Bruce Campbell confesses in the Requiem for Ash edition of his paperback reissue of Hail to the Chin 2. Ahead of the book’s release on Sept. 17, we sat down in Part 1 of an exclusive epic interview with the actor to discuss leaving Ash Williams behind and the beginning of his “Act III.”
Bruce Campbell is heading into an exciting phase of his life, what he terms “Act III.” On Sept. 17, he will be releasing the paperback issue of his New York Times bestselling novel, Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor.
This isn’t your ordinary reissue. The actor has added over 50 pages of new material in this “Requiem for Ash” edition. In it, he discusses why he left the character that started his career behind after 40 years and some of the highlights of his European tour.
I sat down with the actor for an epic catch up chat. This will be the first part of what will be a series of articles. There is quite a bit of story to tell.
Now, it’s time for Bruce to talk frankly about his decisions and the future of the Evil Dead universe including news on the upcoming feature.
Time to Let Go
1428 Elm: It’s always a pleasure to speak with you, Bruce. Let’s talk about the Requiem for Ash edition of Hail to the Chin 2. When we last spoke you said that fans can expect, “A full, personal explanation of why you retired Ash Williams that will never be satisfactory.” Why did you feel compelled to write about your decision to leave him behind?
Bruce Campbell: There’s always going to be people who are going to be tormented or uninformed so it never hurts to just say it or explain it. Because people might go, “I didn’t know you felt like s***,” or “I didn’t know you pulled your hamstring,” or whatever you know?
Its also part of the story so it would be included either way. If you make a decision like that as part of telling your life story, you would explain that. Its not necessarily for fans its just for the story.
1428 Elm: I can only imagine when you have spent four decades playing a character there is an emotional attachment there because you gave him life. While you didn’t enjoy the day to day grind of physicality required for Ash vs Evil Dead, was it hard to say goodbye? Any sentimentality there?
Bruce Campbell: No, not at the time. There might be a few years from now but not right now. Here’s the good news. We were able to exploit the character and the story to the extent that a corporation would let us do it. So, that’s why I have zero regrets because we really left it on the table.
We’re like okay. This is probably going to be our last shot at doing any form of this idiot again. Features take a long time to set up. They would have to be R-rated so this was a chance to kick out basically 15 hours of new material, unrated.
I think by the end of it, I felt we didn’t have that much more to tell. Everybody wanted 4. But guess what? If we did a Season 4, then they would want a Season 5. We feel that Ash was reborn, we set up the legacy, not as much as we could have. I mean, a fourth season would have absolutely been a blast.
Essentially, we would have done something along the lines of Ash in another time period battling the final evil and then you would do something huge. There was more in the tank, no doubt.
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You can’t fight city hall. If the funding for the show is going to end, what the hell are you going to do? Who cares if you have eight more years of material? Its not going to happen. It was just a reality check.
And thankfully, we smelled trouble early enough in the ratings that we were like okay, last season is coming. 90% we ain’t coming back so let’s wrap this up even if we had to do it in a truncated fashion. Lets still do it.
I feel that we did. There are always going to be those who aren’t satisfied. I appreciate that. Then, there was a lot of people saying, “Thanks for that last episode. Thanks for that.” He came back, got his s*** together, you know he’s not a complete and utter loser, he’s off on another adventure with a hot, robot chick. That’s enough for some people.
A New Chapter in the Lore
1428 Elm: I agree. You did leave everything on the table. Knowing that you, Sam and Rob want to go forward with the new incarnation of Evil Dead…
Bruce Campbell: We have a writer and a director locked in. I can only say so much. You know how it is because if its bulls*** I get called a liar.
So, look, here’s what I know. We are actively pursuing it, for 2020 making it, there’s a concept but not a script, we don’t know where we are going to shoot it. We are going to shoot it where we have to shoot it, to get the most bang for our buck. That’s pretty straightforward.
New cast, modern day, it will be a continuation of an Evil Dead story, NO ASH. There is a new, young, handpicked director by Mr. Sam Raimi, so folks should be very excited! This ain’t dead.
Ash is on vacation but we have a lot of stories to tell. The same factors will still work in a movie because the Evil Dead premise is there are no superheroes. Its just people fighting demons and that’s it. So, that can translate to men, women, children, old, young, people of color, it doesn’t matter.
We’re going to try and do it like a really cool, modern Evil Dead.
1428 Elm: Are you involved with the casting or is that to be determined?
Bruce Campbell: No, I’ll be all over it like a cheap suit. Until we have a script, there’s nothing to talk about.
1428 Elm: Do you feel that Ash should be killed for the franchise to continue?
Bruce Campbell: He doesn’t need to but it would have been cool. In every comic book, they killed Superman, they killed Batman. You have to kill your heroes and then figure out a way to bring them back.
Ash was dead at the end of the very first Evil Dead. We brought him back so… you would have to kill him again. You should.
1428 Elm: In my mind, as long as Ash is out there, it will always be, “Bruce, you need to come back. You need to do this.”
Bruce Campbell: That’s fine. Guess what? He is out there and that’s okay. Dying would be great, but he doesn’t have to because now he’s just floating out in the netherworld and that’s okay too.
1428 Elm: In portraying Ash for so long do you have a favorite or most memorable moment playing him?
Bruce Campbell: It’s not really my job to do that. The trick as an actor is to give it a go during even the sh***iest scene written. You get your s*****scenes, you get your great scenes. The work ethic has to remain the same. You have to give it a shot.
Sometimes you can overcome crappy dialogue, not often. Or a crappy story, not often. You can overcome crappy directors sometimes because you just go on auto pilot. Sometimes I would go on Ash auto pilot.
The Road to Europe
1428 Elm: How long did it take you to write the new material for the reissue? What was that process like?
Bruce Campbell: I don’t know. I didn’t really keep track of it. I took notes when I was touring in Europe. I wrote it pretty quickly after that. So, it was fresh.
It wasn’t a long process but I had to set up a story about the death of the show and then the retirement of Ash and then the European tour. You know a bunch of other crazy movies that never got included, there was one or two things.
So, its all catching up but it ended up being more pages. Normally, an author can tease, “All new material!” and its 10 pages. This is 50 pages of new stuff. It’s a lot.
1428 Elm: It seems like there are a considerable number of chapters dedicated to your European tour. I know you were pretty enamored with Amsterdam. The chapter Sex, Coffee, Pot sounds like a trifecta. Tell us a little bit about that. What impressed you the most about the city?
Bruce Campbell: I had been there before. Its just what gets me every time I go there. The fact that civilization does not collide if they legalize marijuana and that was proven to me thankfully, 20 years ago in Amsterdam. But two decades ago, weed was still looked down upon as being some sort of gateway drug.
Amsterdam was great to show that you could legalize pot and people weren’t shooting up on the streets. You could legalize prostitution, clean it up and pay people better because prostitution is going to happen anyway.
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So, it was interesting to see if you legalize certain things that are normally “scandalous” in America, you walk around the city, it’s a beautiful city. Well kept canals, bicycles everywhere, its amazing!
I just like it for what it represents. We talk about freedom in the U.S. all the time but they’re freer than we are.
The only problem with Amsterdam is it’s getting overrun by tourism. Between the internet and articles that say, “10 Best Kept Secrets in Europe,” when you publish crap like that it’s a bad idea.
1428 Elm: Thinking of one of your new chapters, If Chins Could Kilt, I read a decade old interview where you mentioned the Campbell ancestral home of Oban. Have you been there yet?
Bruce Campbell: No, I was going to go when I toured there last year, but it was too frickin’ cold. So, my wife and I bailed. We went to the south of France because we had to kill some time between a couple of book signings.
We opted for warmer weather and it was the best decision we ever made. I’m going back to my ancestral land maybe in June or July, definitely not in March.
That was the end of Part 1 in our series on Bruce Campbell. Stay tuned because Part 2 is going to deal with Act III and exciting news about future projects. To order Requiem for Ash, go to bruce-campbell.com.
Have you read Bruce Campbell’s Hail to the Chin 2? Have you ordered the Requiem for Ash edition yet? Let us know in the comments.