Make no mistake: Bruce Campbell has done a lot across his illustrious career, with leading roles across nineties shows like The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and Jack of All Trades, and popping up more recently in the likes of Burn Notice. But to the lion's share of horror aficionados, he'll always be one Ash Williams, the chainsaw-wielding hero of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise - which evolved from schlocky one-off B-movie to a series epitomized by its darker-than-black humor, elevated by Campbell's relentless charisma. But now, in an exclusive interview with Collider, the actor has revealed why he's hanging up his boomstick for good.
Speaking to Collider's Christina Radish ahead of his upcoming horror-comedy Black Friday, Campbell said of the future of the franchise (and Ash):
"I’m done playing Ash, so that determines a lot of where we go with the franchise without that character, but there are more stories. We’re doing it book-focused these days. That darn book gets around, and that’s how we play it. That book wound up in an urban environment with a single mom, so let’s see what happens. It’s fun to fiddle with it. There’s not gonna be any traditional form of Evil Dead anymore. Ash is gone. I’ve retired the character because I physically just can’t do him anymore, so why bother? Why do I do it? It’s time to hang up the chainsaw. But we still are filmmakers, we’re still producers, we’re still creative-type dudes, so we were like, “How do we keep this going otherwise?” Sam [Raimi] handpicked Fede Alvarez to do the remake a few years ago. He handpicked Lee Cronin for this one. These are Sam Raimi proteges that we hope will do a good job."
The "darn book" in question, of course, is the Necronomicon, the franchise's antagonistic MacGuffin which brings the dead back to life (in increasingly ghoulish ways, from possession to zombification). Cronin is down to direct Evil Dead Rise, the next cinematic installment in the series, which transposes the traditional Evil Dead schtick - people find a nefarious book, accidentally raise the dead, and are forced to fight for their lives - to a Los Angeles apartment building.
On whether Ash was a difficult character to depart, Campbell did not mince words:
"No. Whatever the cliched phrase is, I left it all on table. I’ve got nothing else to give. The three seasons were the longest seasons of my life. If you saw the emails pleading with various directors that were like, “Hey, my knee’s not working right. Be careful about tomorrow. Let’s have the stunt guy nearby. Hey, I can’t run anymore.” It just was an endless physical struggle. I’m really glad we did it because we saw Ash’s home, we went into his bedroom, we met his girlfriends, we met his daughter that we never knew he had and that he never knew he had, and we met his father, played by the great Lee Majors. I feel we really pushed all the buttons and he fulfilled his destiny written in that ancient book. He was the guy destined to defeat evil in the past, present and future, and he took off with a hot robot chick at the end to go kick in the future. What else do you need? We knew the ratings were bad. We knew, going into the last season, that we had to have an end because we didn’t think Starz was gonna re-up us and we were right. So, thank God we did that."
After almost 30 years in Ash's shoes, fans can hardly begrudge Campbell wanting to step out of them - especially with all the physicality at play. But hopefully, we can get a Spider-Man-esque cameo from him in a future Evil Dead title: we'd suggest as one of the gorier, havoc-wreaking deadites.
Look out for our full interview with Campbell in the coming days.