An email and response with Ryan Thomas Johnson who played The Slug

From me:

Hello Ryan,

I recently watched the the movie for the first time and enjoyed it. There is not much information out there about it so I was curious if you would be willing to answering a few questions about it.

What it was like to work on the movie?
Were there any good or funny stories during the production?
Was the movie popular at all after it's release? I am kind of surprised it never made it to DVD.
Do you have any information who sang the credits song? I uploaded it to my Youtube for everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfhbmZxr6Io

Thanks.

His response:

Wow. I didn’t expect anyone to ever ask me about that one! I did another movie for the same studio called Carnosaur 2 that has a bit of cult status. Every now and again, someone will want to know about that. But I thought Captain Nuke had been lost to history.

Anyway, that should answer one of your questions. No, it wasn’t successful at all. It was released straight to VHS, and I don’t think it had enough staying power to warrant a DVD release in the US. Every now and again, it’ll pop up on cable. There were German financiers involved, and I think they gave it a bit more push there. It was released on DVD there. The only reason I know that is because I was on tour in Germany a few years ago with a band I was playing with. A fan in Berlin asked me to sign her DVD of “Der Bomber Boys”, and I think I forgot my name for about 10 seconds. It’s like someone showing up with your fourth grade homework, and you’re left wondering how they got it in the first place.

Which leads me to the question: How the hell did you come across this movie in the first place? I’m curious.

So, what was it like to work on it? A good time, I suppose. I was 18 and fresh out of high school. Concorde-New Horizons’ studio was an old lumber yard in Venice, CA. It was very close to Santa Monica Airport. Since Roger Corman was too cheap to soundproof the place, they would place a PA on the roof with a walkie who would beep in and say “plane” whenever a plane was arriving overhead to ruin a shot. This happened a lot. But they were busy. They knocked out two movies a month in the pre-digital era still filming on 35 mm. No small task.

Captain Nuke was, if memory serves, the 300th movie produced by the studio. Since it was a hundredth, they spent a little more money than usual, which is why they got some name actors. Martin Sheen was the coolest guy in the world. Absolutely no pretensions. My parents showed up to hang out on set for a few days. They come from humble working-class means, so seeing their kid shoot a movie was a big deal. Martin walked up to them, introduced himself, and proceeded to hang out and eat lunch with them for the next 3 days. Just relating as parents. My parents would yack about me and my brother, Martin would talk about Emilio. To this day, my parents refer to him as “Martin”, as if they’re old buds.

There is one shot where I was fiddling with the bomb and Martin was supposed to run up, grab my hair, and pull me away. He was really pulling my hair and, after a few takes, it started to hurt. So I tried selling him on the idea of doing a “stage pull”, where he’d slap a fist on my head, I’d grab it, and we’d fake it like one would do in theater. He just stared at me blankly and said, “Hmmm...” He continued pulling my hair. I tried selling him on the idea again. But then I realized that this was the same guy who got wasted and stuck his hand through a mirror in Apocalypse Now, and I probably wasn’t going to convince him to fake a damned thing. Most certainly not for Captain Nuke and the Bomber Boys. Other than terrorizing my head, nicest guy in the world. I kept trying to ask him stuff about his life, but he would always end up talking about someone HE met who he admired – Mother Teresa, Brando, etc.

At one point, when I was confident enough, I walked up to Sheen and Mantegna and said, “Can I ask you guys something? You’ve both been in amazing movies. Why are you doing this?” In my 18 year old naivety, I figured that once you hit a certain plateau in your career, you just kept doing great movies. I couldn’t figure out why the guy from Wall Street and the other guy from House of Games were doing this. They looked at each other, chuckled, and both said, “Sack of money.” Keep in mind, this is a few years before The West Wing and many more before Criminal Minds, so they probably needed it. Mantegna also added that doing a Roger Corman movie was a rite of passage in the industry that he never got to do. So he got a kick out of finally getting to do one.

The director, Charles Gale, was an interesting guy. He had a childlike demeanor about him that belied a vicious sense of humor. On a couple occasions, I saw him insult someone to their face, but he did it with a little laugh and a pat on the arm, making that person think that they’d just been told a little joke. I also learned something from him. Even though it was only the second film he’d ever directed, his brother was Bob Gale, co-creator of the Back to the Future series. So Charles knew a few tricks about getting things done. One day, the crew was being lackadaisical about clearing traffic for a shot. His jovial demeanor cracked and he through an all out tantrum. After the shot was done, I asked if he was OK. He said, “Oh, I’m fine,” as if nothing had happened. I pointed out that he seemed pissed just a moment before. He said, “I’m not angry. A director needs to throw one good tantrum to get everyone in line. Just watch. I won’t have to do that again for the rest of the shoot.” And he was right. Everyone was on task because they didn’t want to see him blow up again. I’ve taken note of it and every good director I’ve ever seen work thereafter has done the same thing.

A little factoid: The Oval Office scenes were shot at the recreated Oval Office in the Reagan Library. Captain Nuke was the first movie to shoot there. It’s been used countless times since.

I don’t know anything about who made the song. That’s all post-production stuff that we actors had no part in. I hadn’t heard it for years until I checked out your Youtube channel. I hadn’t realized until now how much the guy was trying to ape Elvis Costello.

Anyway, hope that answers some of your questions. I’m utterly intrigued by your interest.

Cheers,
Ryan