Bruce Campbell is a man of many talents, but it’s perhaps safe to say that no matter what he does in the future, he’ll always be best known as the heroic/buffoonish Ash from the Evil Dead franchise. He’s appeared in the role in a series of excellent horror/comedy movies, the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV show and various other multimedia projects. Not to mention, he recently announced that he’ll be reprising the part in an as yet unrevealed immersive video game.
Now, 37 years after he made his debut in the role, Bruce Campbell’s opened up on his proudest and most satisfying Ash-related moment, and it might not be what you expect:
Really, the main satisfaction came way back with the first Evil Dead when the movie showed, I went to see it on a Saturday afternoon at the Showcase Cinema at Pontiac, Michigan where I saw The Poseidon Adventure as a kid. It’s where I saw all of my formative years’ movies, in that theater. To go there, middle of the afternoon, there’s like 15 people there, I didn’t care, to have our movie projected in the same theater, that was it. It was all gravy after that, because I never thought we could get to that. Have our movie showing in our movie theater? No way. No way.
Considering that the films are full of demonically possessed monsters hungry for human flesh and Ash spends his time carving through them with a chainsaw, this is pretty sweet. Imagining a young Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi gobbling popcorn and getting inspired by the action on screen, only to return to see their first project in theaters with them occupying the same space their cinematic heroes once did is kinda inspiring.
With the TV show being sadly cancelled after the last season saw a drop in ratings, we may never see Campbell reprise the role on screen again. He’s spoken of hanging up the chainsaw for good already and explained that it’s simply getting difficult for him to physically commit to his Evil Dead role in the way he thinks it deserves.
“There’s physical stuff that you have to do that I don’t really either feel like doing anymore, or I can’t do anymore. Or I shouldn’t do, anymore because I’ve actually escaped from these movies relatively unscathed. Beside a hamstring this, and a stubbed toe here, not too bad. But that’s part of the reason.”
If you ask me, I still think there’s more fuel in the Ash Williams tank. I mean, we’ve already seen young Ash and middle aged Ash, so why not wait a few years and see what Grandpa Ash is like?