However, looking back on the end of his long run as Xena's clownish sidekick, Raimi reflects that playing Joxer was not at all business as usual for him. Raimi has made far more appearances as psycho characters in horror movies.
“He’s a lawyer; he's smart but crazy, and he’s too obsessed with this woman,” Raimi says of his character in The Illusion. “It’s the kind of part I usually play, which is a psycho part. I start like this normal pleasant fellow, and then I go into psycholand, which is just wonderful to do! I infused a little bit of comedy into it, which I think [director Michael Goorjian] wanted, because it’s a really serious movie.
“It’s just everything I never get to do on Xena,” Raimi continues. “It’s funny. Xena was such an anomaly for me. I usually don’t play dumb guys, I usually play pretty smart guys. So it was nice getting back to that. After six years it gets to be a little bit of a grind playing the dumb guy.”
However, Raimi is the first to admit how much he’s enjoyed working on Xena over the years. “As far as television experiences go, you probably couldn’t get much better,” he says honestly. “Everything was so amazing, for me as an actor and for anyone who was an actor on that show, because you had a highly intelligent and creative producing force, especially Rob Tapert, who is a really clever man and a very creative person.
“In Lucy and Renee, you’ve got two girls who are really smart and really funny and very easy on the eyes... and who could also do brilliant comedy. You never find that on television. Girls are usually either very pretty or very funny. If they’re pretty, they don’t need to develop humour. But these girls bothered to. It was such a pleasure to work with them, and I hope that they had fun working with me too.”
Having already said his goodbyes to the Xena cast and crew when Joxer suffered a tragic death at the hands of Livia in Eve, Raimi felt a bit odd returning to the set of Xena for his last two episodes, When Fates Collide and Soul Possession. “I had one of those experiences where you’re leaving a party: you say goodbye to everybody; you go through every room in the house; you thank the host… it was a great time. Then you get in the car and you realise you left your wallet on the table… I felt like that guy slinking back in the house to get his wallet, because I’d already said goodbye to everyone like 10 times!”
His unexpected return did give Raimi a chance to fulfil one missed ambition, however. He finally got to shoot a whole scene with Kevin Smith, playing Harry/Joxer opposite Smith’s Ares in Soul Possession. “We’ve done like 50 episodes, but we’ve probably had no more than six lines together,” he explains, “and those are normally just Ares saying, ‘Get out of my way, Joxer!’ We just never had dialogue together. But we’ve got a whole scene together in this one, so that’s a record!
“It was really fun,” he enthuses of the episode. “Kevin’s one of the actors I’ve always wanted to have lines with, so it was a real treat. And he’s a very generous actor and very like Ares.”
In contrast, working with the episode’s director, Josh Becker, was just like old times. Becker has directed Raimi in many of Joxer’s best comic turns, most notably For Him The Bell Tolls and Fines, Femmes and Gems. Beyond that, Raimi has known Becker virtually his entire life.
“I’ve known Josh since I was three years old,” Raimi reveals. “I grew up right around the block from him. I remember him as dorky! He’s a highly intelligent guy; he’s a fact nut, loves information. But he also loves comedy. [That’s an] interesting dichotomy. Usually people that love comedy don’t really like factual information very much. But he loves them both, so he’s a unique guy. He’s also a very generous director in that he'll really let you do your thing; he’ll always ask your opinion on how something works.”
Becker’s love of comedy is clear from the tone of Soul Possession. “It was one of those episodes that had nothing funny in it whatsoever, and Josh came in and fought to make it funnier. He and I sat down and tried to figure out what to do. At the beginning of the episode I’m grieving [for Gabrielle, who has just fallen into the abyss with Hope] and start getting a little drunk. We thought, ‘Hey, let’s make him drunk throughout the whole episode!’”
Like everyone who has had a long involvement with Xena, Raimi is accustomed to being asked how he feels now that the show’s last episode has aired. “Just this morning I was remembering the first play I ever did when I was 17,” he muses. “I remember it ending, and everyone leaving after the last performance, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘But wait! We’re a team - wait a minute!’ It was really hard to understand how people could work so hard and share so much and do such artistic things, and then just blow and do other things without you, and you without them. It’s hard to take at first, but you get used to it.
“So when people ask me, ‘Don’t you miss doing Xena?', I have to say I do a little. I miss hanging out with Lucy and Renee, and a couple of directors and a couple of the crew, but other than that I don’t really miss it. It’s part of the business. It’s part of the world that you inhabit as an actor.”
There are still plenty of Xena and Joxer fans out there who want to maintain the show’s momentum. A Joxer/Ted Raimi web ring has 35 sites on it, while any Xena fan page with links will inevitably list 10 or 12 Joxer sites. Raimi is both bemused and delighted by the enduring devotion of science fiction fans, especially Xena fans. “It’s a mystery; it’s something which is psychological. I don’t know how it works or wl it works or why people are so loyal to it; they just are. It’s quite remarkable and flattering.”
Raimi observes that even his first series Seaquest DSV, is still popular in some countries although it ended its original run several years ago. “When I was in Germany, Seaquest was on Sundays at 8pm,” he reveals. “That show's been over for years, and they still have it on prime time! They love it over there. It’s crazy. Really really strange - but cool!”
Raimi doesn’t plan to put a lot of energy into fuelling the Joxer fan phenomenon now that Xena is over. By the time this issue appears he will have made what he believes will be his last ever Xena convention appearance. Much as he loves meeting his fans, he has to consider the realities of time and other work commitments. “These conventions are wonderful, but you got other things going on,” he explains. “Blowing out of town for four days is pretty disruptive in my line of work. You’ve got to stick around and get momentum going. It’ll be weird to see the Joxer momentum finally go away.”
Raimi has plenty to keep him occupied for the foreseeable future. He has just signed on for another low budget horror movie, as yet untitled. His main interest, at present however, is developing a career as a director and producer of music videos.
“I’ve always loved music,” he says. “I promised myself that when Xena was over I’d focus on that. And I’m actually taking piano lessons and guitar lessons right now. I’ve decided to combine filmmaking with music, and that’s the perfect synergy. And I like watching videos. That's the ultimate total visceral enjoyment. Music videos are a lot like [chocolate] bars. They're just delicious! You eat as many as you can, but after about 20 you kinda don’t want any more.”
Raimi’s first music video, for a California-based band called Fonda, is already available to view on the internet at www.parasol.com or launch.com. Raimi reports that Fonda have already won wider recognition by doing the end credit music for the hit film Spy Kids.
So what, in Raimi’s opinion, does it take to make a good music video? “A linear story line,” he replies at once. “Just like any movie or anything you watch or any piece of art, it’s got to have pacing. I think the problem with a lot of music videos is that a director will shoot a lot of footage and cut it together at a wild pace and he’ll throw a lot of crazy special effects over it, and that’s his video. But except for some flashy looking stuff, it’s really got no energy to it.
“So it’s got to build and to have a climax just like a story. The ones I like watching best are the ones with a little story in them: boy meets girl; boy doesn’t get girl... Something happens in it. Those are my favourites. The one I directed is pretty linear like that, and I certainly enjoy watching it and the record label [Parasol] likes it, so I think I must be doing something right!”
As his recent movie roles indicate, Raimi plans to continue acting, but hopes to focus more on movies rather than television. “Television is a wonderful thing, but its visceral value is very low in that you don’t get, by watching it, much excitement,” he explains. “You’re watching it on a screen about 27 inches across. Even the worst movie you do you see in a movie theatre, and it’s just astounding to watch a movie that you’ve had some part in at 27 feet across. I think I’m going to put away my television shoes for a while, because I’ve done it for 10 years now. But you never know in this business. I might get some excellent television show that’s awesome and cool, in which case I’ll probably pursue that. But at the moment I think my interests lie elsewhere.”
So what else lies ahead for Raimi? In the nature of his profession, he’s not sure. “There are no guarantees in this business,” he admits. “In a practical way, I’m just where I was when I started off acting. When you’re done with a job, you don’t know where your next one’s going to come from. It’s the farthest away from an office job you can get.”
But if he could design his own perfect future right now, Raimi knows what it would be. “My dream is that someone hands me a deal to direct 10 music videos, and on top of that a three-picture deal of movies that I’d want to make myself and star in. And on top of that, I’d like an endless supply of Breyer’s Fudge Ice Cream - a lifetime supply.
“If I could have all those three things right now, you could call me the happiest man in the world!”
SIDEBAR: Ted’s Talents
For anyone suffering Joxer withdrawal symptoms, Raimi has plenty of other projects on the go.
Fonda: ‘Close To Home’
Music video produced and directed by Ted Raimi. You will only see Raimi as the name at the top of the credits, but you will see plenty of his humour. Raimi hopes that it will also appear on VH1, as well as the "millions" of video festivals he reports he has submitted it to.
The Attic Expeditions
Released last year, the film's cast includes Raimi, Andras Jones, Seth Green, Jeffrey Coombs and Wendy Robie. Raimi reports it has appeared at film festivals in Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Brussels, and will soon be screened in Seattle. He hopes it will also get a limited release, which is, he says, “amazing for an indie movie.”
So how scary is it? “It's not gore,” Raimi reports. “There's a little bit of blood in it, but mostly it's psychological horror, so you're getting into somebody's mind. It's creepy. It leaves you feeling icky when you leave the theatre.”
Spider-Man
Raimi has a small part in Spider-Man, which is directed by his brother, Hercules/Xena Executive Producer Sam Raimi, as The Daily Bugle's head of advertising, Hoffman. Spider-Man is due for US and European release in May 2002. The official web site is at www.spider-man-movie.com.
“I'm in probably five or six scenes,” says Raimi. “I get to torture Tobey Maguire [Spider-Man] a little bit! It was great fun to be in the movie. It was nice to work with my brother.”
Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless also make appearances in the film.
The Illusion
“It was all night shooting,” Raimi says of the production. “A lot of my scenes were shot in this old Catholic graveyard. We had rain machines going the whole time, so I was soaking wet from 11pm to 5am every day for a week and a half! But otherwise it was wonderful!”