Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Director Chuck Russell’s directorial career has spanned many different genres, beginning in horror with his debut A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS. Yet with his follow-up feature, THE BLOB his voice as a filmmaker was greatly evolving as to not be pigeonholed, spring boarding after to the action-comedy/ box office juggernaut THE MASK. His 4th film, ERASER opened in theaters on June 21, 1996 and was a sensation, becoming the year’s 11th highest grossing film and coining another quotable catchphrase for star Arnold Schwarzenegger (“You’re luggage”).
Part conspiracy thriller, part bruising actioner, the film follows professional witness protection program “eraser” U.S. Marshal John Kruger (Schwarzenegger) as he goes through drastic measures to keep his charge Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams) alive so she can get testify against her high powered corporate employer, whose backroom dealings would putting superweapons in the hands nefarious enemies.
At the film’s recent press day to celebrate its 30th Anniversary, I was able to ask the affable director about working with a stacked cast of talented actors, seeing a scene referenced decades later in another Summer blockbuster (TOP GUN: MAVERICK) and what it’s like now looking back on his work 30 years later.
I have to preface our conversation with two things: I hadn’t seen ERASER before so it was new to me – and I loved it. And secondly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say “Thank You” for producing and believing in GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN. That movie was fundamental for me growing up and is a pick-me-up as an adult.
“Yes! That was a fun movie to do. I’ve got daughters and I wanted to do something super fun.”
It’s stuck around too. So I’m curious if, when you started getting your footing in directing, starting in horror, did you experience any bias towards you in the industry or was that avoided because your movies made money so you could do whatever you wanted genre-wise?
“I wish the film business was like that. I felt like if I had done one more horror, I would be labeled as, and still be doing, horror. So while I’m a horror fan, I get nightmares. When I edit those films, repeating those images over and over again, I’ve had Freddy nightmares so I was creating problems for myself. THE MASK was supposed to be a horror film. I said, ‘Look if The Mask puts on a mask, says a punchline and kills somebody, it’s just Freddy Krueger all over again. But if we get Jim Carrey, it would be a different idea.”
New Line said no at first. But, as you said, I made money for them. Eventually, almost a year later, they agreed and said, “What did you want to talk about? Jim Carrey, a girl and a dog and a nightclub?” But they trusted me. Credit to Mike DeLuca and Bob Shaye. Only because CGI was so new at the time, they didn’t know what they had until it was really all done and the effects were in. That was some of my most fun experiences.”
I found ERASER to be very fun, but also prescient to our times and still very relevant in terms of government distrust, which is at a high 30 years later.
“It bubbles up in my work. It’s in THE BLOB too. I love Jimmy Caan’s speech, “War is sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.” It’s a cynical speech, but I like balancing the fun tone of action with things that are a little edgy. Rell guns are a real technology. It wasn’t known at the time, it’s more commonly known now. But I wanted to bring real world things into a situation like that. And I also wanted to bring a different kind of cast for an Arnold movie. Vanessa Williams is wonderful in it, and Jimmy Caan is a first class, amazing actor. James Coburn is a legend – after THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE GREAT ESCAPE, I had to get one more macho guy in the movie. In hindsight, when I first saw the movie again, I thought, ‘What a cast!’” Robert Pastorelli… The whole group of them. In retrospect, very good performances for an action film.”
Your cast is impeccable! John Slattery, Camryn Manheim…Roma Maffia, I remember she was having a major moment in films where, if she popped up in your movie, your movie was as good as gold.
“Roma was cool. James Cromwell… Even Slattery before MAD MEN. It was really good casting from day one on that show.”
Were Arnold and James Caan’s acting approaches much different when directing them?
“Look, they’re pros, so for me they were fun and easy. Once the script is there, and I always take the time to go through it before we get to set so we know what are the keys to doing this and what might be bothering [the actor] about it. I had a real heart-to-heart with Jimmy about it because it was his first straight-up, over the top action film he’d done. But he became an anchor, a bit of a performance reality anchor and I think he upped Arnold’s game.
Arnold was very excited to work with this cast and I think it’s a little better Arnold than you normally get in performance. I particularly like what happened between him and Vanessa. I wanted to have a strong, smart female character who didn’t necessarily want to be saved and see how it played. And I thought their chemistry was great too.”
I found that to be very refreshing – that Vanessa’s character wasn’t a love interest. Was that always there in the script or did you have to fight to retain that dynamic?
“They didn’t fight me on it. I did a polish of the screenplay, which is traditional for me, and it was really about character to keep it from being less of a trope with saving the lady. Some of the government stuff, particularly I needed 3 big action scenes to live up to Arnold’s work at the time. It was really the apex of his 90s stuff. The studio specifically said, ‘We want one more $100 million Arnold hit.’ I said, ‘Fine. The pressure’s on. Let’s do it!’
In terms of the script, I had read you were working Frank Darabond and Arnold had brought in John Milius, I don’t know if this is true?
“I’m a John Milius fan and I would remember…. Look, there was an ERASER before I was involved. Frank, who’s been a great comrade and writing partner over the years, we came in and tried to make it bigger and smarter, at the same time, and look at character dialogues. I’m very proud of Jimmy Caan’s speech on the airplane. Don’t trust everyone, people.”
How did you go about structuring these big action sequences with these major set pieces, like the plane and the alligator house? It must’ve been a logistical nightmare, but maybe not?
“I love doing it, so that’s the number 1 thing. These are real people and I’m putting them at risk. I make sure nothing is dangerous, but race car driving is dangerous, construction work is dangerous. So trust me. This kind of action, there’s a sense of danger about it. I know stuntcraft. No one was injured or harmed. And I’m very proud how we designed these things.
The answer is really storyboards. In script, I love to write something I wanna see. Then we break it down and I start to really design what technique we’re gonna do it. The parachuting out of the airplane thing, I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but we used every technique I was aware of at the time. There were real parachutists. Arnold really did fly down in a decender rig from the highest stage at Warner Brothers 5xs for that sequence. That’s when you have a guy that’s a champ like Arnold. He’s a great action actor. That combination was challenging, but holds up together really well. The actual parachuting is still the core of it and it’s quite scary to see. Don’t forget there’s a cameraman falling with the guy. These are wild sequences to design.”
Did you pick up on that scene in TOP GUN: MAVERICK, when Tom Cruise walks into the diner and asks, “Where am I?” and someone says “Earth,” That’s your exact same scene in ERASER with the junkyard kids and Arnold.
“Yeah! Was that an homage?! No one called me up and said thanks! [laughs]. It’s the same line, right? I know Tom so it’s possibly a tip of the hat. I got a kick out of it, either way. It’s the perfect ending to a terrifying series of stunts ending with Arnold hitting the top of that car. He did a lot of his own stunts. It’s true. Even as he was a little bit more mature that year. An amazing athlete so hats off.”
The Rell guns looked great. Were there a lot of different iterations in the design and also if, when Arnold finally gets to pick up and shoot two of them at once, were those two bigger than everyone else’s?
“[laughs] The Rell guns were a bit of a secret at that time. Now they’re more well-known. Theyre kinetic guns, very powerful, that don’t use black powder. Remarkable technology. They were only large scale cannons on battleships at the time, so I said what if we miniaturize them? So there were many iterations. I wanted to have fun with the design, but I also wanted them to fit the tone of the movie. We worked hard on the interaction with air and some of the touches around the guns. Now that technology we show where you can see through walls is all real technology, so warfare tech moves quickly. But I got a nod from a back channel in Naval Intelligence who said I got the basics right with the Rell gun.”
Vanessa also has a great big, David Foster-produced ballad during the end credits (“Where Do We Go From Here”). Was the idea for having a song sung by her discussed before or after she was cast?
“Once we had Vanessa, what she brought to the movie was irreplaceable. Her strength of character that comes through in her performance matches the size of Arnold’s performance. I thought it was a great balance. She’s a world-class singer so it was a great idea. I forget exactly at what point that came up. But thank you. You’re asking great questions, by the way.”
Thank you. I hope I’m bringing my A-game here, and fresh eyes!
“Maybe seeing it for the first time.”
You were also on the ground floor of another iconic Arnold catchphrase. 30 years later, how is this movie for you watching it? Are you distracted by minutia or are you alllowing yourself to watch it like a regular audience member would?
“When I heard they were doing a 4K and wanted me to come into Warners and do the remix and colorization, which is a big deal. A movie can be entirely different when not done properly. And it’s a huge upgrade. I love what it looked and sounded like in the first place and now it’s even better. So I can recommend it to fans. I hadn’t seen it in years. So the first time I watched it again, I was very impressed. As a director, there’s always things that you didn’t get to do that you wanted to do. But I’m thinking, ‘What the hell was I complaining about?!’ The movie is terrific on its own terms. Arnold was great. The cast around him is remarkable. I couldn’t have asked for me. I rediscovered it without my own biases. Hate to say it, but I loved it and we got to make it even better in the process of getting it into 4K. I’m probably too hard on films right when I finish them. ERASER and THE MASK are two that really hold up for me.”
Are there things you learned from making this that you’ve taken to heart in your future projects?
“Always. You grow as a human being. The funniest thing, I gotta say, is we spent a little while with the script to try to make it clear – try to make Jimmy Caan being a bad guy a twist – that was our intention with the screenplay for the first half an hour of the film. We worked really hard… and then the first thing you see in the trailer is Jimmy Caan with a gun. The studio was gonna give it away no matter what. It wasn’t supposed to be a mystery. That’s something I’ll get over in the future. If I’m doing an action film, it’s not SHERLOCK HOLMES. We can give away the bad guy.”
Having gone in as clear as I did, even as someone who can see things coming, I was a little surprised!
“Hey! If it worked, then I’m happy. I’m so glad. I thought I’d wasted my time. Jimmy’s such a good actor and I thought, again, it’s a little different seasoning than the average action movie to have actors like this. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ve gotta say, I did too. I rediscovered it with this re-release. I forgave all the flaws. It was quite wonderful.”
ERASER is now available on 4K UHD.
