Sam Raimi is sitting next to Emma Raimi, his daughter and a co-star of his latest movie, “Send Help,” as they discuss her decision to pursue acting.
“I met it with dread,” says the elder Raimi, the metro Detroit native and acclaimed director known for his “Spider-Man” trilogy, among many other films. “My whole life I wanted to steer her away from the movie industry … because in that way lies heartbreak. The dream of becoming a well-known actor, admired for the craft, is so difficult and requires a lot of chance outside of your own control.”
Yet, according to Emma, her father also was an inspiration. “My dad showed me the importance of movies and theater from a very young age. Unintentionally, he created …”
“…. a monster,” her father interjects affectionately, using the hokey delivery of an old-timey horror star.
“A monster, or someone who’s passionate about the arts,’ continues Emma during a joint Zoom interview. “If you’re passionate about the arts as a parent, you’re going to pass that along to your kids.”
Monsters have been extremely good to Sam Raimi, whose breakout success with the inventive, low-budget 1981 flick “The Evil Dead” launched a horror franchise and propelled him to a major career as the director of movies ranging from the brooding 1998 drama “A Simple Plan” to the 2022 Marvel epic “Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”
Now Emma Raimi is forging her own path in acting, writing and directing and, at this moment, helping her dad promote his new thriller, “Send Help,” which opens Jan. 30.
It’s the story of two co-workers who find themselves in the midst of psychological battle after a catastrophic accident. Linda (played by Rachel McAdams), is a frumpy, unappreciated number cruncher who is not respected at the office. Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) is her arrogant boss, a corporate bro who has just taken over the top spot and, right before an overseas business trip, callously denies Linda the promotion she deserves.
When their plane crashes, Linda and Bradley find themselves together on a deserted island. As their darkly funny, scarily suspenseful journey unfolds, they deal with past issues and clash over what to do next. A student of wilderness survival, Linda knows an array of useful skills. Bradley, on the other hand, brings little to the table except for his belief that it is Linda’s job to save him and obey his orders.
From there, nothing is predictable about “Send Help,” especially when Linda begins to come into her own as a forceful figure.
“She’s brilliant and the audience knows how smart she is, knows what she has to put up with, sees the mistreatment in the office hierarchy in that situation,” says Sam “It’s cool to watch her gain power and start to exercise the skills she has.
“Then you start to realize that something’s wrong. … There’s something slightly wrong with this plant that’s growing in this hothouse of a jungle,” he adds, stopping himself at a certain point to avoid giving away spoilers.
“Send Help” shows off Raimi’s ability go from laughs to gasps at lightning speed. It also contains a supporting role for Emma in the early office sequences as River, a Gen Z employee with a mix of pity and mild disdain for Linda.
The acting bug bites
For Emma, who is one of five siblings, becoming an actress has been a lifelong ambition. “When I was about 4 or 5 years old, my dad took me to see ‘Wicked’ the musical when it was touring in Los Angeles. That was the first time I’d seen a real play and absorbed it. From that moment, I knew I wanted to do theater,” she remembers.
Sam Raimi may have been apprehensive about his daughter’s choice, but he says he is proud of her dedication to achieving her dream through taking acting and theater classes and majoring in acting at Northwestern University.
Since graduating from college, Emma has avoided taking a nepo-baby path, amassing numerous acting credits in smaller short films and feature films, along with writing her own script for an upcoming short film and directing another. Like any other young actor, her goal is to gain experience by saying yes to a number of projects, not to cherry-pick them.
“I try to get as many jobs as possible. … I go for every opportunity that I can,” she says.
As a child, Emma did some cameos in her father’s movies. She appeared briefly in 2013’s “Oz the Great and Powerful,” 2009’s “Drag Me to Hell” and 2007’s “Spider-Man,” where her part was “girl with camera.”
Does Emma have any vivid memories from those early assignments? “I remember being 7 years old and interrupting the whole shoot of ‘Spider-Man 3’ because I was scared of J.K. Simmons,” she says, referring to the Oscar-winning actor who played newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson (who, like her father, is a metro Detroit native and Tigers fan).
“My dad had to stop the whole shoot and pick me up while I was crying in his arms and wasting thousands of dollars per minute of everyone’s time … and the only person who could calm me down was my dad,” says Emma, recalling the scene shot in New York City on a closed street.
Allowing Emma to do cameos was part of what Sam describes as “a decision I had made all through my life, which is work with those closest to you, that you can trust.” He is known for co-writing screenplays with brother Ivan Raimi, casting brother Ted Raimi in projects and working frequently with his original “Evil Dead” collaborators, actor Bruce Campbell and producer Rob Tapert.
Mutual admiration
Emma describes her father’s approach to directing as “amazing.” She says, “I think some directors have their idea and then they take an actor’s suggestion as an insult to their vision. … I think what he does brilliantly is listen to actors and really value other people’s opinions. He doesn’t shoot down other suggestions, which I think is really important to creating a really comfortable and really creative atmosphere.”
She also praises her dad for being “great at commanding a set, which is funny because in person he’s very shy. But it’s like on set, he blacks out and becomes an alter ego. He really does black out because the next day, I’ll be like, ‘Dad, remember that you did something funny on set?’ And he goes, ‘I didn’t do that.’ It’s like he doesn’t remember.”
Sam explains it this way: “It becomes so painful after a while to remember humiliating myself in front of the crew every morning. I wipe it out. It’s a survival mechanism. That way, I can tell the same jokes again, too.”
When it is his turn to brag, Sam sounds like any proud father as he describes his admiration for how his daughter “dedicates so much time and energy to her craft and her movies that she directs.”
He continues: “I see her developing, and I’m very proud of how she’s scaling the heights of challenge to stay in the business and stay out there and keep trying to get those jobs. That’s what actors do.”
Besides sharing a dedication to cinema with her dad, Emma has a fondness for his home state of Michigan, where he grew up helming Super 8 films with his friends. She recalls traveling to the Detroit region frequently visit her grandparents and relatives and spending summers in northern Michigan at a woodsy family cabin.
Emma and Sam also share a sense of humor that is evident in “Send Help” in moments like a comic vomiting scene. Says Emma: “I watch everything and I say, my dad is trying to disgust me. That’s so his humor. Especially with the gore and the body fluids. He’s so disgusted by that himself as a person, that’s what he puts in his movies.”
Counters Sam: “In real life, what she’s always up to at the dinner table is trying to subtly embarrass me in front of the guests. That’s her hobby.”
Like father, like daughter, indeed.
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.
‘Send Help’
Opens in theaters Jan. 30
Rated R; strong and bloody violence, language
1 hour, 53 minutes
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Sam Raimi and daughter Emma Raimi bring family ties to ‘Send Help’
Reporting by Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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