For those of us who are fascinated by these guys all living together...
(Trainwreckd Society interview with Scott Spiegel)
The ever knowing Wikipedia informs me that you shared a house in L.A. with your old pal Sam Raimi, the Coen Brothers, Frances McDormand, Holly Hunter, and Kathy Bates. Wow. What did you do to keep the walls from exploding due to the immense creativity they tried to hold? What was that scene like?
It was incredibly cool! And I have the pics to prove it! BLOODSIMPLE was taking Hollywood by storm and there I was with Sam about to write EVIL DEAD 2. The Coen brothers were so nice to me – even after I did the old shaving cream on the end of the phone receiver gag. I called from another phone in another room and Ethan Coen picked up the receiver and got an earful of shaving cream! The look of horror on Sam Raimi’s face that me, a guest in ‘their” house would dare pull a prank like that on one of the Coen brothers but all Ethan did was laugh uproariously (I do a really good imitation of his laugh by the way). I was off the hook in more ways than one.
Fran was working on HILL STREET BLUES and SPENCER FOR HIRE at the time – she let me keep the teleplays, which I eventually sold to finance my way out to Hollywood. I’ll always remember Holly Hunter sitting on her futon in her room in sweat pants reading scripts. One day she was dressed in a mini skirt and I said “Holly, you look really nice” and she snapped “I’m going to an audition and am dressing the part of a hooker. I don’t take that as a compliment” and she stormed out the door. Ouch. Sam and I wrote the role of Bobby Joe for Holly but the producers wanted a “babe” for the role. Holly showed us (Sam, Fran & me) the awesome slasher flick she co-starred in called ‘THE BURNING – it had Fisher Stevens, Jason Alexander in it and it was written & produced by Harvey Weinstein.