Legendary actor Bruce Campbell has had several recognizable roles including a man claiming to be Elvis Presley in ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ and various cameoing characters in the Sam Raimi ‘Spider-Man’ trilogy. Most of his fans recognize him as Ash Williams, the chainsaw-armed hero who made his first appearance in Raimi’s 1981 horror flick ‘The Evil Dead.’
After several sequels, a television show, and the upcoming ‘Evil Dead Rise,’ Campbell has announced that he is retiring from the role of Ash, expanding on his reasoning in an interview with Collider.
“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,” he explained. 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.”
When asked if he would miss portraying the character, Campbell replied, “No. Whatever the cliched phrase is, I left it all on the table. I’ve got nothing else to give.”
He concluded, “This was my way to go. I had not played Ash in 25 years. I’m a much better actor now. I wanted to go back and apply modern acting knowledge to this character that I only scratched the surface of in the movies, where he was still a two-dimensional character and sometimes one-dimensional. It was great to be able to flesh him out. I feel that we did it, and now it’s like, ‘See ya!'”
Though he has retired from playing Ash, Campbell will work on ‘Evil Dead Rise’ as a producer with director Lee Cronin.
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