THE FIRST thing I see as Steven Kutcher shows me round his home near
Hollywood is a wall of glossy photos. They portray Kutcher, baseball cap
emblazoned with the words 鈥淏UGS ARE MY BUSINESS鈥�, chumming up with Sigourney
Weaver, with Robin Williams, with Richard Burton. Lest anyone think these are
the collection of some star-struck fan, Kutcher reveals an intimacy with the
elite of the silver screen that few can match. 鈥淚鈥檓 probably the only person in
history to remove a grasshopper from Richard Burton鈥檚 crotch,鈥� he tells me.
As we walk a little further, I discover that his allegiance lies more with
the green insect than the Welsh actor. Barefoot and beaming, Kutcher throws open
drawers and doors to reveal a startling inventory: trays of iridescent
butterflies and beetles, wooden attach茅 cases of spiders鈥� webs stacked
like doilies, and row upon row of glass jars containing 200 000 or more
flies.
In the film business, Kutcher is known as 鈥渢he bug man鈥�, 鈥渢he insect
wrangler鈥� or 鈥渢he cinematic entomologist鈥�. Whatever his title on the credits, he
is the man film directors call when they need creepy-crawlies that can put in
top-class performances.
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In the 1970s, Kutcher studied entomology as an undergraduate at the
University of California, Davis. For his Master鈥檚 degree from California State
University at Long Beach, he used time-lapse photography to capture the
mysterious clustering behaviour of the milkweed bug (Oncopeltus
fasciatus) during different stages of its life cycle. In the twenty years
since, Kutcher has combined his love of bugs with some ingenious
behind-the-scenes trickery to make a unique contribution to the movie
business.
First bite
It was shortly after graduate school that he got his first look at life
through a Hollywood lens. His advisor, weevil specialist Elbert Sleeper, was
asked to act as an insect consultant on the 1977 movie Exorcist II.
Since Kutcher鈥檚 Master鈥檚 work had acquainted him with both bug behaviour and
photography, Sleeper asked him to take charge of the thousands of locusts and
grasshoppers drafted in to co-star with Linda Blair and Richard Burton. That job
lasted for six months, and more work on movies and commercials followed, but
Kutcher still considered the study and teaching of entomology to be his main
career.
He taught entomology and ecology part time at three local community colleges.
To earn extra cash, he did consultancy work for the Los Angeles County mosquito
control programme and the sanitation department鈥檚 fly control programme. Then,
after four years of struggling, Kutcher made two simple calculations that
changed his life. The first revealed that one in three movies had at least one
scene involving insects or spiders. The second calculation was financial. 鈥淚t
was immediately obvious that I could make more money dumping cockroaches on
tables on film, than trying to educate young minds,鈥� he says.
Since that time, Hollywood has financed his research and pedagogical habits.
Often the work involves little more than being a supply house for cockroaches,
flies or beetles. Sometimes he builds insect props such as the prehistoric
mosquitoes in amber for Steven Spielberg鈥檚 1993 film Jurassic Park.
He has dressed dwarf tarantulas in striped suits for this year鈥檚 animated
film James and the Giant Peach. For one TV movie, Kutcher tied
invisible magician鈥檚 wires to a wasp鈥檚 body, passed them over a toothpick pulley
in the actor Roddy McDowall鈥檚 mouth, and then pulled them to make the wasp fly
in. Kutcher had previously removed the wasp鈥檚 sting, and checked that it wasn鈥檛
leaking venom by putting in his own mouth. The wasp survived its oral escapades
and rejoined the swarm. The day I visit Kutcher, he spends hours gazing into a
dissecting microscope, gluing fake baloney to the thorax of a ruddy carpenter
ant (Camponotus ferrugineus) that will steal the ersatz picnic food in
a six-minute insect adventure called Rant, due out later this year.
The bug handler has himself performed for the cameras. On the David Letterman
talk show, Kutcher 鈥渂athed鈥� in a tub of tens of thousands of meal worms (
Tenebrio molitor). The trick was made considerably more complicated by the
fact that the US Humane Society monitors all film and TV sets to ensure that no
creature is harmed. That means each guide wire, and every smidgen of luncheon
meat must be meticulously removed so the big screen鈥檚 smallest stars are not
hurt. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 even harm a maggot,鈥� says Kutcher. 鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty ridiculous, but
it makes more work for me.鈥�
One of Kutcher鈥檚 biggest challenges is convincing directors that real
insects, rather than computer mock-ups or models, can put in command
performances in the hands of someone who knows how to exploit them. He got the
chance to make his point in 1990 with the filming of Arachnophobia, a
horror-thriller where invading spiders terrorise a small American town, biting
locals and stampeding en masse. During casting for Arachnophobia,
Kutcher studied an exotic mix of spiders鈥攊ncluding the huge South
American, bird-eating tarantula鈥攖o decide what role each would play. In
the end, he chose the New Zealand Avendale spider (Delena cancerides)
for the spider stampede scenes because it was the only spider he tested that ran
when it was crowded, rather than attack its kin.
Kutcher points out that technically he is not an animal trainer. Spiders and
insects can鈥檛 be trained to do anything. Their nervous systems are too simple.
Instead, Kutcher makes use of their genetically programmed behaviour. 鈥淚鈥檝e got
to squeeze my brain inside their tiny brain and understand why they do things,
and how to manipulate that to the director鈥檚 needs,鈥� he says.
Out cold
He does, however, bring in some sophisticated props to keep his six- and
eight-legged extras on course. In Arachnophobia, electric fields and
shivering wires are the walls that kept the spiders contained. Portions of the
floor were heated or cooled to make them more or less attractive to arachnid
sensibilities. The result was a labyrinth鈥攗nseen by the camera鈥攖hat
Kutcher used to direct the spiders鈥� every move.
Since his Arachnophobia success, Kutcher has made his living mainly
from the movies and television, and he continues to assemble more tricks to
motivate his tiny colleagues. For instance, the right dose of carbon dioxide
will ensure that an American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) runs a
few feet, performs a dramatic flip, and then slips into
unconsciousness鈥攑erfect for staging a cockroach death scene for a TV
commercial. After a few minutes, the cockroach regains consciousness, ready for
鈥渢ake two鈥�.
But the glamour of Hollywood has not lured Kutcher completely away from his
first love, studying insects and communicating his findings to other
entomologists. 鈥淯nlike scientists, I don鈥檛 have to publish things. I just need
to make them work,鈥� says Kutcher. Still, he has published a novel technique for
capturing and preserving spiders webs in embroidery hoops (American
Arachnology, no 47 p 4), and he is now working on a paper on how to mend
butterfly wings.
By using Hollywood as his funding agency, Kutcher says he can continue his
academic habits without financial pressure. He lectures at the University of
California, still teaches at the community colleges, and is a fixture at local
elementary schools, where he uses bugs to teach children about the environment.
Working for the film industry also takes him all over the world, where he meets
other entomologists. The only drawback, he says, is the expectations of his
academic audiences. 鈥淚 thought I could just talk to them about how fascinating
milkweed bugs are, but no one lets me get away with that,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey want
to know what it鈥檚 like to work with Robin Williams.鈥�