Following the release of Army of Darkness, Evil Dead fans began hounding Bruce Campbell about when he might return to play Ash J. Williams in a follow-up film. Rather than getting a feature film, fans were given three seasons of Ash vs. Evil Dead, which clocks in it at roughly the same amount of content as 10 feature-length films. In that regard, Campbell wants fans to pay their respects to Starz for making the series possible and giving the show the freedom the MPAA might not have allowed.
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“People should be kissing Starz’s ass, because it is the only outlet that would let us have a little bit of creative control, but also, it’s unrated,” Campbell pointed out to ComicBook.com. “This is uncut. We had to probably scale down for some countries who couldn’t take the full monty, but this is unrated television, and for the uber Evil Dead fan, man, it isn’t going to get any better than that. If this was on AMC, Ash would be going, ‘Gosh golly, what’s going on over there?’”
As if pure, uncut Evil Dead glory wasn’t exciting enough, the sheer volume of Deadite mayhem could never be matched with multiple movies, according to Campbell.
“With a TV series, they commit to doing a full season, then another full season, and so, as far as page count, time spent with Ash, this is the only way to do it, and as an actor, now we can really dig at the character,” the actor noted. “You can spend time with him. With a movie, you got to tell the plot, they get very plot-oriented, but with a TV show, you can actually go, ‘Okay, Ash has a daughter. What the hell’s that like?’ He’s like the worst dad ever, but trying to be the greatest dad ever.”
He added, “Plus, you’ve got this over a three year period. If we did these as movies, you’d get one every two years. We’d be about three hours deep into the series now if we did this as movies, and guess what? If one of them failed, it would kill the whole thing.”
Ash hasn’t been beholden to films, luckily, as fans have also gotten to see his adventures in the pages of comic books and in video game adventures. Ash vs. Evil Dead offered audiences an older, though not at all wiser Ash, which reminded viewers maybe he wasn’t the “Chosen One” after all.
“He’s way over the hill, he doesn’t want to be doing this, he’d rather be getting stoned, watching sh-tty movies in his trailer with the chicks that he picks up at the bar at the end of the night. I mean, that’s his life, and that guy has to save the world? As an actor, man, where do I sign up?” Campbell detailed. “Ash is the flawed one. That would be his moniker, ‘The flawed one.’”
With the conclusion of the series, so came Campbell’s retirement from the role that he has been portraying in various capacities since 1981’s The Evil Dead.
The actor concluded, “It was a great opportunity, but it’s okay. It’s a good time to hang up the old saw.”
Fans can see Campbell’s final turn as Ash with Season Three of Ash vs. Evil Dead, out now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
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